/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/b6/89/b689cb1d-2ffd-4782-858d-5d8b5d3f4f23/anotherwonderland_bradfarwell_08.jpeg)
See the Rescued and Restored 'Alice in Wonderland' Mural Painted for Sick Children at a New York Hospital
Key takeaways
- The exhibition includes 14 original mural panels and two recreations.
- In 16 panels of vivid color, Champanier showed Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter flying over the Empire State Building, boarding a crowded subway, strolling Central Park and more.
- “What could be more New York than this hodgepodge crew crashing the city?” Lilly Tuttle, curator at the Museum of the City of New York, tells the New York Times’ Hilarie M.
The exhibition includes 14 original mural panels and two recreations. Brad Farwell for MCNY In 1940, the children’s ward of Gouverneur Hospital in Manhattan became Wonderland. Artist Abram Champanier had painted a fantastical mural for its walls, commissioned by the Federal Art Project. Titled Alice of Wonderland Visiting New York, the mural imagined Lewis Carroll’s iconic character exploring the city.
In 16 panels of vivid color, Champanier showed Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter flying over the Empire State Building, boarding a crowded subway, strolling Central Park and more.
“What could be more New York than this hodgepodge crew crashing the city?” Lilly Tuttle, curator at the Museum of the City of New York, tells the New York Times’ Hilarie M. Sheets. Tuttle says Champanier designed the mural to help sick children transport themselves out of the ward through imagination. “For viewers today, the mural is a reminder of what federal funding for the arts could do for cities like New York and how public art could inject light and energy into unexpected spaces.”