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8  Part VI—Fri., Nov. 18, 1977   Los Angeles Times

REDRESSING ETHNIC IMBALANCE
'Pioneer' Paints Blacks on Capitol Walls

BY WILLIAM J. DRUMMOND
Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON—When Allyn Cox, an 81-year-old muralist, begins work shortly on the ceiling of a corridor in the Capitol, he plans to paint two vignettes featuring black Americans.

Two of the 32 vignettes Cox will paint are a modest enough representation of blacks in the 6,000-square-foot project. But the Capitol's art collection so rarely features any blacks at all that Cox, who is white, calls himself a "pioneer."

These two planned vignettes, along with two mural panels depicting blacks that Cox painted in a 1971-73 project, will mean that four of the seven blacks on display at the Capitol have been painted by Cox. The others appear in the following art works:

-Constantino Brumidi's mural of the Boston Massacre in which Crispus Attucks faces the muzzles of Redcoat muskets in front of the Customs House.

-John Blake White's painting of Gen. Francis (Swamp Fox) Marion, a Revolutionary War officer, inviting a British officer to share a meal. A black is cooking yams, while another stands in the background.

The scarcity of blacks and the apparent subservience of their roles in Capitol artworks have been sources of criticism by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Bob Odden, legislative assistant to Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) says that the presence of only five blacks among 700 artworks on display is not a fair portrayal of the black contribution to American history.

"There has been an effort by this office to increase the representation of blacks and to show them in different lights, instead of roles of servitude. That's the issue," said Odden.

"We've been sensitive to this," said Fred Schwengel, president of the Capitol Historical Society and a former Republican congressman from Iowa. "We'd all like to do something."

Schwengel claims he suggested to Cox that he paint more blacks when the artist was doing the 1971-73 work.

Cox painted black politician Henry Garnett in a stovepipe hat talking with Horace Greeley and, elsewhere, a black holding the reins of a horse during the surveying of the city of Washington in 1971.

The forthcoming murals will show a black freedman casting his ballot and the first black member of the House of Representatives.

Nevertheless, the prospects for any major additions of blacks to the artworks are unlikely, said David S. Sellin, the fine arts expert in the office of the Capitol architect, the chief housekeeper of the nation's legislative buildings.

Sellin pointed out that two of the major collections at the Capitol depict former vice presidents and former speakers of the House. Blacks never have held these offices.

In addition, he said, the Capitol is required to receive and display two pieces of statuary submitted by the states. None has offered an artwork depicting a black person.

(King Kamehameha of Hawaii Will Rogers, who was part Cherokee, and Sequoia, another Indian, are the only variations in the all-white nature of the state art exhibits.)

Blacks "did not play a leading role" in American life during the crucial 19th-century period when most of the historical painting and mural work was done at the Capitol, Sellin said.

The next Cox project, sponsored by the historical society and financed by the Daughters of the American Revolution, is the only sizable addition to the Capitol artworks now planned.

However, legislation was passed by the House Sept. 26 and is under study in the Senate Rules Committee that would commission a sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to be displayed in the Capitol.

Schwengel supports the idea, and the chances of eventual passage appear favorable.

Richard Murray of the National Collection of Fine Arts thinks that the way to achieve more balanced ethnic representation in the Capitol art is to "commission more murals."

"I have sympathy for the idea that there ought to be more minorities represented, but I don't think we ought to condemn the existing paintings because they don't conform to our present ideas of history," said Murray. "I hope we can get more of these ideas on the walls."