Art of the "Extreme"

WHEN ARTIST WALTER B. Humphrey '14 completed his murals in the new Hovey Grill in Thayer Hall in 1938, he had more than delivered on his desire to portray the "joyful masculine atmosphere" of Dartmouth. In illustrating the work of the "Eleazar Wheelock" song written by Richard Hovey (class of 1885), Humphrey had painted a pot-bellied Wheelock drinking rum with his Indian students amid an array of seductive, scantily clad Indian maidens waiting to entertain the men. Although the images of flowing rum and near-naked women appealed to many students, some people were outraged over the scandalous nudity and irreverent attitude toward the College founder.

Through time, controversies over Humphreys Hovey Grill murals have only intensified. Many of the women and Native American students who came to Dartmouth in the 1970s did not appreciate the "joyful masculine atmosphere" of the murals and were offended by the portrayal of Native Americans as ignorant and uncivilized. The administration conceded that the murals were too offensive to decorate a student dining facility, and in 1983 they were covered with removable panels. But debate over the murals still flares up. Just last November The DartmouthReview accused the College of censorship and called for the murals to be uncovered.

The conflict may soon be resolved. In fact, it must be resolved: Thayer Hall will be demolished sometime after March 2009, and almost everyone, even members of the Dartmouth Native American community, agrees that the murals need to be preserved. Mishuana Goeman, an associate professor in Native American studies and English, frequently uses images of the murals in her courses as examples of racial and gender stereotypes. She finds the Hovey Grill murals too offensive and hurtful to be displayed in a student lounge, but says they are important historical documents. "By demolishing them, you're just erasing history," she says.

President Jim Wright has appointed a committee to consider the fate of the murals. The team has already hired experts to investigate how to detach the murals from the walls. Since the painting was done on canvas, which was then glued to the walls with a strong adhesive, removal would be a painstaking—and expensive—project likely to damage the artwork and require extensive restoration.

Brian Kennedy, director of the Hood Museum of Art and chair of the committee, says the College has every intention of preserving the murals. Kennedy, noting the presence of another significant set of murals on campus, the Orozco murals in Baker Library, points out that Dartmouth possesses a treasure in having such dissimilar works from the same time period in such proximity to each other. Kennedy says the two works give valuable insights into the art of their times. "In the last 10 years there has been a re-evaluation of the art of the 1930s. It was a decade of extremes," he says. "In the contrast between [Humphreys] more commercial, decorative style of painting and the work of an extraordinary Mexican artist of that time, this campus has a valuable example of what those extremes were."

Off the Wall? A tame scene from the Hovey Murals

Waiter Humphrey

OVERHEARD |

"I love school, but sometimes you think what you do doesn't matter. Here we're doing things that matter every day." MELINDA WILSON '09, SPEAKING DURING SPRING BREAK FROM SOUTH MISSISSIPPI, WHERE SHE SPENT THE WEEK CLEANING UP HURRICANE KATRINA DEBRIS AS A VOLUNTEER