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NARRATOR: In a city famous for its' art museums,
you can also find important art
in unexpected places.
One such place, the lobby of the
U.S. Department of Labor.
Commissioned by the General Services
Administration and the National Endowment
for the Arts for installation in the
Department's New Headquarters,
painter Jack Beal created breathtaking
murals depicting the history of work
from colonial times to
the then-present, 1977.
The paintings took two and
a half years to complete.
Appearing in the murals as models of workers
are some of Beal's friends, and...
even two Department of Labor employees,
including Vivian Twisdale,
-- now retired.
TWISDALE: It was during the building
dedication for the Deparment of Labor
and I worked on that committee.
So, therefore, we met the artists and
the writers for the books and so forth,
and he asked me would i like to model
and I said, 'Certainly.'
I would say maybe a couple of hours, so many
days, because the artist lived in Connecticut.
And, each time I would look and I really
didn't really think it was me.
But, eventually, I realized that it was me.
I was on the table, up on a chair, and I kept
looking down at him, but he kept telling me to
look straight ahead. But, if you notice,
my head is tilted to the side.
It's the way that he drew the picture.
I felt very proud... um,
and very happy to be selected.
As an African-American department of
labor employee, I felt like when I recieved the
department's distinguished career service award
-- wonderful.
Well, the dedication took place
here in the plaza in the level,
sort of like an after-five affair.
And I felt wonderful. I got to meet the
Secretary of Labor one-on-one.
And, of course, the artist got up and
had all of us to stand up.
And i felt very proud.
I was proud being a
department of labor employee.
It's wonderful. When I look at the picture,
I say, 'Is that me? Did I have hair that color
that many years ago?' But, I'm very happy.
NARRATOR: After almost 35 years on the walls of
the Frances Perkins building lobby,
a team of professional art restorers
in conjunction with the department's
upcoming centennial,
worked on bringing the murals
back to their original luster.
DAVID OLIN: What we're doing here on the
Jack Beal murals at the department of labor
is conservation to include cleaning,
local stabilization of loose paint,
and then the in-painting and repair
of minor areas of damage.
Much as if you didn't wash the windows of your
house for 30 or 40 years, you'd notice the
ambient increations on the surface would dull
the view out of the window.
Well, that's the case with paintings too.
The same grime that accumulates on the windows
accumulates on the painting's surface.
The first part of the process is to examine
the paintings, or in this case,
the muruals, to assess the needs.
And, that's called the assessment
or the examination process.
Part of that process is to identify
the material, the conditions and
the needs of the mural.
The second part of that process
is the photo document everything.
So, everytyhing is photographed in existing
condition prior even doing any testing.
The next thing we would do would be to test,
in this case, the layers of materials to be
removed. And that's done from a stock set
of materials, custom taylored,
custom designed for the particular application.
Once that's done, the next step is to define a
cleaning schedule. What you can see is
Maura and Tammara are in the process of
removing the grime from the surface of the
painting, via a small cotton swab,
actually rolling, rolling the solution on,
lifting the dirt up. And the final thing
we'll be doing is applying a
protective varnish on the surface.
It's noticably brighter, I'd say,
by a factor of maybe 20.
I don't know if one can see right here,
where the cleaning square is left undone.
But, i think what's more apt to these
murals is brightness, but all the
sense of contrast and the billiance
of the colors, the contrast and the colors,
and there-in, the sense of depth and
dimension that the cleaning has done.
So brightness... a lot of times we see a
cleaning really brighten a painting, but on
these, we're seeing the artists true colors and
the contrasts coming out,
much, much, much more strongly.