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County CollectionBob Hope Patriotic HallD-Day MuralArtist:
Frank Ackerman
Date:
1972
Region:
Downtown LA
District:
First
Location:
Bob Hope Patriotic Hall
1816 S Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90015 Department:
Military & Veterans Affairs
Click for larger photos
Project DescriptionOn the sixth floor of Bob Hope Patriotic Hall is the General Omar Bradley meeting room. When the room was being remodeled in 1972, Frank Ackerman was commissioned to create a mural about D-Day – the day, June 6, 1944, on which the Allied forces’ invasion of Normandy began. At the time of the invasion, General Bradley commanded First Army, the American forces of the Allied invasion. The 16’ x 48’ mural is painted on a smooth wooden surface and divided into three sections. The center section is a map of the Normandy coastline showing the routes the military divisions of American and British soldiers took into France. The section on the viewer’s left depicts Allied armored tanks and air strikes, while the section on the viewer’s right shows soldiers disembarking from boats and wading through the Atlantic to the Normandy coast. General Bradley attended the dedication of both the mural and the meeting room on February 12, 1972. About the ArtistFrank Ackerman (1933-1986) was a prominent watercolor artist who attended the Chouinard Art Institute and was President of the National Watercolor Society in the early 1970s. His designs have been exhibited at many galleries and museums including the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and the National Academy of Design, New York. Ackerman joined LA County’s Graphic Arts Department after working as a County architectural draftsman and illustrator. He headed the County Graphics Department between 1973 and 1980 and then became the Chief of Museum Exhibit Services at the Museum of Natural History. Ackerman also traveled to the South Pole as an official Navy artist in the 1960s. |
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