Delightful Detroit

Home of the American automobile, the city of Detroit, Michigan, celebrates its founding 300 years ago today.

In honor of that great city, we feature a mural painted by Marvin Beehbohm during the Great Depression.

Glorifying both Detroit's workmen and thundering assembly lines, Beerbohm's mural depicts men welding and riveting against a background of overhead pulleys, conveyor belts and stamping presses. Windows and a glowing open-hearth furnace light the vast factory interior. In the foreground, large cutaway views of a piston and crankshaft stand like relief sculpture—testaments to the ingenuity and productivity of American technology. This work, documenting the inventive genius and unprecedented productive power of American industry, reminds viewers of the revolutionary economic and social changes wrought by modern technology.

Executed for the Technology Department of the Detroit Public Library under the auspices of the WPA's Federal Art Project, the mural exemplifies the program's emphasis on narrative representations of American life and history. The movement to provide murals for public buildings was intended to introduce the public to monumental art and to document contemporary society.

Source: "NMAA Installation." National Museum of American Art Calendar of Events (Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, June 1989).

Pictured: Marvin Beerbohm, 1908 Canada–1981 USA, Automative Industry (mural, Detroit Public Library), about 1835–43, oil on canvas mounted on board, 78 x 184 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Detroit Public Library.