City Wide Mural Program – Not Somewhere, But Here
Breaking Bread/ Not Somewhere Else, But Here, 1993
By Daryl E.Wells
National Council of Jewish Women
543 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA
West LA
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Wells attended The Rhode Island School of Design and The Slade School of Art in London.
ABOUT THE MURAL
The mural depicts from left to right Betty Friedan (author and activist), Barbara Boxer (senator), Hannnah Senesh (poet and holocaust rescue mission fighter), Dolores Huerta (United Farm Workers President), Lee Krasner (artist), Barbara Jordan (congresswoman ad civil rights worker), Emma Goldman (anarchist and labor rights activist), Lillian Hellman (playwright), Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemalan human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner) and Hannah Solomon (founder, National Council of Jewish Women). Written under the portraits are the words: Community Service, Social Action, Education.
RECENT ASSESSMENT
The mural is in good condition; a varnish has been added.
LOCATION
Archival Photos
Picture of the mural dedication ceremony
Picture of the mural’s condition in 2014.
Restoration
BEFORE
AFTER
About the Process
This mural emphasizes the themes of community service, social actions and education that the National Council of Jewish Women of Los Angeles endorses. Wells depicts influential and prominent women of varied ethnic backgrounds building community and sharing struggles through the act of “breaking bread” together. Furthermore, it is both homage to the women it depicts and also a gesture to the community in support of multiculturalism. The women depicted from left to right are: Betty Friedan (author and activist), Barbara Boxer (senator), Hannah Senesh (poet and holocaust rescue mission fighter), Dolores Huerta (United Farm Workers Union co-founder), Lee Krasner (artist), Barbara Jordan (congresswoman and civil rights worker), Emma Goldman (anarchist and labor rights activist), young woman of the Ethiopian Jewry, Aung San Suu Kyi (elected president of Burma, was put under house arrest), Lillian Hellman (playwright), Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemalan human rights activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) and Hannah Solomon (founder, National Council of Jewish Women). “Not Somewhere Else But Here” has been written about by scholars and art historians since the 1990’s. Paul Von Blum, a respected art historian, published an important article on it with the University of Wisconsin shortly after its creation.