Helen Bruton and the UC Berkeley mosaics

Helen Bruton
Sculpture and Dancing
UC Berkeley

Helen Bruton’s second large mosaic project was funded by the FAP/WPA (Federal Art Project, which fell under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration). The Bay Area program administrators were always on the lookout for buildings in need of decoration, and they selected the exterior of UC Berkeley’s “Old Art Gallery.” The building, which was the former powerhouse for the campus, was designed in 1904 by John Galen Howard, Berkeley’s supervising architect during the first decades of the twentieth century. Bruton and Berkeley artist Florence Alston Swift were hired to install mosaics in the niches on either side of the entrance. 

Helen Bruton
Sculpture and Dancing
UC Berkeley

Florence Swift took the lead on the Berkeley project and was its primary promoter. She and art history professor Eugen Neuhaus chose the performing arts as the theme for the murals; as Helen recalled, “I don’t remember having much to say about the subject matter. It was more or less decided, I think, by Mrs. Swift, and maybe Mr. Neuhaus.”^[1] Swift and Bruton worked independently in their own studios, but they collaborated on style and color scheme. Swift’s mosaic depicts music and painting, while Bruton’s represents sculpture and dance. The artists used real people as models for some of the figures. Swift’s seated woman holding a palette and paint brushes is Helen Wills Moody, a Berkeley alumnus and international tennis champion who was also an artist.^[2] 

Florence Alston Swift
Music and Painting
UC Berkeley

Although the WPA encouraged artists to address American themes in their work, the Berkeley mosaics are designed in a distinctly Byzantine style. At the time, Helen was influenced by early Byzantine mosaics, and she never considered this style inappropriate for the Berkeley campus. She said that “it never occurred to me to do the American scene,”^[3] although the mosaics clearly reflect the social realism one expects from WPA art. The influence of Diego Rivera can be seen in the “neutral earth colors… and the broad, heavily outlined eyes of the figures.”^[4] The women in Swift's mosaic are dressed in 1930s clothing and hairstyles, and Bruton’s muscular sculptor represents the glorified and heroic worker commonly seen in Depression-era murals.  

Helen Bruton’s mosaic is nearly fifteen feet square and consists of more than 80,000 tiles.^[5] When the sections of the mosaic were brought to the Berkeley campus for installation, she was provided with two male assistants. Helen got along well with Leonard Meuman, whom she described as a “terribly nice, gentle, young man who was completely unsophisticated as far as art went -- he was almost as bad as I was!”^[6]  But her other assistant -- she couldn’t remember his name -- made her feel uncomfortable.  Helen said that he “was a nice enough man but I simply could not … work [with him] -- he made me nervous.”^[7] Although the details are unknown, it's possible that this male worker resented the fact that a woman was in charge. Rather than confronting the problem head on, Helen told her supervisors that she didn’t need an extra assistant, and he was reassigned to another project. Helen was fortunate to have the experienced mosaicist Anthony Falcier working with her again, and although she highly valued his advice, she admitted that “we had some arguments… he was very temperamental… he’d hurry us and then we’d all get kind of excited.”^[8] 

Helen Bruton working on the installation of her mosaic at
UC Berkeley.  Notice the WPA sign in the background.

The mosaics took nine months to complete and were dedicated in a ceremony held on the Berkeley campus on October 31, 1936.  Later that year, they were filmed by Paramount Pictures for a documentary about WPA art across the United States, although the Berkeley mosaics were cut from the final film.^[9]  Swift's and Bruton's mosaics, which were very positively received, were described as “rich in color, and every play of sunlight or shift of shadow changes them to the enjoyment of the beholder.”^[10]  Art critic Junius Cravens remarked that “the murals will be an outstanding adaptation of the ancient art of mosaic to present-day uses… they will be a noteworthy addition to the campus scene.”^[11] 

Almost as soon as the Berkeley mosaics were completed, there was talk of their ultimate destruction. Just a week after the dedication ceremony, the Oakland Tribune reported that “both [mosaics] will tumble soon, no doubt, when the wreckers get busy, for the buildings must come down on a date not far distant. This wreckage is a prediction of our own but the building is not one to stand long. Time and nervous human activity will sweep it away.”^[12] Despite these dire projections, Bruton and Swift’s mosaics have survived for nearly ninety years, although admittedly there have been some close calls. In the mid-1960s the building was scheduled for demolition, and the mosaics -- which are attached directly to the brick -- would have been destroyed in the process. “They undoubtedly will pull it down,” lamented Helen, “and yet it seems a pity that they don’t save that one building, as a record of that original brick era.”^[13] 

Old Art Gallery
UC Berkeley
Swift's mosaic is on the left, and Bruton's is on the right

 

At times, the mosaics have been largely ignored and obscured by vegetation; after a visit to the Berkeley campus, Helen reported that they “both got quite covered over with ivy.”^[14] Despite periods of neglect, the Old Art Gallery was spared, and its historic artworks have been preserved.  Today the building remains closed as it awaits much needed renovation, but the mosaics are still in excellent condition and can be easily viewed on the exterior of the building. They survive today as an important legacy of the Federal Art Project and a premiere example of 1930s social realism. 

 

Photographs by the author.

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^[1] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Dec. 4, 1964.

^[2] A century of art: Outdoor art at the University of California, Berkeley (University of California, Berkeley, 2001), n.p. This brochure mistakenly lists Esther Bruton as the artist of the mosaic.

^[3] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Feb. 26, 1976, Video 1, 41:54-41:57.

^[4] Nancy Accord, “The women of the WPA art projects: California murals, 1933-1943,” in Yesterday and tomorrow: California women artists, ed. Sylvia Moore (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1989), p. 17.

^[5] “Large mosaics given U.C. to be dedicated,” Oakland Tribune, Nov. 1, 1936, p. 6-A.

^[6] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Feb. 26, 1976 Video 1, 46:50-47:00.

^[7] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Feb. 26, 1976, Video 1, 45:37-45:44.

^[8] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Feb. 26, 1976, Video 1, 43:55-44:38.

^[9] “Art projects murals throughout U.S. being filmed,” San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 27, 1936, p. E-7.

^[10] “Mosaics are accepted at U.C. ceremony,” Oakland Tribune, Nov. 8, 1936, p. 6-B.

^[11] Junius Cravens, San Francisco News, May 6, 1936, quoted in Gene Hailey, “Helen Bruton,” California Art Research (San Francisco: Abstract from WPA Project 2874, 1937), Vol. 16, p. 61.

^[12] “Mosaics are accepted at U.C. ceremony,” Oakland Tribune, Nov. 8, 1936, p. 6-B.

^[13] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Dec. 4, 1964.

^[14] Helen and Margaret Bruton, interview, Dec. 4, 1964.