Murals on 54 Restaurant and Bar

History:

The story of Sir Walter Raleigh (or as previously known, Ralegh, or Rawleyghe) dates back to the 1580s. He is most remembered for the perhaps fictitious tale of throwing his cloak over a mud puddle, so that Queen Elizabeth I would not dirty her royal feet. A favorite of the Queen, he was often showered with gifts including land and money. In exchange for his “gifts”, Raleigh introduced tobacco from the New World to England, which earned him the respect of physicians on the British Isles.

One of the large murals depicts the Queen providing Raleigh with a charter and a patent granting him title to any lands he might discover in the name of the crown. After Raleigh returned from Roanake Island, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I.

Upon completion of the murals, a dispute arose between muralist Cornwell and Hearst, regarding compensation for the work. Enraged and seeking revenge, Cornwell painted images, at the time considered obscene, onto the murals. Due to the controversy, one mural was covered for more than 40 years. The concealed mural included a man urinating on the Queen and another man urinating on Sir Walter Raleigh. Another pictured an Indian with bare buttocks. The dispute was eventually settled and Cornwell painted out one of the obscenities but the others remained.

One journalist originally described The Raleigh Room in 1940 as “one of the most colorful spots in the city with its distinctive decorations and informal atmosphere. The room’s murals by Dean Cornwell incorporate the shields and names of many prominent persons”.

Dean Cornwell was born in 1892 in Louisville, Kentucky and began his career as a cartoonist for The Louisville Herald. In 1911, he moved to Chicago where he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and worked for The Chicago Tribune on the side. He moved to New York in 1915 after receiving his first major commission for Redbook magazine. He then enrolled in the Art Students League and at Harvey Dunn’s school of illustration in New Jersey. His illustration career was on the rise as he began working for Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping magazines. He was a protégé of Russian portraitist Nicolai Fechin and believed that good illustration had its basis in painting. Thus, all of his illustrations were originally paintings. By 1922, he became President of the prestigious Society of Illustrators and taught at the Art Students League in New York.

Wanting to fulfill his true passion to become a muralist, he went to London to study with Frank Brangwyn. Then, in 1927, Cornwell began his devotion to mural painting in California by painting beautiful murals in the Los Angeles Public Library and the Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands. He went on to complete over 20 more well known murals at sites including the Detroit Athletic Club, Rockefeller Center, the 1939 World’s Fair, New York’s General Motors Building, the Bethlehem Steel Company, “The 21 Club” in New York, and of course, The Warwick Hotel. Paintings by Cornwell have also been exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Chicago Art Institute, the National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

In the 30s and 40s, Cornwell became a household name. He was well known for his patriotic war posters and full-page advertisements for brands such as Seagram’s Whisky, Coca Cola and General Motors. In 1954 he became President of the National Mural Painters Society and in 1959, he was elected into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. Dean Cornwell died in 1960 but his memory and legend live on today through his inspiring works of art.