Murals
In the early 1960s, Lucius Crowell was commisioned to paint mural entitled “Philadelphia Panorama” in the lobby of the Hopkinson House building on Washingon Square in Philadelphia. He began by creating studies in his studio using children and friends as models and even painted a version of the scene on the wall of his living room (bottom).
From the commemorative brochure by Neal Zoran:
“Returning inside, one sees the recently restored mural, “Philadelphia Panorama,” by Lucius Crowell on the west wall. Crowell’s vantage point being the west bank of the Schuylkill River, the right side of his painting shows the Philadelphia skyline as it existed, pre-skyscraper, in 1962 with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Waterworks as anchoring points in the center. The left side of Crowell’s work is more fanciful. Using a tall tree in the center of the mural to vertically divide it, his panorama leaves the urban, businesslike part of the city and concentrates on the immediate suburbs and distant farmlands in a full representation of all the Delaware Valley offers. The farm property is said to suggest Oskar Stonorov’s farm in Chester County.”
A second mural, commissioned for a recreation center overlooking the Schuylkill River in Conshohocken, PA featured a man polling a boat and was executed as a mosaic of glass tiles.
