Jules Guerin, the Director of Colour for the Exhibition, had known Brangwyn in Paris and chose him, along with American artists Childe Hassam, Robert Reid, William de Leftwich Dodge and Arthur Matthews, to decorate the pavilions. Brangwyn was paid US$60,000 to produce eight panels, each 762×365.8cm (25x12ft) with arched tops, to be placed in the four corners of Louis Christian Mullgardt’s Court of the Ages (also known as the Court of Abundance).
The panels represented earth, air, fire and water and the titles were, Fruit Pickers and Dancing the Grapes representing earth. They were shown on the cover of the San Francisco Examiner which indicates their importance to the American audience. The Hunters and The Windmill represened air. Primitive Fire and Industrial Fire represented fire andThe Net and The Fountain represented water. They were painted with flat oil on absorbent coarse textured jute canvas prepared by the artist, the oils sinking into the canvas leaving a matt finish – avoiding glare. Brangwyn gloried in the fact that the panels were to be placed outdoors in a Mediterranean type climate, and produced images of a land of ease and plenty, using warm, sunny colours. Figures were ranged along the lower part of each mural, with tall, slender trees creating strong verticals, the scale being consistent throughout, and the clothing, as usual, timeless. His efforts gained the epithet, ‘monotonous’ from Mullgardt, but Brangwyn was awarded a Medal of Honour.
The murals are now to be found in the Herbst Theatre (seen above), this building being part of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco.
Literature: Galloway, 1962, p73. The Studio, p3-4 Vol 63, November 1917, Finch, ‘Recent Decorative Work of Frank Brangywn ARA. I. Mural Paintings in the Panama-Pacific Exposition’. Furst, 1924, p95-108. Rodney Brangwyn, Brangwyn, William Kimber London 1978, p162-166. Neuhaus, The Art of Exposition, Paul Elder & Company, San Francisco. Shaw-Sparrow, 1919, p212. San Francisco Examiner,Exposition Edition, 20 Feb 1915.
Illustrated: Galloway, 1962 plate 36, portion of Industrial Fire. San Francisco Examiner, Special Exposition edition, 20 February 1915 (two of the panels in colour on front page, Air and Dancing the Grapes). The Studio, p6-10 Vol 63, November 1917, Finch, ‘Recent Decorative Work of Frank Brangwyn ARA. I. Mural Paintings in the Panama-Pacific Exposition’. Furst, 1924 p97, 98, 101, 102 facing p95. Amelia Defries, ‘Frank Brangwyn RA, Master Craftsman’, American Magazine of Art, November 1924 11 Vol. 15 p558 detail from Windmill.