by Emily Rennie, Archivist for the Levittown History Collection
If you have come to the library in the past 40 years, you might have noticed the wood-carved mural hanging in the reference area. This mural was originally created by Stanley Kaplan for the school library at Levittown Memorial High School in 1959.
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| Library workers standing in front of the installed mural, 1984? Identifier: MUR.P012 |
Stanley Kaplan was an artist who worked primarily in printmaking, artists’ books, and wood carving. He was part of the faculty at Levittown Memorial High School, instructing art. Kaplan created the mural to be hung in the school library, hoping to spark the students’ interest in classic literature. He asserted, in his own words, that the “reaffirmation of the arts and humanities is necessary for a healthy society in the face of today’s emphasis on science and technology.”¹
The English Department at Memorial helped Kaplan select subjects for the mural, settling on six classic stories: Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Poe’s The Raven.¹
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| Sketch of the Squire from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales by Stanley Kaplan, 1958. Identifier: SKC.WP010 |
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Sketch of the Witches from Shakespeare’s MacBeth, 1958. Identifier: SKC.WP012 |
Kaplan spent over 1700 hours researching, planning, and executing the mural.¹ Once preliminary sketches were made, drawn, and redrawn, they were converted to scaled painting comprehensives, which were photographed onto 35 mm slides, and projected onto the mahogany panels to guide the carving and painting of the final panels.¹
The completed mural stands at 5 feet tall and 30 feet wide, carved on Philippine mahogany and embellished with 23-karat gold leaf, enamel paint, and wood stain. It remained in the school library for nearly twenty-five years until the high school was closed.
Following the school’s closure, the 1983 Senior and Junior classes, with the support of the Parent-Teacher Association, stewarded a transfer of the mural to the public library so that it might continue to be appreciated by the entire community.²
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| Beowulf Panel Installation, 1984? Identifier: MUR.P007 |
You can view some of the original sketches for the mural alongside photographs of its installation at the library in our New York Heritage digital collection.
References
- Levittown Public Library. (n.d.) Levittown Mural Booklet. Levittown History Collection, Levittown Public Library (Vertical File: Levittown Public Library, 1950-1963, Folder 6), Levittown, N.Y.
- Levittown Tribune. (June 23, 1983). New Home For Mural. Levittown History Collection, Levittown Public Library (Vertical File: Levittown Public Library, Post-1963, Folder 1), Levittown, N.Y.