F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 4 • M a r i e m o n t , O h i o • V o l u m e X X X V III , N o . 5
The Mystery of the Movie Theater Murals
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B y Renee Tecco
It was on Christmas Day 1938 that the Mariemont Movie Theater first opened to the public. At that time it was considered a luxury movie theater by many because of the push back seats that allowed for the passage of patrons and it was the first in the area to have the 1939 “Magic Voice of the Screen” improvements. A unique feature of the interior décor was two beautiful murals painted by local artist Herman H. Wessel. In the lead up to the opening, The Cincinnati Enquirer referred to the murals as “striking” and The Cincinnati Times-Star said it was the theater’s “outstanding feature.” The following month the Enquirer wrote a longer piece on the artist and the murals, dedicating a full column to the artwork and the artist. “So spacious are these landscapes that they seem to make the walls of the theater expand to immeasurable distances; they take us into distant T
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lands where mountains and the snow-covered hills of the northland are compatible and agreeable with the broad, open and sunny fields of the southland.” (Cincinnati Enquirer, January 1939) The murals were large. Both panels were 40 feet long and 14 feet wide which diminished at the lower end in comparison to the theater. One mural depicted a winter scene of young people skiing; the other was a summer scene of golf. Now very few people have memory of the paintings. And even worse, no one seems to know what happened to them. When Spinnenweber Builders renovated the theater over 30 years ago they were hoping to find the murals under the paint. But they weren’t there. The artist, Herman Henry Wessel, was a renowned 20th century artist known for his landscape paintings and murals. He was born in Indiana and attended the Cincinnati Art Academy where he became a student of Frank Duveneck. During Wessel’s lifetime he held exhibits in New York (Continued on page 4)
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