2 Haven grades to celebrate WPA murals with tour

Gay Riseborough (left) and Paula Danoff Credit: Katie Bryant

I am a graduate of Haven School. That dates way, way back — to 1950. Paula Danoff graduated from Haven in 1969. We fell into a conversation about it at an Art Center opening several years ago. Both of us have fond memories of the beautiful artwork in Haven School, from the differing times of our attendance.

We are both Evanstonians. I was born and raised here and am an artist with teaching credits at the Evanston Art Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Paula Danoff is the president and CEO of the Evanston Art Center, where she has served as such since 2008. We are both devoted and activist art-lovers.

In spring of 2007, I read of a large, restored progressive-era mural at Oakton School and decided to attend its unveiling. The subject is Charlemagne and his courageous knight Roland. The mural travels around Oakton’s gym-auditorium. The restoration was completed by the nationally known Chicago Conservation Center.

At that presentation, selections from a new opera, commissioned for the occasion and inspired by the mural, were performed. The work, The Song of Rolandenamed after the epic poem, was by James Falzoneand the one-time Evanstonian. The afternoon was infused with auditory beauty as well as visual. It has stayed with me.

There is historic art in several schools here: Haven, Nichols, Oakton, Lincoln and ETHS. At Haven Middle School, 2417 Prairie Ave., two large historic murals still hang. I saw them back in 2017 when the Daily Northwestern was going to do an article about them. (I don’t think they ever did.)

Just a sliver of Haven’s drama room mural by Rainey Bennett, 1936 Credit: Gay Riseborough

(Haven was a K-8 school back when I attended. I started there in the middle of third grade, because my mother wasn’t satisfied with the former College Hill School in Skokie. She pulled me out and suddenly I was at Haven, where I had to be tutored by a classmate, during lunchtime, to catch up on long division.)

Haven’s stunning murals are not public, like the beloved sculptures at our Main Post Office, 1101 Davis St. They are only seen by music and drama students, faculty and staff. A visitor can’t get into a school nowadays anyway — and certainly not just to “have a look around” or to “see the artwork.”

My party conversation with Paula revealed a mutual interest in preserving the historic New Deal/WPA art in the Evanston schools, at Haven particularly. We formed a small committee. So, with the support of the RoundTable, the Evanston History Center, Evanston Made and the Evanston Art Center, we intend to make this art available to public view this fall!

in 1928, Haven won an award for architectural excellence, according to the Evanston Review. As the arts became seen as more important in education, a fourth floor was added to the building in 1931 and a music room and drama room, along with an elevator, were installed there, according to an Evanston Review article at the time.

Two 30-foot murals were painted in those rooms by two well-known area artists, one from Evanston. The artists’ canvas was glued to the main wall of each room, and the chosen artist painted his approved design in oil paint directly onto the canvas in 1936. The paintings are still there, in most of their glory. (I wonder if kids got to watch.)

Julian Baumgartner, of Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration, examining Haven’s music room mural. Credit: Gay Riseborough

As you might imagine, both murals are very dirty and in a state of disrepair, with some scratches and tears, but not faded. The restorer Julian Baumgartner, who was called in this spring to have a look, said the music room mural was the finest example of WPA mural art he’d ever seen.

There were also smaller murals, sculptures and carvings at Haven, some that are still hanging, some that have disappeared altogether and some that have been relegated to a storage room. Paula and I saw a few there, behind Haven’s boilers, mostly classic plaster casts, pretty dirty now, that we remember from our school years.

Sadly, security requirements these days demand monitored, first-floor entry for students, no longer via the broad entry stairway there facing prairie. (The one with the four large WPA figure sculptures.) Parents and visitors have to enter at the southern office addition, with camera surveillance, locked doors, intercom and staff supervision.