Olvera Street's once-whitewashed mural by Mexican master David Alfaro Siqueiros gets a needed cleaning
One of L.A.’s most storied murals is getting a bath.
“América Tropical,” painted by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros on the side of the old Italian Hall on Olvera Street in 1932 and later whitewashed for stirring controversy, is getting tender loving care from conservators at the Getty Conservation Institute.
“We photograph the paint regularly to monitor it,” says Leslie Rainer, a mural conservator and senior project specialist with the Getty Conservation Institute. “We have representative spots that we look to to monitor for changes. And what we see is that the mural is filthy — just from all of the particulates in downtown Los Angeles.”
Rainer says that the mural’s location — at a busy intersection in downtown and above the exhaust fans of Olvera Street restaurants — means that it accumulates grime at a rapid rate.
Conservators are vacuuming up some of the soot and giving the mural a gentle cleaning with water and sponges. They are also giving it a thorough examination, through the use of digital microscopes among other techniques, to make sure that the surface of the piece is stable and to further study Siqueiros’ use of materials. (The mural was made using an unusual technique that included painting directly into wet cement, like a fresco.)
“It’s a cement plaster and it’s really thin,” says Rainer. “It would have dried really quickly.
“Everything so far has remained in pretty good shape. But it needed a good cleaning and it will need that from time to time. The public won’t necessarily see a difference, but it’s important.”
Conservators are also removing bits of tar that remain along the bottom edge of the mural, evidence of an old roofing job on the building next-door.