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 Sue Eleanor Brown Dietrich (left) and Cheryl Elise Grenier (right) are shown at the unveiling of the mural Dietrich painted and Grenier restored.
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Mural Restoration Reveals student Artwork from 1930s As you enter the corridor of Allen Hall, you cannot help but hear the voices of history. These voices speak of social awareness and understanding through murals painted by graduate and undergraduate students during the late 1930s, when former LSU art professor Conrad Albrizio assigned five of his best students to “write a composition on your reaction to the world around you without the use of words.” Mural painting had become a popular art form across the country during the 1930s, and LSU was one of the few institutions of its kind to have actual fresco painting done by students. The five students chosen to complete the fresco work were Jean Birkland McCandless, Sue Brown Dietrich, the late Roy Henderson, Ben Watkins, and Anne Woolfolk White. These murals depicted images such as the culture and economic development of Louisiana, scenes from a school library and classroom, science and technology, agriculture, and art. Three of the murals done by students under Albrizio no longer exist. According to Sue Brown Dietrich, “We weren’t told that they would be there forever. We knew that our work was a class exercise and, in the future other students might need that space. There was also the possibility that the University administration might have strong feelings about the quality of work and the opinions expressed.” This was the case of the mural work done by Ben Watkins. A year after the murals were completed, the administration ordered Watkins’ work removed because, according to Watkins, “it was an antimilitary statement. In reality, the mural was an indictment of Hitler and the other European warlords that were screaming around back then.” In 2001, a restoration of two of the campus’ four original fresco paintings was undertaken to celebrate the University’s 75th Campus Jubilee, commemorating the 75 years LSU has been at its present site. The restoration effort was completed by Cheryl Elise Grenier, an LSU alumna who worked in Italy for 18 years preserving Renaissance-period murals. It took one month to remove three layers of paint from one mural. Grenier said the quality of both the interior and exterior murals compares favorably with the highest quality frescoes that she worked on in Italy. According to her, the LSU frescoes reveal both the artists and their instructor as perfectionists in the craft of fresco painting, the most exacting and difficult of painting mediums. Last updated September 2002
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