While the Wayne County Mural Program competition inspires new interpretations of exterior walls, two organizations are dedicating a relatively new interior mural that they also want to bring into the spotlight.
The Richmond Art Museum and the Richmond High School Alumni Association are co-hosting the mural dedication on Saturday, August 17, at 1 p.m. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend. The murals highlight the early industrial history of Richmond and Wayne County, such as the Richmond Baking Co., Hills’ Roses, Wayne Works, locally manufactured automobiles, Gennett Records/Starr Piano Co. and Pennsylvania Railroad Depot.
RHS graduate Amy Rheinhardt-Jackson created the murals in Richmond High School’s McGuire Hall, 350 Hub Etchison Parkway, Richmond. Guests should use the art museum entrance as the museum surrounds the auditorium.
The murals also include references to the Dille and McGuire Manufacturing Co. lawn mower, which helped make the city the “Lawn Mower Capital of the World,” as well as to the Wright brothers, aviation pioneers who spent part of their youth in Richmond, and C. Francis Jenkins, who invented an early film projector called the Phantoscope.
The murals also feature several locals and/or RHS graduates who went on to pursue careers in the arts, including Jack Everly, principal pop conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, jazz drummers Harold Jones and Jeff Hamilton, soul/rhythm-and-blues singer Baby Huey, composer George Duning, cinematographer Jessica Lakoff Cannon and animator Katie Reihman, cartoonist Gaar Williams, film director Norman Foster, ragtime composer May Aufderheide Kaufman, and artist Robert Indiana.
Many of the people depicted in the paintings were invited to the inauguration.
To reflect the era in which McGuire Hall was built, Rheinhardt-Jackson painted the murals in the 1930s Works Progress Administration style, inspired by artist Thomas Hart Benton. WPA funding covered part of the cost of building RHS and McGuire Memorial Hall.
The dedication of McGuire Hall took place on Pearl Harbor Day (December 7, 1941), and this significant historical event is depicted in the mural. During the dedication, news of the attack on the Hawaiian naval base was announced from the stage.
Rheinhardt-Jackson graduated from the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis in 2001. She has received several awards for her fine art and mural work, including the Creative Renewal Fellowship Grant from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.
In addition to sharing their thoughts on painting the mural, other speakers will include Richmond Community Schools Superintendent Curtis Wright, RHSAA Director Katie Kitchin and RAM Executive Director Shaun Dingwerth, who will comment on the significance of the mural and incorporating the arts into the schools’ curriculum.
Dingwerth had long wanted to add a WPA-style mural to the auditorium, and an anonymous donor made the oil paintings possible. Rheinhardt-Jackson completed the work in January.
For more information, visit richmondartmuseum.org/mural/ or call 765-966-0256.
A version of this article appeared in the August 14, 2024 print edition of the Western Wayne News.
