Karl Marx may have been the father of communism, but in the eyes of a Winnipeg business group, he's a politically incorrect choice for a mural depicting Winnipeg at the time of the 1919 general strike.
A century ago, Winnipeg made international headlines for its labour unrest and communist sympathies. However, Gloria Cardwell-Hoeppner, executive director of the West End BIZ, admits she ordered an artist working on a public mural to alter the design and erase the image of a person "very much looking like Karl Marx."The 19th-century philosopher simply didn't fit the intended aim of the BIZ-sponsored mural, Cardwell-Hoeppner said. "We were looking to have images of social history, not political history," she added. "That was a time with a lot of things happening and there were a lot of people coming into the city. They were leaving struggles that they were having over in Europe and coming to a new life here. That was what was trying to be depicted here.
"The two-metre by three-metre mural, on the side of a building at Ellice Avenue and Banning Street, was among a series of public murals the West End BIZ has had created in the last several years. The BIZ has sponsored about 50 murals throughout the inner city in an effort to beautify Winnipeg's core. Each year, it hires artists and university arts students to paint two or three such works. Sketching of the mural depicting Winnipeg around 1919 began a few weeks ago, Cardwell-Hoeppner said, but the artists embarked on the design that included Marx "before the research was complete. "The artist had intended to show a man of that period, not to pinpoint Marx himself, Cardwell-Hoeppner said.
The decision to erase the Marx image, made Monday, disappointed at least one passerby. "Walking down Ellice these past few days was a gratifying experience," said Errol Naumko, who wrote to the Free Press to express his dismay.
* Winnipeg Free Press * ? 2008
Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
Written by Stewart Halforthy
