GIANT PICTURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 781, 30 September 1929, Page 13

GIANT PICTURE

3.800 SQUARE FEET IN 14 DAYS ONE ARTIST. 12 PAINTERS Adopting some such methods as Michelaugelo must have employed if any reasonable percentage of the works attributed to him really came from him, ail American artist has coloured, in two weeks, a mural painting 17ft high and 225 ft long. He is Mr. Griffith Coale. He employed a dozen union painters, who. without knowing just what they were about, have under his direction depicted “A Pageant of the History of Commerce by Sea.” This mural display presents 36 types of ships, with a result so amazing that today a crowd of art connoisseurs and other stood in wonderment and awe before the 3.500 sou are feet of wall which all decided had been made truly beautiful. These wall paiutiugs are in the banking room of the new Lee-lliggin-son building in Broad Street. They typify the maritime branch of the business of the firm, which was founded in Boston in IS4S, and is now world-wide in its ramifications. But if the actual paiDting of the pageant took only 14 days, its preparation was the work of many weeks. Heroic Measures Only when the building was near completion did the firm’s authorities decide on the decoration. They wanted it completed for the opening day. Mr. Griffith C'oale resorted to heroic measures. He made charcoal sketches on pieces of canvas, using a scale of one iuch to one foot. These miniatures were sewn together, coloured and made into lantern slides. Then the paintings were transferred to large sheets of perforated paper pasted on the canvas on the wall of the room, and the rough design was sketched through the perforation. Union painters applied speciallymixed paints, piece by piece, as directed by Mr. Coale in person.