The Last Time I Watched the Super Bowl

How painting a mural about the 49'ers made a football fan out of me.

Lynne Rutter painting  a scene from Super Bowl  XIX

In 1994 my friend and colleague Jennifer Ewing and I teamed up to paint an 80 foot long mural depicting the "History of the San Francisco 49'ers" for a Burger King in Mountain View, CA. The restaurant was owned by Len Rohde and his wife, Bev.  Len had been an offensive lineman for the 49ers for 15 seasons (1960-1974) and subsequently had other careers including teaching, coaching football, and owning franchises. During the 75th season of the NFL, and the 49'ers team nearing its 50th anniversary, the Rohdes wanted to decorate their flagship restaurant in a bright football theme.

The site has a long, narrow dining room and four wall panels about 20 wide and only 5 feet tall.  Bev and Len provided us with piles of 49'ers football memorabilia: photos, names, milestones, ephemera;  and we started arranging these things scrap-book style on large pieces of paper to assist the composition framing highlights in the team's history. We painted the mural on  long canvas panels in the studio, then installed them on site.

The narrative we designed started with the early years of the team 1946 - 1960, painted in muted reds and golds, sepia and nostalgic.   In those days the 49'ers played at Kezar Stadium, a lovely, open field at the end of Golden Gate Park.  This panel features Hall of Fame quarterback Y. A. Tittle (#14) about to enjoy a "Whopper" (the signature Burger King sandwich.)

During the painting of these murals,  I learned a tremendous amount about working with the color red. Red jerseys, red pennants, the red and gold uniforms changing from burgundy to glossy candy apple red  to bright fire engine red over the years.

Local favorite, quarterback John Brodie (#12), opens the second panel.  In 1970 the team moved to Candlestick Park.     

Certain Raiders fans in my life took exception to the choice of  Ken Stabler  (also #12) as the sacked quarterback, but  we decided there ought to be some black in the mural. The view on the far right shows the Bay Bridge, seen from Potrero Hill, where I live.

Jennifer working on a vignette from the mid 1970's

Football-fan friends, relatives, and former clients, came out of the woodwork with memorabilia, photographs, and stories of great games past.    People dropped by the studio a lot, and we began to realize that this wasn't just a large-scale, colorful, commercial job, but a testament to an important part of San Francisco history.  Accuracy was crucial - any fan that saw this painting would already know who was left-handed, how many yards so-and-so rushed, what is meant by "The Catch" and what happened on September 5, 1994 that really mattered.  

The Rohdes made frequent visits with reference materials, and Len taught me how to throw a perfect spiral down the long hallway next to the studio. I took to wearing a replica of Joe Montana's jersey while painting, for inspiration.  Jennifer arranged a shrine of memorabilia next to her desk.

Highlights of Forty Niner Football 1980-1995, featuring Joe Montana (#16) and Steve Young (#8)

While we were finishing this painting the 49'ers once again won the playoffs and headed for the Super Bowl. Our clients did not mind waiting until after the game had been played so we could design the right end of this mural to reflect the 49'ers victory in Super Bowl XXIX.
Prior to installing the mural Jennifer and I held a "tailgate party" in the studio as a send-off for the over 80 mythic football heroes portrayed in this mural.

Legend has it that the Forty Niners will once again go to the Super Bowl,  when we are next commissioned to paint about them. 



Congratulations to Jerry Rice,  who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame today!!


You can enjoy this mural with your lunch at Burger King, 177 East El Camino Real, Mountain View, California.


click to view images larger
Interior design: Brenda Rudd
Site photos:  David Papas
mural © 1995 Jennifer Ewing and Lynne Rutter

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Chrysler Ceiling Mural: a quick look!

Art Deco borders abound in the lobby of the Chrysler Building

During a recent visit to New York City, I had a short morning to take in a couple of sights with my friend Emily, visiting from England. Fortunately if you are fan of architecture, and Art Deco surface ornament in particular, there is plenty to see just walking through Grand Central Terminal and the street outside, on the way to one of my all-time favorites, the Chrysler Building.

At the time of its completion in 1930, the Chrysler was the tallest building in the world, and the lobby ceiling mural by Edward Turnbull, entitled Transport and Human Endeavor was the largest mural in the world, at 78 by 100 feet. Originally titled "Energy, Result, Workmanship and Transportation," an obvious sense of ambition informs the mural on other levels - it's all about achievement, hard work, accomplishment; being the biggest, best, fastest, strongest, first!

