To the Lowest Bidders

When a public building is erected, the job is done--always in theory if not always in fact--by the contractor who submits the lowest bid. With respect to murals which nowadays adorn big public buildings, this principle would not ordinarily work. The lowest bidder might turn out to be a sign painter, a Greek restaurant dauber, a student. Yet last week in Philadelphia a raft of murals stood completed which represented perhaps the first, and certainly the biggest, artistic bidfest in the U. S. The murals decorated a new $3,390,000 Municipal Court, scheduled to open around Nov. 1.

Governed by rigid restrictions laid down for buildings on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the court matches the adjacent Free Library, both being copies of the Marine Ministry in Paris. Architect W. R. Morton Keast, who wangled $1,525,500 of PWA money for the building, was given free hand with the interior. But because of PWA and Philadelphia municipal requirements, Architect Keast had to call for competitive bids for murals. However, he persuaded PWA to let the bidders tell the jury about their qualifications. Philadelphia's municipal Art Jury (once headed by Collector Joe Widener) passed upon 22 bidding artists. With $75,000 budgeted for decoration, Architect Keast bought his art for $61,708--less than fancy stone or metal decorations would have cost. Winners were nine painters, two sculptors, one stained-glass firm.

The new Municipal Court handles noncriminal matters: juvenile and domestic cases, a probation system, a medical department. To familiarize themselves with its problems, the winning artists attended court sessions, including closed hearings. What leftist Artist Joe Hirsch learned left him stumped. Assigned to decorate the "F. & B." (fornication and bastardy) courtroom, he tore up sketch after sketch, exclaimed: "I can't cover that wall with bastards." Finally he painted panels relating to a child's security: an adopted bootblack; a foster father playing with a child; another helping a child up a ladder; a child trotting to school.

Some of the murals portrayed little-known points of law. In the main hall, the Pennsylvania Academy's George Harding painted an old man with a violin: the artist's idea of symbolizing the fact that in Pennsylvania grandchildren are liable for the support of their grandparents. Vincent Maragliotti, ecclesiastical painter, showed the court as an angel in pursuit of a husband who has deserted his wife and child. Alice Kent Stoddard, Philadelphia painter of children, made a sedate, fuzzy mural of children building a city of tomorrow, with her Maltese cat in one corner. Another mural, by Benton Spruance, Beaver College art teacher, did not seem to prove anything about the Law. It showed a Philadelphia family waiting for a bus.

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