1911 Garage Mural To Be Restored

Hello Fans of the 1911 Mural on King Street Newtown

Here’s some good news. I received it a week ago and just got permission to publish. I had been in touch with The Powerhouse Museum about this rare treasure in Australian commercial art. They passed my email and pictures on to more specialist museums…

“Greg

You may be surprised to hear from us, but the info re the c1911 mural at Newtown was referred to us by the Powerhouse Museum as an item of interest. We have been to the site, measured a few critical bits, and the committee has decided to reproduce the mural in a prominent spot here at The Australian Motorlife Museum! Whilst the wall in question may not be destroyed by developers, it will almost certainly be covered by the erection of a replacement building on the burnt out site. We have access to resources which will allow us to do so authentically, and will very soon be speaking with a couple of “tame” signwriters who can do the work. All in all we trust you will see that this is about as good a result as can be managed in the circumstances. (Some of our people thought I would be up at Newtown bringing the thing here brick by brick, but of course the people in the shop whose outer wall carries this signage may not like the breeze?

A search of the tenants of this site reveal the probability that the only relevant tenant was in 1911/12.

Regards

Wendy Muddell

Hon Curator

The Australian Motorlife Museum“

For those of you who aren’t up-to-date on what I’m talking about, here is the link to the original post on this blog about the 1911 mural, how I dated it, and a description of the motor products it advertises: Demolition Reveals 1911 Garage Wall Ad, King Street Newtown

And here’s a link to a later entry on this blog after the historic commercial artwork was vandalised with baby scribble. The comments tell the story of what readers, residents, art lovers and grafitti artists felt. (It was attacked a second time by some mushroom practicing their signature, too, but most of that’s been repaired by an unknown hand): Rare 1911 Newtown Art Work Defaced By Lame Tagger

Here’s some photos I took of the signage before it was pratted…