Painted on canvas and applied marouflage to the ceiling, this mural has thankfully survived age, and several renovations, including the inexplicable addition of recessed can lights, which were removed during the most recent restoration in 1999.

It is hard to appreciate the ceiling mural because the lobby is rather dark. With its rich red Moroccan marble walls and elaborate inlaid wood elevator doors, there is a lot to see without even looking up. But if you can stay long enough to get used to the cocktail lounge lighting, you will notice so much more.

The focal point in Turnbull's mural: muscles and decorative ka-pow!

What caught my eye this particular visit was all the great decorative elements of the mural. Along with Art Deco borders, there are transitions, and patterns, with a nod to the Vienna Secession.

Look closely and you will see colors, patterns, and pistons! Machines are cool!

Metal leaf is used throughout this painting to great effect. I love this scene, which is painted with pattern, figures, color, and even one figure which is only sketched in. Note the artist's initials "E.T." on the level.

photos by Lynne Rutter, November 2009
click on the images to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

The Steampunk Aquarium Mural

Giant octopus in a rusting iron aquarium

I recently completed a fabulous project on a tiny detached garage in Oakland, California. My client is an avid scuba diver who loves all things Victoriana, and has a special attraction for octopi. So I devised a plan for a Jules Verne-inspired aquarium.

before: a little detached garage building

I designed the mural to incorporate the entire structure: the garage door became the glass "tank" and the building its "case."

The finished mural with many surprising details

In retro- steampunk fashion, trompe l'oeil rusting iron bolts and cast-iron brackets hold the aquarium tank together in a Victorian-style oak woodgrained case. The mural is completed with three portholes at the top and protected with several coats of UV varnish.


all images in this post ©Lynne Rutter

click on images to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Restoring a tapestry mural

My studio recently completed the restoration of an antique tapestry mural.

This is one of a pair of very nice ten foot tall panels that have hung in the lobby of a Spanish Revival apartment building in Pacific Heights since it was built in 1910. The murals are based on a 17th century Gobelins tapestry designs, and are printed on linen using the newfangled technique of silkscreen printing (invented in 1907) combined with the far more traditional printing technique of stenciling.

a major rip at the base of the mural

One of the panels suffered some major damage: a large rip at the base, followed by a six foot long tear straight up the center. Some areas of the material were missing, and the surface was laden with nearly 100 years of accumulated dust, smoke, and dirt.
To restore this mural, we needed to clean and stabilize the entire piece, repair the damage, and recreate the lost areas.
We started by removing it from its frame, and giving it a gentle cleaning front and back.

During cleaning, much of the more subtle detail emerged.

To stabilize the mural, we lightly stitched the major rips closed, then backed the entire piece with a new piece of linen. The perimeter of the panel was then sewn by hand onto the backing for added strength.

My associate Angela is a skilled conservation technician who has worked for many years restoring art for museums and collectors. We met during a large restoration project in 1993 and she has assisted me on numerous jobs since then.

Angela securing the mural to its new backing

Tears, rips and areas of fabric fatigue were painstakingly stitched to the backing, to prevent the rips from spreading, and to fill in for missing material.

Thousands of tiny stitches fill in the ripped area.

Once the sewing was finished we re-stretched the mural back onto its stretcher bars, which we had also reinforced.

I mixed up eleven different colors of paint to match the tapestry's palette, which I then lightly daubed over the stitches to help them blend in to the surrounding areas.

In some places the image was missing and had to be recreated. While not entirely flawless, the tapestry looks wonderful and its repaired sections are hardly noticeable.





The restored tapestry (left)

Click on any image to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Cloud painting workshop!

A warm cloudscape, painted for the Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco

It's been a while since I taught a class, so I am very excited about my upcoming workshop on painted cloud ceilings, November 6 - 7, 2009 at Creative Evolution Studios in Connecticut.

Cloudscapes can be painted as beautiful soaring ceilings on their own, or as the base for grand murals. We’ll explore various aspects of composing cloudscapes of different shapes and sizes to suit the proportions of the ceiling, as well as using different color palettes and other techniques for tailoring the mural to the room.

rotunda dome cloudscape, painted for the Cypress Lawn Funeral Home, Colma, CA. approx 380 square feet

This two day intensive workshop will be help in Durham, Connecticut, at Creative Evolution Studios.

Day 1
- Cloud ceilings: demo and slide show
- Practice technique using a pre-mixed palette
- Basic compositional matters for rectangular and "tray" ceilings
- Creating palettes for different colors and "moods" of skies.
- Students will complete two different cloudscape panels.

