News Release FROM THE N ATIONAL B UILDI NG M U S EUM

For Immediate Release: January 17, 2011 Media Contact: Tara Miller, [email protected], 202.272.2448, ext. 3201

PRESS PREVIEW: Monday, March 14, 2011 / 6:00 pm- 8:00 ppm

RSVP: Tara Miller, [email protected], 202.272.2448, ext. 3201

Coming to the National Building Museum: Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière First Major Exhibition to Feature the Work of Prominent Muralist and Mosaicist

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildrreeth Meière, coming to the National Building Museum in March 2011, is the first major retrospective of Hildreth Meière, a twentieth century Art Deco muralist, mosaicist, painter, and decorative artist. Meière’s major existing works include the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., , the , St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York, and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. The exhibition will open to the public at the National Building Museum on March 19, 2011 and will run through November 27, 2011.

Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière brrings together Hildreth Meière’s sketches, studies in gouache, full-scale cartoons, and models. In her 50-plus-year career, Hildretth Meière received over 100 major commissions from leading architects for projects throughout the United States. She created works for churches, government buuildings, commercial buildings, world’s fairs, restaurants and coccktail lounges, and even ocean liners. “Hildreth Meière’s work is of particular interest to the National Building Museum because it is an integral part of the structures where it is installed. Her work not only complements the buildings, but also enhances the space making it a more beautiful and moving place to inhabit,” says Chase W. Rynd, president and executive director of the National Building Museum.

In her lifetime (1892–1961), Hildreth Meière was considered the most famous, distinguished, and prolific Art Deco muralist in the country. She was also one of America's leading practitioners of the art of and one of America's most gifted embellishers of architectural environments. She is an important figure in the history of American liturgical art and one of its most ecumenical practitioners. "The challenge in presenting the work of Hildreth Meière has been in making her , murals, ceramic tile decoration, stained glass, and exterior metal and enamel sculptures come alive for the visitor. We do this through preparatory sketches, painted cartoons, models, large mosaic samples, and painted altarpieces," said Catherine C. Brawer, the curator of Walls Speak: The

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Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière, who assembled the exhibition's materials which represent 25 of Ms. Meière's most important commissions.

The exhibition contains some 100 works, nearly half are on loan from seven private collections, including two finished mosaics and a number of altarpieces. The works on view demonstrate the full scope of Meière's creative process from her exquisite studies on paper to the magnificent final work executed by craftsman upon whose skill she depended to realize her original conception," Ms. Brawer added. Though Ms. Meière's specialty was the ancient art of mosaic, she created designs for painted wall murals, marble floors, glazed terracotta tiles, metal relief sculpture, stained glass, leather doors, and wool tapestry.

MEIÈRE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Meière worked all over the country including in the Nation’s capital. She was commissioned to do the ceiling decorations for the interior of the dome at the National Academy of Sciences Building (2100 C Street, NW in Washington, D.C.; currently undergoing an extensive restoration) in 1924. The National Academy of Science’s rotunda displays eight figures which represent the sciences as they were defined in 1924. The dome’s pendentives represent the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. These works were done in a technique invented by Meière, which involves gessoed tiles to look like mosaics. Meière was also commissioned to create a mosaic for the Resurrection Chapel of the National Cathedral in 1951 and to create an exterior frieze for the Municipal Building (now the Henry J. Daly Building on Indiana Avenue NW. All of these works still stand today.

MEIÈRE AROUND THE COUNTRY

In New York, her most famous designs are the mixed-metal and enamel roundels of Dance, Drama, and Song for the 50th Street limestone façade of Radio City Music Hall. Ms. Meière's metal decoration for the no-longer existing RKO Theatre at Rockefeller Plaza was recreated by artist Gary Sussman in 1989 and is now visible below ground in the Avenue of Americas Concourse of . Ms. Meière's major commissions outside of New York include the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, considered by many to be her largest and most outstanding work; the Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut; and The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis (which has one of the largest installations of mosaics in the world). During World War II, she supervised the creation of over 500 portable altarpieces for military chaplains of all denominations—seventy of which were her designs. In the era of transatlantic ocean liners, she created murals for the USS America and the USS United States. Meière’s murals also appeared in Chicago's 1933 Century of Progress Fair and the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair. With one exception, the abstract red Banking Room at One Wall Street in , for which Ms. Meière was color consultant, all of her designs were narrative. For details and a complete list of Hildreth Meière commissions, click www.hildrethmeiere.com/ComissionsByState.html.

