On October 21, the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) announced they had received funding to support the preservation of the iconic “Solidarity” mural from the old UE hall in Chicago. The $450,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will allow preservation experts Parma Conservation, who removed the mural section by section last spring after UE sold the building, to complete the process of restoring and relocating the mural. The work is expected to be completed at the end of 2025.
The two-story mural was painted by John Pitman Weber, a co-founder of CPAG, and Jose Guerrero in 1974 on the interior stairwell of the UE hall. The mural depicts numerous figures from UE history, including Ernie DeMaio, the first president of Chicago-based District 11, Jack Burch of Chicago amalgamated Local 1114, one of the most prominent Black leaders in the UE in the mid-twentieth century, and International Representative Florence Criley.
Weber and Guerrero, who passed away in 2015, dedicated the mural “To the Builders of the Future, the Men and Women who Work in the Mines, Mills, and Factories.” It is one of the oldest murals in Chicago and one of the only murals in the country portraying union history.
The restored mural will be displayed at the headquarters of the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents 30,000 teachers and other professionals in Chicago’s schools, and which shares UE’s philosophy of militant and progressive unionism (and where UE currently has its Chicago office). Smaller sections of the mural will be relocated to the Chicago offices of In These Times, a progressive magazine that covers labor, and to the UE Local 506 hall in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“This grant will keep the mural alive for future generations, beautifully telling the story of industrial unionism and related social movements,” said UE General President Carl Rosen. “For 50 years, it has served as a visual narrative of the struggles and triumphs of the working class, capturing the spirit of solidarity, resilience, and the fight for workers’ rights. Now the power of this art can continue for decades to come.”
“I am grateful that, thanks to this grant, significant sections of the Solidarity mural will live on,” said artist John Weber. “In the course of creating it, Jose Guerrero and I learned much that informed our work as artists and activists in the decades to come. As the first mural done for a trade union by our generation, it keeps alive stories that need to be told. The mural is well worth preserving as an important part of the public art history of Chicago.”
“I am truly grateful and relieved for the support of the Mellon Foundation and all of our other funders and individual donors for helping preserve the “Solidarity” mural as it is important to our history to preserve our artistic, cultural and historic works,” said Chantal Healey, executive director of Chicago Public Art Group.
Prior to receiving the Mellon award, CPAG and UE had raised several hundred thousand dollars, including hundreds of small donations from UE members and allies, to cover the cost of removing the mural from the old UE hall last spring, work that was done by art handler Teamsters from IBT Local 705. That fundraising also included grants from the National Design Academy’s Abbey Mural Prize, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Terra Foundation, and the Alphawood Foundation.
- Related: “Solidarity” Mural Teaches Labor History Through Art, by Emma Kennedy, UE Local 1122-NUGW
An earlier version of this article was published on October 12, which inadvertently mentioned the award before the Chicago Public Art Group publicly announced it. We regret the error.
That story was updated on October 14 to reflect the fact that the mural removal work was done by union labor, which has been incorporated into this version as well.