"The Peacemakers"

Postcard of The Peacemakers mural by Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton

Art Deco architect Timothy Pflueger, who was in charge of the design for the Court of Pacifica at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, originally hired the Bruton sisters to create two murals. His plan called for each mural to measure a gigantic 144 feet wide by 57 feet tall; one would represent the countries of the east and the other the countries of the west. Later, to the dismay of Pflueger, Fair organizers insisted that the architects cut their costs by forty percent, and he was forced to eliminate one of the murals from the Court of Pacifica. The Bruton sisters, however, were immensely relieved, since “it meant that there would be only one wall 144 feet by 57 feet… and that was really all that we could possibly cope with.”^[1] Pflueger selected other prominent artists to decorate the Court of Pacifica, including Maynard Dixon, who contributed two smaller murals, and Ralph Stackpole, who sculpted Pacifica, an 80-foot female figure that was designated the “theme sculpture” of the Exposition.^[2]

Oakland Tribune, 9 May 1938, p. 14

On May 9, 1938, a headline in the Oakland Tribune announced “Three Alameda Sisters Win $20,000 Mural Contract for Fair.” The newspaper reported that their mural, The Peacemakers, symbolized peace in the Pacific. The article included a photo of the three Bruton sisters, gathered together around a plan for the proposed mural. Clearly the Brutons’ art was well respected and highly valued; not only did Timothy Pflueger trust them execute the largest component of his design for the Court of Pacifica, but they were awarded $20,000 to create it. The sisters’ impressive commission, more than $250,000 in today’s dollars, was widely reported in California newspapers.

Oakland Tribune, 9 May 1938, p. 14

Helen recalled that the mural took about nine months to complete: “I remember when the architect, Mr. Pflueger, first approached us about it… we spent weeks and months not only experimenting and finally arriving at a medium, but also fooling around with the designs.”[3] As they considered their plan for the mural, the Bruton sisters were faced with what their friend and fellow artist Dorothy Puccinelli called “a beautiful array of special problems.”[4] The size of the work was daunting, and choosing the appropriate materials was challenging. Simply painting a mural on the wall wouldn’t provide the depth required to complement the dramatic architectural surroundings, yet a bas relief made of plaster or cement would be far too heavy and difficult to manipulate. The sisters came up with an ingenious solution. They started with standard four by eight foot plywood panels and covered them with boards of masonite that could be layered to create a thickness of anywhere from one to four inches; next, they carved the relief by hand into the masonite and arranged the panels to create the finished design. As Helen remembered, “working out the technical parts was really awfully interesting… [it was] the most interesting job I’ve ever done.”[5] The completed mural consisted of 270 hand-carved four by eight panels covering more than 8,000 square feet.

Esther Bruton working on The Peacemakers 
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Since the sisters were creating only one mural, they combined both east and west in a single design. At the center of The Peacemakers were two large figures, a forty-foot tall Buddha representing the east, and a woman kneeling in a robe--the “Occident”--representing the west. On either side were friezes with processions of people; these “smaller” figures stood twenty-four feet tall. As Helen described it, “one side was… the countries of the eastern shore, the countries of Southeast Asia, China, Japan and [the other side] is symbolic of the western shore, the countries of South America, North America, western types, American Indians.”[6] When seen from a distance in photographs, the enormous scale of the mural is difficult to grasp. An image of the Brutons posing with a few of the panels reveals that the heads of the small figures in the friezes were as tall as the sisters themselves. The background of the mural featured world famous architectural sites, including El Castillo at Chichen Itza, the Great Wall of China, and the Golden Gate Bridge. The waves of the Pacific undulated throughout the mural, uniting its various elements. According to the official Fair guidebook, the figures in the friezes “symbolize [the] slow march of mankind toward peaceful ideas of East and West. Waves represent [the] transitory quality of our material civilization.”[8] The Peacemakers was painted simply, in blocks of muted colors. When illuminated with spotlights after dark, the bas relief mural was a stunning combination of shadow and light.

Helen, Esther, and Margaret Bruton with their assistant, Eleanor Pickersgill (far left), 
standing behind panels for The Peacemakers 
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Even before the Fair opened to the public in February of 1939, Pflueger’s Court of Pacifica was making news; the Oakland Tribune remarked on the “gigantic scale” of the artwork, singling out Ralph Stackpole’s Pacifica and the Brutons’ The Peacemakers.[9] Not only was The Peacemakers the largest mural, it was also “one of the most outstandingly successful mural decorations at the Fair”[10]and an “outstanding artistic achievement.”[11] Yet it was the enormous scale of the work that was most impressive; one visitor reported that “the Bruton sisters’ doubly-colossal, multicolored bas relief of The Peacemakers [was] too much for our meager critical gaze to absorb all at once. We clucked our tongue[s] admiringly and backed away…”[12]

From The Art of Treasure Island by Eugen Neuhaus. New York: Reinhold, 1939, p. 149.

In hindsight, some contemporary critics have criticized The Peacemakers for its clumsy and naive attempt to honor eastern cultures. The figures representing the east are depicted as either primitive -- such as bare-breasted natives rowing a canoe or carrying fruit and spears -- or violent, like the “marauding horsemen” charging toward the Great Wall. The Brutons’ mural “makes clear just how much the Pacific, understood as a region, was a European invention tied to the heroic colonial project of civilizing, if not possessing, the Other.”[13] Yet this world view was not unique to the Brutons -- it was typical of the period, and especially of other World’s Fairs. Thus, even though the Brutons’ mural and its depiction of east and west did not represent “a meeting of equals,” it “perfectly expressed the attitude of the Fair” and was in complete harmony with the other art and architecture on view.[14]

Next week:  The Brutons and "Art in Action"

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^[1]Helen Bruton. Interview, 4 Dec. 1964.

^[2]Official Guide Book: Golden Gate International Exposition.  San Francisco: The Crocker Company, 1939, p. 31-32.

^[3]Interview, 4 Dec. 1964.

^[4]Dorothy Puccinelli. "The Brutons and how they grew.”  California Arts & Architecture, Oct. 1940, p. 41.

^[5]Interview, 4 Dec. 1964.

^[6]Interview with Nancy Boas, 5 Apr. 1983.

^[8]Official Guide Book, p. 32.

^[9]H.L. Dungan. Oakland Tribune, 22 Jan. 1939, p. B-7.

^[10]Puccinelli, p. 41.

^[11]Jack James and Earle Weller.  Treasure Island: “The Magic City”, 1939-1940. San Francisco: Pisani Printing and Publishing, 1941, p. 34.

^[12]Kevin Wallace.  San Francisco Examiner,  26 Jan. 1939, p. 15.

^[13]Andrew M. Shanken. Into the Void Pacific: Building the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. Oakland (Calif.): University of California Press, 2014, p. 97.

^[14]Shanken, p. 97.