The idea for a mural embodying a pictorial synthesis of Penn State’s founding and growth originated in the 1930s with three professors of art and architectural history: Harold E. Dickson, J. Burn Helme, and Francis E. Hyslop. Aided by a substantial financial contribution from the Class of 1932, the three secured the services of artist Henry Varnum Poor, creator of several murals for public buildings in Washington and widely acknowledged master of the fresco medium. The professors received permission from the Board of Trustees to locate the mural on the north wall above the staircase in the lobby of Old Main.
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- This is one of Poor’s preliminary studies for the second phase of the frescoes, which are seen today on Old Main’s second floor.
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- This detailed study on three boards is recognizable as the Lincoln that greets modern-day visitors to Old Main.
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- Poor’s “Miners on a Lift” is part of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences collection.
Poor began making sketches in September 1939 and in April 1940 began the actual painting. He worked in true fresco, painting directly on the wet plaster that was freshly applied (by his daughter Anne, who became a notable artist in her own right) each morning. The pigment thus became part of the wall itself. Poor finished the fresco on June 18, 1940, and it soon won acclaim among artists and critics nationwide.
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- Poor watches as his daughter Anne applies fresh plaster to a section of the mural, before he applies pigment, which will become part of the wall itself.
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- Here you can see how Poor deliberately used the columns in Old Main’s lobby to frame sections of the murals, intending them to be shifting “empty spaces” in the overall design.
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- Students, faculty and staff were welcome to watch Poor work on the frescoes. Here he shows them his progress on the north wall, also known as the “Lincoln panel.”
In December 1941, the senior, junior, and sophomore classes voted to allot funds for a continuation of the mural along the east and west walls, but plans had to be held in abeyance until after World War II. Students then raised enough money to re-engage Poor, who in November 1948 returned to Old Main to undertake additional frescoes on either side of the original. Completed in June 1949, the newer portions symbolized Penn State’s post-war academic and extracurricular activities and services to the Commonwealth.