There were no wellfare programs for the immigrants depicted in this mural, they either made it or starved.


Copy of Ellis Island art will tell of immigrants

By Carole Hawkins
Staff Writer
Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010

Augusta artist Andrew Sabori went to Ellis Island in 2003 to find his ancestors and discovered a lost piece of American heritage instead.
Artist Andrew Sabori shows a panel from his Ellis Island: The Lost Mural. The work is based on a mural painted at Ellis Island during the Depression.

During the Great Depression, artist Edward Laning painted a mural at Ellis Island, in the New York area, celebrating America immigrants. It was never seen by the general public, and 20 years later it became damaged when the roof of the building that held it collapsed in a storm.

By the time Sabori visited the immigration-center-turned-museum, a hand-size black-and-white photo was the only evidence of its having been there. Sabori, a muralist himself who had spent 30 years painting some of the most iconic figures in American culture and history, wanted to know what had happened to Laning's painting.

A year of research took him to the Juilliard School, the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. Sabori found black-and-white photos of Laning's original and, finally, the mural itself. It now hangs in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- up high, where the light is dim, in a place where the general public still can't view it.

Sabori painted a reproduction of Laning's mural in 2008 and has been on a mission ever since to show it to as many people as possible.

The reproduction, called Ellis Island: The Lost Mural , will be shown at the Savannah Rapids Visitor Center from Nov. 19 through March 1.

"I'm sad Laning never got the recognition that was due him," Sabori said. "This was an excellent piece of work, and it's historical."

Laning's mural shows immigrants leaving ships at Ellis Island, traveling west in covered wagons, farming, mining, cutting lumber and building railroads. The painting originally lined the walls of Aliens Hall, Ellis Island's cafeteria. Because the island was quarantined, immigrants were the only ones who saw it.

Laning and three assistants were paid $23 a week for the painting through the Works Progress Administration, a Depression-era jobs program used to preserve workers' skills. Years later, Laning would earn $150,000 for a painting one-10th the size.

"I think this mural is important in a lot of ways. There are children who have not heard of Ellis Island, the Great Depression or the WPA," Sabori said. "This tells the story of what our ancestors did and that they came from somewhere else."

Sabori's reproduction of the mural, at 5 feet tall and 90 feet long, is about half the size of Laning's original. Still, it will take several rooms at Savannah Rapids Visitor Center to accommodate it.

"We are so pleased to have this exhibit, and we are especially interested in children coming to see it," said Vickie Mogilefsky, who runs the visitors center. "Our site is about the building of the Augusta Canal.

"A lot of Irish immigrants came and worked on the first level of the canal. Chinese immigrants helped build the second level."

Sandy Boner, the facilities manager for Columbia County, said the story behind Sabori's reproduction of the mural is almost as interesting as the story of the mural itself.

"It's interesting how (Sabori) discovered it and how he felt driven to re-create it," she said. "He was willing to do everything in his power to get it out there in front of people."

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