The University of Rhode Island will preserve two 1950s murals in the Memorial Union that were covered up last year and add language explaining how they reflect a past era in which enrollment at the school was predominantly male and white.
The university also announced on Wednesday that it will commission new artwork to be installed alongside the existing murals that would depict what life on campus looks like today.
The folk-art murals were painted by Arthur Sherman, a 1950 URI graduate who came to the school on the GI Bill after serving as a combat medic in World War II and went on to coach and teach at the school for many years. They show scenes of a class reunion, a commencement ceremony and a day at the beach. Completed in 1954, the paintings are drawn from Sherman’s memories of life as a student at the time.