Day 2
- Advance cloud composition, designing for domes and round ceilings
- Matching colors of cloudscapes to work with the interior design of the room
- Designing clouds to use with figures or as part of more involved ceiling murals
- Marouflage techniques for adding figures or birds into a ceiling

The Nine Muses, cloud ceiling mural with marouflage figures,
painted for the David Allen Co., Raleigh, NC photo: Jim Sink

Two-Day Cloud Painting Workshop
who: Lynne Rutter
when: November 6-7, 2009
9 am - 5 pm
where: Creative Evolution Studios
16 Main Street, Durham, CT
(860) 334-5504
how: sign up here!



All images in this post are work painted by Lynne Rutter ©Lynne Rutter
click on image to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

simple design = big change!

sketch for silhouette mural: run spot run!

I recently completed a deceptively simple silhouette mural, for a veterinary ophthalmology practice in San Francisco. This mural is designed for a bumpy, angled, and very long hallway wall.
For an assignment like this the two most important things are a good drawing, and the right color.The wall "before" was stark white, in an uneven 36 foot long sloping hallway. Work in progress: Just painting the wall blue had a tremendous impact on this space.

bulldog and horse see eye to eye!

The client asked that the design feature a variety of animals, emphasize the importance of sight, as well as show interaction between the animals and their human companions.
Here are some more details:

kathy explaining derivatives to her hound.

the great butterfly hunt!

Both the reception area and the hall now have a nice view!

You can see this mural in person at the office of Veterinary Vision in San Francisco.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Chinoiserie, Italian Style

Sala Cinese, Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo

Chinoiserie is still one of my favorite styles of decoration. All the rage in Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries, it endures as a classic style of "theme" room, a fantastic mix of exotic Asian motifs and European techniques and sensibilities. One of the most charming examples I have ever seen is this room in the Palazzo Moroni, in Bergamo.
The ceiling appears to be a colorful pink tent, with a lace "cap" at the top, the signs of the zodiac at its center.
Excellent landscape murals surround the "frieze" level of this room. Note the perspective in the paintings, which are all viewed from below.

Detail of the ceiling: I just adore that lace edging, and the border of little pavilions.
These fantasy buildings remind me of San Francisco's Chinatown, whose architecture was designed in 1906, to reflect the western impression of ancient Chinese buildings. Obviously not a new thing.

I visited the Palazzo Moroni during the International Decorative Painting Salon which was held in Bergamo earlier this year. Our gracious host for this event was Lucretia Moroni, a scion of the Moroni family, and herself a world-renown decorative artist. As you can imagine the group of painters visiting this palazzo were very appreciative of its historic murals and terribly grateful to be allowed to take pictures.



photos by Lynne Rutter, April 2009
click on images to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Library Children's Room Mural completed!

We recently finished the murals for the Children's Room in the Burlingame Public Library. I am so thrilled with the transformation of this space!

<----- Sierra as Melisande


The mural was commissioned by the Burlingame Library Foundation to commemorate the centennial celebration of the Library.


My goal was to create a mural that appears original to the room, as though it's always been there. Indeed it is hard to imagine the room without the paintings.





The North "main" mural wall is about 37 feet wide and the ceilings are 20 feet high. The first 5 feet of the walls are filled with bookcases, so all of the murals had to be painted with perspective from below eye-level.

There is a large metal grate and a little maintenance door in this wall, that I worked into the design, so the architecture became part of the composition of the mural.







I had a lot of fun re-imagining this little door area, to make it an entrance to a castle, or possibly, another world.

Faraway Castles, approx. 9 feet wide

We added images all around the room, so the room becomes a story, its walls the pages of a favorite book.
Details like tiny faeries, mice, and California poppies become more noticeable when you get up close.

(click on images to view larger)

See my previous post for work in progress images, and more about this project

Centennial Mural story in San Mateo Times

Bay Area Art Quake review by Phil Gravitt!

My thanks to:
Burlingame Library Foundation for their support and this amazing commission
the Burlingame Librarians for all their research and enthusiasm
interior design consultant Michelle Nelson
and to the ladies of my atelier: Sierra Helvey and Melka Myers.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Library Children's Room Mural- in progress

The Russian Prince brings home the Firebird

This week we will be finishing a large children's room mural for the Burlingame Public Library,

Commissioned by the Burlingame Library Foundation, the murals draw inspiration from the "Golden Age of Illustration" the great storybooks of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, like Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth, Arthur Rackham.

