| This mural represents Pennsylvania Avenue as viewed from the roof of
the Mills Building in the summer of 1987. It depicts a specific moment
in time: the day of welcome for the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher,
when all the British and American flags were displayed. The cicadas had
slightly blighted the foliage along the famous two block expanse of Pennsylvania
Avenue. Blair House was under construction and huge temporary anti-terrorist,
concrete blockades were already in place. Left of the Blair House is the
Renwick Gallery, named after James Renwick who designed it for W.W. Corcoran.
It is the original Corcoran Gallery which was taken over by the federal government during the Civil War from Corcoran, who was a Southern sympathizer who decided to sit out most of the war in Europe. The mural which is 6' 8"x18' is on a concave wall with a 130 degree curve which allows the three separate vanishing points to converge into a single image that is unusually illusionistic like a 70mm cinema projection screen. The canvas was earlier attached to aluminum panels and in this state painted on a flat wall in John DeRosen's studio in the Le Droit Building. The five separate panels were transferred to 18th and Eye Streets and reattached onto the curved wall; held in place by a curved laminated, wooden frame built by James Muell. The project was done under the auspices of the Oliver Carr Company and the design firm of Keyes , Condon, and Florance and was completed in February of 1988. |
| Detail | Detail | Detail | Detail | Maquette |
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| Installation day, February 20, 1988. | The artist in front of the finished but uninstalled mural. |
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| Frank Wright and his able assistant, the young Rob Liberace. | The mural installed in its permanent location. |
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