16

Caryl Yasko. | Am the People. 1974. 2659 N. Milwaukee,
Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Eva Cockcroft.)



crowd—a slim young woman, paintbrushes in
hand, a baby on her back.

The following year, Yasko painted in the
heart of the Black-Belt South Side with a team
of young Black people. Located on a prenatal
clinic wall, this mural depicts statuesque,
larger-than-life women with their children. In
1974 Yasko broke new ground for the Chicago
muralists. Although murals had become com-
monplace in many areas of Chicago, certain
white working-class areas peopled by Polish and
other Middle-European immigrants remained
untouched. The question of whether murals
were valid only for minority-group ghetto areas
or would also be meaningful in white working-
class neighborhoods was in the air. In those
cities where the murals had begun with the
Black Power thrust of the late sixties, a move-
ment toward more general themes was begin-
ning. In 1974 Yasko began a mammoth mural in
the Logan Square area of Chicago. The mural
uses symbolic figures and images to identify the
values of the largely Polish and Bielorussian
residents of the area and to depict them work-
ing together to maintain control in a highly
technical, mechanized world. This major wall
has opened the door for a number of other
murals in this and similar neighborhoods.

Yasko, however, is only one of many women
muralists who have made important artistic
contributions. Lucy Mabhler’s vivid mural at the
Wright Brothers School in New York is one of
the earliest murals on a public school building.
Astrid Fuller, with her distinctive combination

Marie Burton, director. Celebration of Cultures. 1975. Mil-
waukee, Wisconsin. (Photo: Weber.)