Murals of Los Angeles
[12] Murals in Los Angeles often reflect the social and political movements of their time and highlight cultural symbols representative of Southern California.
[14][15] From 2002 to 2013, Los Angeles had a moratorium on the creation of new murals in the city, stemming from legal conflicts regarding large-scale commercial out-of-home advertising, primarily billboards.
Among the earliest known murals from Los Angeles were featured in the central business district, including those of Einar Petersen in 1912 and a ceramic tile panel for a cafeteria, created in 1913.
[26] Notable exceptions to this trend include the political works of muralists David Alfaro Siqueiros and Myer Shaffer, often supported by artistic and cultural institutions in the city.
[27] Between 1933 and 1943, the United States government, as part of the New Deal, funded "federal art projects", a series of murals, paintings, and sculptures in and around public institutions.
[27] Through the 1980s, commercial advertising on signage and billboards in Los Angeles was regulated by multiple government institutions, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans),[34] often without clear distinctions between murals and other types of signs.
[16][36] In the 1990s, the Los Angeles city council faced lawsuits from advertisers, based on the claim that restrictions on commercial speech were an unfair exception to the First Amendment.
[16][36][37][38] In 1999, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs was in the process of developing guidelines for the regulation of supergraphic signage, including advertising billboards.
Previously, in autumn 2002, three advertising companies had filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles on the grounds that the restrictions on off-site signs limited their freedom of expression.
[51][52] The companies were initially granted a preliminary injunction against the city, although it was vacated shortly thereafter by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in part based on the subsequent 2003 amendment.
[80][81][82] The program resulted in the production of hundreds of murals across the city, including Baca's Great Wall of Los Angeles (1978) along the Tujunga Wash.[d][83][84][85] In 1976, with painter Christina Schlesinger and filmmaker Donna Deitch, Baca founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center, a community art center that sponsors the development and restoration of murals throughout the city.
[95][96] A number of murals also exist honoring significant Los Angeles baseball players, such as Jackie Robinson,[e][98] Sandy Koufax,[99][100] Fernando Valenzuela,[101] and others.
[f][104][106] Prior to the 1932 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier recommended taking visiting attendees on a tour of the city's murals.
[107][108][109] Beginning in 2007 after years of disrepair and tagging, Caltrans "hibernated" the murals, applying a coating and layer of gray paint to be removed later for restoration.
[120][121] The prominence of these murals has led to their becoming a notable tourist attraction, resulting in maps and city guides documenting the collection of Kobe artwork.