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THE LIFE OF HILDRETH MEIÈRE

Meière’s career was launched in 1923 when architect Bertram G. Goodhue (1869–1924) commissioned her to decorate the dome of the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Her last executed commission was in 1960 when she designed three marble mosaic panels, recounting the legend of Hercules for the lobby of Prudential Plaza in Newark, New Jersey. Hildreth Meière was the first woman honored with The Fine Arts Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the first woman appointed to the Art Commission. She served as president of both the National Society of Mural Painters and the Liturgical Arts Society (the latter founded in her studio). She was first vice president of the Architectural League of New York (and one of its first female members), a director of the Municipal Arts Society, and an associate of the National Academy of Design. For five years, she was the director of the Department of Mural Painting at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. She also served on the boards of the Art Students League, the Municipal Arts Society, the School Art League, and the Advisory Committee of the Cooper Union Art School.

New York City born, Ms. Meière began her education at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville and studied art in Florence, Italy. She continued her studies at the Art Students League in New York, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, the New York School of Applied Design for Women, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design in New York.

Walls Speak is organized by the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University, and Catherine Coleman Brawer served as the exhibition’s curator. Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière is made possible, in part, through the generous support of the International Hildreth Meière Association, the New York Council for the Humanities, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

The National Building Museum is America’s leading cultural institution dedicated to exploring and celebrating architecture, design, engineering, construction, and planning. Chartered by Congress in 1980 and open to the public since 1985, the Museum has become a vital forum for exchanging ideas and information about the built environment through its exhibitions, education programs, and publications. The Museum is located at 401 F Street NW, Washington, D.C. Museum hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission is free. Museum Shop. Café. Public inquiries: 202.272.2448 or visit www.nbm.org.

For more information, please contact Tara Miller at 202.272.2448, ext. 3201 or [email protected].

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Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière March 19, 2011 through November 27, 2011 at the National Building Museum EXHIBITION PRESS IMAGES

1.Drinking Deer 2. Hildreth Meière, Berlin 3. Sample mosaic of St. Peter

4. Drama, exterior sculpture 5. Air, National Academy of Sciences 6. Following the Arrested Jesus

7.Genius of the Air 8. St. John the Evangelist 9. Magnificat window

NATIONALBUILDING MUSEUM For more information, contact: 401 F STREET NW Tara Miller, Marketing & Communications Associate, 202.272.2448, ext. 3201 / [email protected] WASHINGTON, DC 20001 202.272.2448 / www.NBM.org Walls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meière March 19, 2011 through November 27, 2011 at the National Building Museum CAPTIONS & CREDITS

These images may only be used when referencing the exhibitionWalls Speak: The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meièreand its accompanying events, and must attribute the appropriate photographer.

1. Drinking deer, north wall, Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, 1958; St. Louis, Missouri. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn. Architect: George D. Barnett; Glass mosaic fabricator and installer: Ravenna Mosaic Company

2. Hildreth Meière at the Pűhl & Wagner Factory, 1928; Berlin, Germany. *Photograph courtesy of the Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum fűr Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur; Architec- ture Collection, Berlin, Germany Meière’s glass mosaic designs for St. Bartholomew’s Church, Temple Emanu-El, and One Wall Street (all in New York City), as well as for the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis were all executed by Pűhl & Wagner.

3. Sample mosaic of St. Peter, as designed for the Transfiguration scene in the apse, St. Bartholomew’s Church, 1928; New York, New York. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn. Glass mosaic fabricated by Pűhl & Wagner. Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue; Continuing architects: Mayers, Murray & Phillip (formerly Bertram G. Goodhue Associates)

4. Drama, exterior sculpture, Radio City Music Hall, 1932; New York, New York. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn. Architect: Edward Durrell Stone; Metalsmith: Oscar B. Bach

5. Air, Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences, 1924; Washington, D.C. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn. Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue; Akoustolith tile: R. Guastavino Company; Gesso and Gilding: Mack, Jenny and Tyler

6. Study of Following the Arrested Jesus, upper left panel of the altarpiece, St. Mark’s Church, 1923; Mount Kisco, New York. Altarpiece painted by Hildreth Meière. Gouache on paperboard: Photograph by Donna Callighan. Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue

7. Genius of the Air, rotunda floor, Nebraska State Capitol, 1927; Lincoln, Nebraska. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue; Marble floor mosaics: De Paoli Co.

8. St. John the Evangelist, altarpiece, St. John’s Grace Episcopal Church, 1944; Buffalo, New York. Altarpiece painted by Hildreth Meière. Oil on wood with gilded gesso. Photograph by Joseph Rudinec. Architects: Mayers, Murray & Phillip; Gilding: Louis Ross

9. Magnificat window, St. Bartholomew’s Church, 1948; New York, New York. Design by Hildreth Meière. Photograph ©2009, Hildreth Meière Dunn. Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue; Continuing architects: Mayers, Murray & Phillip (formerly Bertram G. Goodhue Associates); Stained glass: Rambusch Company