"Relief Ship at San Diego" (circa 1928) by Albert Herter

DESCRIPTION: series of five 10-foot high by 6-foot wide oil-on-canvas paintings/murals (unframed)


This series of five oil paintings/murals was originally a single 10-foot by 30-foot piece that Herter made, along with his other historic paintings in the History Room, for the walls of the library's old Hope Street tunnel entrance. The theme, scale, and composition of these historic murals were designed for the former tunnel entrance walls at ground level. After a few years these historic paintings began to suffer serious damage from seeping moisture in the tunnel and were removed, resized and partitioned to fit the current History Room (formerly the Reference Room). The placement of the paintings/murals high on the walls unfortunately compromised Herter's intention that the work be shown at eye-level/human-scale.

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LOCATION: interior, south wall of History Room, Central Library, 630 W. Fifth Street, Historic Core, Los Angeles, California, USA

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