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County CollectionGardena Mayme Dear LibraryArtist:
Livio Napolitani
Date:
1964
Region:
Gateway/South LA
District:
Second
Location:
Gardena Mayme Dear Library
1731 W. Gardena Boulevard Gardena, CA 90247 Department:
Public Library
 
Click for larger photos
Project DescriptionCommissioned for the new Gardena Library and dedicated on December 5, 1964, this ceramic tile mosaic mural by Livio Napolitani is set into seven slabs of black stone and hung above the Library’s main entrance. The mural presents the Western evolution of communication through forms of writing. Beginning on the viewer’s left, a hand print symbolizes pre-civilization cave paintings. The mural then moves to representations of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the development of the European printing press, and concludes with a picture of a modern day woman reading aloud to a child. A quote from the Roman philosopher Pliny runs below the mural’s images, stating, “Were it not for books human culture would pass into oblivion as quickly as man himself.” In 2008 as part of the Gardena Mayme Dear Library’s renovation, Silverlake Conservation was hired to clean and repair Napolitani’s mural. The mural was entirely cleaned and missing mosaic pieces were replaced with carefully matched colored epoxy. See Livio Napolitani, Montebello Library mural About the ArtistNo other information currently available. |
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