NEAR WEST SIDE — A major fundraising campaign is underway to save the historical “Solidarity” mural inside a Near West Side union hall before the building is sold and redeveloped into apartments.
Spanning approximately 500 square feet across two floors of UE Hall, 37 S. Ashland Ave., the labor-themed mural illustrates the history of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and the labor movement from the 1930s onward.
“The mural is quite unique in that it’s probably one of the few ones in the whole United States that goes around a whole 360 degrees and is about union history,” said Chicago artist John Pitman Weber, who along with the late Jose Guerrero painted the mural between 1973 and 1974.
Now, the union and the Chicago Public Art Group are counting on the solidarity of the public and art funders to preserve these walls and the history they tell.
To save the mural, the walls must be removed from the building and reattached to a new surface, organizers said. Two of the mural walls are supporting walls, while sections of the mural are on angled surfaces above doors or underneath the stairwell, complicating the process.
The art group has already raised enough money, mostly from art foundations and individual donors, to move and store “approximately 90 percent of the major elements of the mural,” said UE President Carl Rosen.
An online crowdfunding campaign seeks to raise at least $10,000 to cover the costs of documenting the mural through photography, video and lidar technology, allowing future visual and 3D representations of the mural.
“We will be able to use all of the funds raised through a crowd-sharing fund, and we’re going to need more,” Rosen said.
The union plans to display the preserved mural sections in its new home at the Chicago Teachers Union office, Rosen said.
To do that, however, the group will need to pay for an art conservatory to safely scrape the plaster off the walls, reattach the mural and restore it as needed, a process that will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Rosen said.
The union’s decision to sell the building on the Near West Side came as the area “is gentrifying and the building no longer serves the needs of the union,” Rosen said. The building lacks parking, has no elevator and requires expensive maintenance, he said.
Weber and Guerrero, the artists behind the mural, spent about a year sketching and painting on several walls around the building’s staircase, Weber said. Artist William Walker, one of the creators behind the historic “Wall of Respect” mural once located in Chicago’s South Side, also contributed as did students from the School of the Art Institute.
The artists were inspired by the muralism movement spearheaded by Mexican artists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. It was the first indoor mural Weber painted and it marked the first time Guerrero, a cartoon artist and worker at an electric appliances company, picked up a brush.
One of the mural’s scenes pays homage to Chicago UE organizers in the 1970s who are pictured urging their “boss” to sign a labor contract to improve workers’ conditions.
Another scene shows people of different races clasping hands, an image that reminds viewers of the role of the union in uniting all workers within an industry. In 1935, UE co-founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations that transformed American labor by defying craft unionism, according to the University of Washington’s Mapping American Social Movements project.
Historic labor organizers are also illustrated on the mural. UE field organizer and co-founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women Florence Criley is seen handing out leaflets to workers outside a factory. UE leaders Julius Emspak, Albert Fitzgerald and Jim Matles are also depicted.
Last week, Weber and a group of visitors viewed the mural in its entirety for the last time. Local art handling company Terry Dowd, Inc. has begun working to remove the mural.
The former UE offices are empty and the building will change ownership by the end of the month, Rosen said. Another exterior mural on the building, painted by Mexican artist Daniel Manrique, will likely not be preserved.
“On the one hand, I’m very glad that some of the mural is going to be saved,” Weber said. “But it’s nonetheless a tremendous loss.”
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