MURALS OF PHILADELPHIA (Cheri)

Mark and I got to Philadelphia Wednesday night.  Once we were both out of bed - much later than Mark arose - we headed out to see a number of the city's murals.

Image Credit:  Photograph by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia

I couldn't find information about this mural, but did locate this on Wikipedia:

Edward “Chick” Davis was a prominent African American billiards player in the
​mid-twentieth century. Davis is commemorated as a billiards player and businessman by a mural in the 1400 block of South Street[, Philadelphia].

The city started commissioning murals in 1984 in order to combat graffiti, and adds as many as 100 every year, taking on the title "Mural Capital of the World."  There are now over 4,000 murals here, and Mural Arts Fest 2025 kicked off today.

There are a lot on and just off of 13th Street, near the Convention Center, so we made seeing them our primary activity for the day, using the self-guided tour option.

Here's one really attractive mural, with background and closer up, in its intentionally-pixelated glory:

This is probably entitled Spring, but I couldn't identify the artist.

This untitled mural by Amy Sherald, who painted Michelle Obama's official portrait, is of a teenager who participated in the Mural Arts program:

​This is Building the City, by Michael Webb, followed by a couple of detail pictures:

Some murals were impossible to photograph due to light conditions, and many were just too immense to capture well.  Here is a section of one of those super large ones:

and a link to the entire mural, Pride and Progress, by Ann Northrup.

Here are just a couple of excerpts of one of the murals, entitled The Theatre of Life, created by Meg Saligman, Heather Fenton and Juan Dimida:

"Over 10,000 pieces of glass, one ton of concrete, 5,000 marbles and 400 gallons of paint come together in this multi-media production."

You also see a lot of murals that weren't commissioned by the City, so aren't on official tours.  We thought this one was an unofficial mural:

We were identifying and guessing at the subjects; for the lower left image, I guessed JFK, Jr. and Mark said his father.

​Then I discovered the descriptive link, which said that the mural, located on the bar named Dirty Frank's, is entitled Famous Franks, by David McShane.  That makes the guy on the bottom left Frankie Avalon.

We clearly missed part of the mural.  (Maybe around the corner?)  Here is a list of all of the originally-included Franks:

The Franks depicted are (from left to right): Benjamin Franklin, Frankie Avalon,
the floral architecture design from PAFA by Frank Furness, Aretha Franklin,
a frankfurter, Barney Frank, Frankenstein’s monster, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Frank Zappa, Frank Sinatra, actor Frank Morgan in a scene from
Wizard of Oz (written by L. Frank Baum), St. Francis of Assisi (for whom t
he artist used his twin brother, Frank, ​as a model), Frank Oz—who was a
French puppeteer, Frank Perdue, Frank Lloyd Wright,
​Frank Burns from M*A*S*H* and Tug McGraw (whose real name is Frank).

More fun about this mural:

There were intentionally no words painted on the mural to identify the Franks,
which makes it more interesting for the viewers to guess how they are connected.
There was intentionally no signage to identify the bar as Dirty Franks 
​to preserve the quirky anonymity that patrons love.
McShane restored the mural in 2015.  Pope Francis (who visited the city that year)
and longtime Dirty Franks employee and one-time City of Philadelphia Poet Laureate Frank Sherlock, were added to the mural during its restoration.

Here are a couple of murals that we didn't actually find:

Image Credit:  MuralArts.Org

Above is Sanctuary, by James Burns.

​This is my favorite, Dr. J. (Julius Irving), by Kent Twitchell:

Image Credit:  Jack Ramsdale

I have to size these pictures so that are likely to show entirely on laptop screens, but I sure wish I could have sized this taller!

This excerpt from the MuralArts.Org site is touching:

 [D]esperate to improve the quality and variety of the murals, Jane Golden
(Executive Director of Mural Arts) madee a decision in 1990 that would forever change Mural Arts Philadelphia.  She raised money from a private foundation to bring her old friend and mentor Kent Twitchell to Philadelphia. 
She wanted a "breakthrough mural," and Twitchell - a nationally acclaimed
California artist - was just the man to paint it.  "We knew we had to
push the boundaries," she said.  "The goal was to try to integrate
superior artwork with a subject that touched the community in a special way."

​Twitchell was known for his portraits, and he lobbied to paint basketball great Julius Erving in a business suit instead of a uniform to portray him more as a man and role model than simply another well-known athlete. The dignified, full-length portrait is so tall that Erving’s head just fits under the peak of the three-story building.  

Local residents . . . claim that the real Dr. J had tears in his eyes
when he saw the completed portrait for the first time.

You can read more on Philadelphia's murals that are specific to Black American history here.

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