"Youth Arisen" mural panel by Leo Katz at the Frank Wiggins Trade School, Los Angeles, 1935

Description

Handwritten annotation from nitrate negative: Art Katz (mural)., Text from original nitrate sleeve: Fisher, Nancy; Padrick, Katheryn; Savin, Juliet; Moran, Frances; Art-Mural by Leo Katz; Katz; Leo., Katz was an American painter, printer, and teacher. Katz studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Vienna. He arrived in America in 1921 and later became an American citizen., View of the central, "Youth Arisen," panel of Katz's mural of three panels, funded by the WPA (Works Project Administration). A central youth, with his eyes closed, is shown between creative uses of technology (like the movie camera seen in this photograph) and destructive uses as in war. The overall theme of the murals shown in the other two panels is the history of the uses of tools serving the creative and destructive passions of man within the context of the Toltec and Aztec cultures., The mural was controversial especially because of the depictions of nudity and references to war in the central panel. The central panel was removed from the Frank Wiggins Trade School lobby (now LA Trade Tech) and returned to the Public Works Administration in 1935 and the other two panels were returned in 1939., 34.033030037903906, -118.27017188072204, Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds.