BY ROBERT CHERNY

A portion of the Arnautoff murals at George Washington High School, San Francisco

On June 25, 2019, the San Francisco school board voted unanimously to either paint out or cover with solid panels the thirteen separate murals that make up The Life of Washington, a WPA-funded art project by Victor Arnautoff.  The board’s decision came after several years of advocacy led by the district’s American Indian Parents Advisory Committee, African American parents, and their supporters,  Most of the objections focused on just two murals: one that Arnautoff called “the westward march of the white race,” which he showed as taking place past the lifeless body of an American Indian warrior, and a depiction of enslaved African Americans at Mt. Vernon.  In these, Arnautoff was offering a counter-narrative to the typical textbooks of the 1930s by portraying the two great injustices of early US history, chattel slavery and the genocide and dispossession of Native Americans.  Eight of the other murals depict the origins of the American Revolution, events of the Revolution, and Washington as president.  Three ceiling murals depict the sun and a rainbow, the moon, and Liberty placing thirteen new stars on a blue field.

A Reflection and Action group appointed by school district officials described “the continued historical and current trauma of Native Americans and African Americans with these depictions in the mural that glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy, oppression, etc. This mural doesn’t represent SFUSD values of social justice, diversity, united, student-centered. It’s not student-centered if it’s focused on the legacy of artists, rather than the experience of the students. . . . The impact of this mural is greater than its intent ever was. It’s not a counter-narrative if [the mural] traumatizes students and community members.”  Individuals involved in opposing the murals told the New York Times that the murals “represent American history from the colonizers’ perspective,” and the murals “glorify the white man’s role and dismiss the humanity of other people who are still alive.”  One told the Richmond Review, a neighborhood newspaper, “we didn’t want anybody to see or re-traumatize or get PTSD again…. We don’t want kids to go through the trauma anymore.”

Those defending the murals emphasized Arnautoff’s intent to criticize injustice, not glorify it.  They argued that the murals are used in teaching art classes at the high school.  They repeatedly requested to know why all thirteen murals are targeted for destruction rather than just those specified as causing trauma or PTSD in students.  They have proposed alternate ways of screening objectionable parts of murals or even entire murals.  During the public comment section of the school board meeting, those seeking to destroy the murals described the defenders of the murals as representing the perspective of “the white supremacy culture” and described the American Indians, Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans who defended the murals as having been “colonized.”

The board’s decision now sets in motion a legal process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for any historic resource that is proposed for alteration.  The estimated cost of the EIR and the actual work ranges from $600,000 to more than $800,000.  The school district may also have to justify their action under the California Art Protection Act (CAPA), which applies to art for fifty years after the death of the artist.  The alumni association has promised litigation to save the murals.

In 2017, the American Historical Association justified the removal of Confederate memorials by explaining that research had clearly established that the purpose of those memorials was to glorify the Confederacy and white supremacy.  This controversy, however, is not about the intent of art but the effect of the art on some who view it.

Arnautoff, it turns out, was himself no stranger to controversy.  And, at one crucial point, the AAUP came to his defense.

He was born in Russia, attended art school in San Francisco, and assisted Diego Rivera in Mexico.  During the 1930s, he became one of San Francisco’s most prominent artists for New-Deal-funded murals.  He called himself a social realist and insisted that public art should carry a message of social criticism.  In 1938, he joined both the Stanford art faculty and, secretly, the Communist Party.

In the mid-1950s, Arnautoff posed a serious test of Stanford’s policy that no proven Communist could serve on the faculty.  In October 1955, in an art show, Arnautoff displayed a lithograph entitled McSmear, a Nixon-like figure wearing a Halloween mask and carrying in one hand a brush and a bucket of red paint labeled smear and in the other hand a pumpkin.  When the Art Commission president had the cartoon removed, nation-wide press coverage followed, including allegations that Arnautoff was a Communist.  Stanford president J. Wallace Sterling met with Arnautoff and asked if he were a member of the Communist Party.  Arnautoff refused to answer.   Sterling referred the matter to the Advisory Board, a committee of seven faculty members elected by the faculty to advise on personnel matters.  The board recommended that no action be taken.

A year later, in December 1956, a subcommittee of HUAC questioned Arnautoff and accused him of being a Communist.  Arnautoff’s earlier experience at Stanford now repeated itself almost verbatim.  He met with Sterling and was sent to the Advisory Board.  This time, however, Bernard Haley, professor of economics, also spoke to the Board, on behalf of the campus AAUP.  A former president of the Stanford AAUP chapter, Haley later served as a national vice-president.  Of the seven members of the board, four were AAUP members, and two had served or were to serve as chapter president.

The board voted in favor of reappointing Arnautoff.  Although Sterling seems to have been reluctant to renew Arnautoff’s appointment, he did not want to precipitate a fight with the faculty–and perhaps AAUP.  He recommended reappointment, and the trustees agreed.  Arnautoff later reflected, “they put up with me as they might a toothache.”

A year later, a newspaper article about Arnautoff again generated mail to Sterling calling for action.  This time the University replied:  “Stanford’s policy is that no proven Communist should hold a position on the faculty.  It must be remembered that a professor has tenure, and that in order to dismiss him, charges must be proven and not just alleged without evidence that will stand up in court.  There is no such evidence in the case of Professor Arnautoff . . . The right of free speech and free thought is a very important part of a strong democracy; it is easy to lose this privilege if we do not defend the right of people to hold views which differ radically from those held by most of us.”

Arnautoff’s experience provided a serious test of Sterling’s—and Stanford’s—policy that no proven Communist could serve on the faculty.  In the end, the outcome turned on the meaning of “proven.”  The faculty members on the Advisory Board were not willing to accept the “proof” that HUAC had presented, and the administration acquiesced.

For more about Arnautoff, see my Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art (University of Illinois Press, 2017).  The current controversy over Arnautoff’s murals has been covered in the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and other publications.

Guest blogger Robert Cherny is Professor Emeritus of History at San Francisco State University and the author of Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art