Another Wonderland

The Museum of the City of New York, in collaboration with New York City Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, presents Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier’s Alice Mural.  

The exhibition celebrates the rescue and decades-long restoration of Alice Of Wonderland Visiting New York, a major New Deal–era mural cycle created for the children’s ward at Gouverneur Hospital between 1938 and 1940.  Commissioned through the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, the sixteen-panel series reimagined Lewis Carroll’s beloved characters exploring 1930s New York City—from the subway and Brooklyn Bridge to Coney Island and Central Park—bringing color, fantasy, and joy to a space dedicated to healing.

After decades of painstaking restoration, and along with two faithfully reproduced panels and a selection of archival photographs, the mural panels will be on view together for the first time in nearly fifty years. The exhibition also situates the mural within the broader story of the WPA and its role in transforming public spaces across New York City. 

The Museum and its partners will publish an illustrated exhibition catalogue with Marquand Books, alongside a slate of related programs that examine the intersections of public art, civic history, community well-being, and storytelling.

Another Wonderland is made possible with leading support from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, with additional support from advocates Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Knapp Family Foundation, as well as other generous donors.