Art Appreciation

How Cleveland Public Library helped a celebrated local artist in the early days of his career.

BY LAURA WALTER

Library patrons who step into Brett Hall in the Main Library downtown are greeted not only by a grand space with high ceilings, chandeliers, and marble, but by four large murals showcasing various perspectives of Cleveland.

The mural opposite the entryway, The City in 1833 by William Sommer, was completed in the 1930s as part of the Public Works Art Project, while the remaining murals—Sommer’s Sun by Edwin Mieczkowski on the eastern wall, Public Square by Robert Jergens on the southern wall, and Night Sky: Cleveland by Christopher Pekoc on the western wall—were commissioned in the 1970s. For Pekoc, this mural may have helped affect the trajectory of his emerging career.

“Cleveland Public Library made an important impact on my early artistic development,” Pekoc says. “I’m largely self-taught as an artist, and most of my education took place in the Library’s Fine Arts collection. I remember walking through the stacks and pulling books off the shelf to learn about an artist I wasn’t familiar with. The Library enhanced my knowledge and my deep interest in contemporary art.”

According to Pam Eyerdam, Manager of Fine Arts and Special Collections, the Library has a long tradition of supporting and working with local artists.

“The Library has supported public art since before 1900—and not just in the Main Library, but in the branches, too,” Eyerdam explains. “Over the years, renowned artists from the area have donated artwork that holds an important place in Cleveland history and often reflects their community’s ethnic heritage. Curators use our Fine Arts collection for research, artists come to the Library for inspiration, and we offer bibliographic instruction classes to university students. And of course we partner with LAND Studio and the Lockwood Thompson Foundation to bring public art to the Eastman Reading Garden every year.”

While Brett Hall historically served as a reading room at the Library, the space is now used as an exhibit hall. Brett Hall hosted the Library’s Shakespeare First Folio exhibit in 2016, the Superman exhibit in 2017, and the Front: International Yinka Shonibare exhibit in 2018. In 2019, a special puppet exhibit will grace Brett Hall. No matter which exhibit is on display, however, visitors can look up to enjoy Pekoc’s Night Sky: Cleveland. As former Library Director Ervin J. Gaines wrote in a May 2, 1979 letter to Pekoc, the mural has made “a permanent, lasting contribution to the Cleveland Public Library, one which will endure beyond the personal and political realities of the day.”

Beyond its contribution to the Library and Cleveland’s citizens, the mural also made a difference in the life of its artist.

“That had a positive impact on my career, no doubt,” Pekoc says of the mural commission. “Even now, all these years later, I can go into that room and still feel proud.”