Civitan speaker shares about agricultural murals

Members of the Russellville Civitan organization learned about an important part of Alabama agricultural history at their meeting on Tuesday thanks to a speaker who traveled all the way from Auburn to share his knowledge on the subject.

Bruce Dupree, art director for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University, spoke to members about the Historical Panorama of Alabama Agriculture, also known as the Walker Murals.

Dupree said the ten murals were painted by Mobile artist John Augustus Walker for the 1939 Alabama State Fair held in Birmingham, and he became interested in the paintings after hearing about them from Russellville native Jim Langcuster who is now a news and public affairs specialist for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn.

“Jim told me about these paintings that were in the attic of Duncan Hall, and when I saw them, I knew there was something about them I really liked,” Dupree said. “They were old and they told a story.”

Dupree, who has a minor in art history, said he immediately became interested in the story behind the five foot by seven foot paintings and started his research with the paintings’ author, Walker.

“Back then, Walker was very well-know, especially in the Mobile area,” Dupree said. “He did murals both big and small and paintings of the Gulf Coast landscape.”

In his research, Dupree discovered Walker was commissioned in 1938 to paint the murals for the Alabama State Fair.

“The director of the Alabama State Fair contacted Auburn [University] who then contacted the Alabama Extension Service, which was what it was called then,” Dupree said. “He was wanting to set up an agriculture exhibit at the fair and wanted to know who would be best to do it.

“The Extension director at the time, P. O. Davis, thought it was a good idea and they decided to commission Walker to do almost 30 murals for the exhibit.”

Dupree said the commission came as part of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, which was a New Deal program designed to employ millions of people who could carry out public works projects and artistic projects.

“Like many government programs, especially at that time, it would shut down for a while, which caused Walker to get behind on the murals,” Dupree said. “Also, World War II was looming in the future and it was still tough economically, so a lot of factors went into the slowness with which the murals progressed.”

Dupree said Walker was responsible for the entire agriculture exhibit, not just the paintings, so by the time the fair rolled around, Walker was only able to complete 10 of the murals.

“These murals were the backdrop for the agriculture exhibit and they depicted the value of agriculture,” Dupree said.

Dupree showed a print of one mural with the title “Farm Progress is Great.” In the picture, Dupree said a red school bus was symbolic of the importance of education, the tractor in the front and a man with a plow in the background represented modern agriculture, and telephone poles represented communication.

“Walker was showing that rural Alabama was advancing by using symbols that wouldn’t be lost on the everyday Alabamians coming to the fair,” Dupree said. “His murals showed what the Extension system was about, which was showing that research, learning and technology was alive on the college campus and they were bringing it to the people of Alabama.”

Once the fair was over, the murals were used in Mississippi and Louisiana at their state fairs before coming to rest in the attic at Duncan Hall.

“When I first actually saw these murals, they were in the back of a pickup truck in Auburn being transported and a man was sitting on them,” Dupree said. “They were in that attic for a long time, so as you can imagine, they were in bad shape.

Dupree said for $10,000 they were able to send the murals to a company in Atlanta that cleaned them up and they’re now displayed at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art on Auburn’s campus.

“These murals aren’t worth a ton of money, but they are great talking points,” Dupree said. “They’re also an important part of Alabama history.”