The Burlingame Library is a charming Spanish Revival style building was designed by architect E. L. Norberg and completed in 1931.
The children's room is a large space with soaring, beamed ceilings, textured plaster walls, and a lot of odd angles. This presented a challenge as there is no one focal point to the room, nor is there a large uninterrupted space where one might normally site a mural.
So I designed a mural that uses the architecture, grates, doors, and arches, as part of the composition.

Work in progress on the north wall.

We painted the murals on canvas in my studio, then glued to the walls and in some areas, additional painting is done on site.

The Foreign Prince, being cut out prior to installation.

installing the castle mural in an arch

The Burlingame Library will "unveil" this mural during their Centennial celebration on Sunday, October 19, 2008.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

America

This image has been on my mind lately.

detail from the frescoes in Sant'Ignazio Church, Rome
painted by Andrea Pozzo, circa 1698

photo by Lynne Rutter April, 2008

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

J.W. Bergl: a Bohemian Muralist in Vienna

Garden murals by J.W. Bergl, Hofburg royal apartments, Vienna. photo by Lynne Rutter, 2007

During a recent trip to Vienna, I visited the Imperial Apartments of the Hofburg palace, and I was thrilled to find there, two small rooms with murals by the Bohemian artist Johann Wenzel Bergl (1718-1789). They are painted on canvas, with a secco-fresco style, and a look that reminds me of papier peint panoramique applied to all the walls, including two or three jib doors, making these tiny rooms whole, charming worlds unto themselves.
As it turns out, photography is not permitted in the Hofburg, so shortly after taking the above picture, I was asked to leave.
I attempted to console myself with a Schnitzel and a Carafe of Grüner Veltliner in the nearby Burggarten Café. I mean, really, one would think I was shooting pictures of the Empress Sisi in her underwear.

The very next day I went to Schönbrunn Palace, hoping to get another Look at the wonderful rooms of Bergl murals I has seen there a few years earlier. To my dismay, the Goëss Apartments as well as the other Bergl rooms, were all closed. I was told they are open only on special occasions and by appointment, and was directed to an Office where Appointments are made.
I should point out that this would not irritate me quite so much if there was a decent book on this painter's work available anywhere.

I screwed up my nerve and asked the management if they would be so kind as to open the rooms for me. This request was met with the usual calm Viennese disdain, which conveys a measure of blank shock at having been asked about something that is not allowed. Why on earth would anyone ask about something that is not allowed? Oh no, they told me. Es ist nicht erlaubt. I don't speak German, so I refrained from asking why.
Another day, Erling and I spent over an hour trying to gain entry to the Melk Stiftkeller in Vienna, which is reputedly adjacent to a chapel full of Bergl's paintings. More Grüner Veltliner at a nearby Restaurant was required to recover from our Failure.
Did you think you were going to read all this and go away with no eye candy? Would I do that to you?
Fortunately, I have the photographs I took in December of 2002, when the apartments of the Crown Prince as well as the Goëss rooms of Schönbrunn were open for a display of international-themed Christmas Trees.
These murals were commissioned by the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, and were painted between 1768 and 1777 in an enfilade suite of rooms on the garden level of the Palace. The artist used drawings of original specimens of exotic fauna and flora brought back from Hapsburg-funded scientific expeditions. Schönbrunn has extensive gardens and at one time boasted the largest zoo in Europe.
Shortly after the death of the Empress in 1780, the murals were covered over with wall-hangings, and not rediscovered until 1891. They remain in exceptional condition.
photographs by Lynne Rutter, 2002 Click on the images to see larger version.



J.W. Bergl was born September 23, 1718, in Königinhof, Bavaria. He was a student of the prominent painter Paul Troger, the artist who decorated the ceilings in the enormous library in the Benedictine Abbey at Melk. Bergl worked his entire career in Austria, and is best known for his bright- colored baroque trompe l'oeil murals, most notably those in Melk, and Schönbrunn.



I'm not the only one with a camera! See more of J.W. Bergl's work:

The Bergl frescoes in the Garden Pavillion at Melk, photographed by Harald Hartman.

Here is an amazing panorama of the rooms at Shönbrunn!!

Schlosses Ober St. Veit: more of J.W. Bergl's exotic landscape frescoes by Helmut Jaklitsch.

The Goëss Apartments and other pictures of Shönbrunn, a Picassa album by Chris.

Flickr album by Ilja van de Pavert, with wonderful photographs of Melk.

My Bergl Flickr set to which I hope to add more photographs in the near future.

Some decent but small photos in this souvenir book on Schönbrunn.

The October 2007 issue of the World of Interiors has a lovely spread about the Goëss rooms.

Jib Door is in the glossary!

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting