In 1954 university architect Malcolm Rice expressed the opinion that the principal assembly room of the new Carolyn P. Brown Memorial University Center was too plain and recommended employing an artist to decorate it. In spring 1954 a committee including Rice and members of the Fine Arts Department began contacting possible candidates to paint a mural on a 6-foot by 30-foot Utrecht canvas affixed to the wall at the west end of the center’s ballroom, above and behind a stage. In July 1954 C. Kermit Ewing, head of the Fine Arts Department, offered Marion Greenwood the contract to paint the mural. The contract also included a one-year teaching assignment, in which she would offer six hours in painting and six hours in drawing or design.
Greenwood soon determined that the theme of the mural would incorporate music and settled on a final design early in 1955. The mural depicts the musical history of Tennessee with the distinct differences between and among the musical heritages of the three “grand divisions” of the state. It depicts 28 lively figures, beginning at one end with gospel singers (East Tennessee) and ending with an African American holding a bag of cotton and a four-piece African American jazz band with sax, trumpet, drum, and piano, with a riverboat in the background. Faculty, staff, and students served as models for some of the figures in the painting. UT History Department faculty member LeRoy P. Graf posed for the music master (often referred to as “the preacher”) in the East Tennessee section of the mural. Cameron Smith was the model for the central female dancer, and UT staff member Ted Williams served as the model for her partner. Maurice Brown, a senior in the Fine Arts Department, is right behind Cameron Smith. Dr. Joseph W. Schaleter, who was, like Greenwood, on a one-year appointment with the Fine Arts Department, was the model for the banjo player.
Unveiled in June 1955, the mural became an object of controversy in the late 1960s, as African American students voiced objection to the depiction of African Americans in the West Tennessee section as being symbolic of racism and oppression. The mural was vandalized with paints and solvents on the evening of May 17 or early morning of May 18, 1970, but it was not the section of the mural criticized by African American students that sustained the principal damage. The Alumni Association’s Executive Committee offered a $1,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the party or parties responsible, but the individuals were not identified, and the mural was restored by Joe Hopkins, McClung Museum curator and an assistant professor, with funds donated by students, faculty, and staff. Hopkins’s fee was $2,000. He worked on the painting for more than five months, on his own time—weekends, lunch hours, and evening hours.
Shortly after the mural was restored, Gail B. Clay, director of the center, reported that additional threats of damage had been received. A committee of administrators, including Clay and Dean of Students Phil Scheurer, recommended that the mural be covered with paneling that matched other paneling in the ballroom. It was covered in May 1972.
In 1998 Knight Stivender, special projects editor of the Daily Beacon, received the Associated Collegiate Press’s 1998 Story of the Year Award for her March 17 story about the mural in the Daily Beacon. In March 2006 the mural was uncovered for two days at the request of the Student Issues Committee and Visual Arts Committee to allow for a panel discussion of its artistic and historical overview. More than 250 people attended the “Secret Behind the Wall: The Greenwood Mural” discussion at which guest panelists from the University of Cincinnati, the Race Relations Center of East Tennessee, Carlow University, and Clark University Art Galleries in Atlanta expressed widely differing views of the work. Following the event, the mural was covered with Plexiglas, and a velvet curtain that could be drawn aside to allow viewings replaced the paneling.
When the decision was made to raze the university center and build a new one, the issue of the mural was a major concern for Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Tim Rogers. The issues were two: whether it could be removed from the wall and where would it go if it were removed. The canvas of the mural was glued to the plaster wall behind it, and the first advice Rogers was given indicated that the mural could not be removed without major damage, if at all. He appointed a group to look into the possibilities. The mural was appraised by Harold Duckett as part of the investigation, at $175,000. RFPs were issued for mural removal and possible restoration, and three groups were interested. EverGreene Architectural Art was chosen for the project.
More than two weeks were required for removal of the 300-pound piece from the wall. EverGreene staff cleaned the reverse side of the mural, removing residual plaster white coat and adhesive residue. They then removed the facing product that they had layered onto the mural to prevent damage to the canvas during its removal and began making repairs to the canvas and to the painting. They next rolled the mural onto a sonotube, a form typically used to create concrete columns, so the mural could be transported to storage.
The mural was displayed at UT’s Downtown Gallery June 6–August 9, 2014, and then transported to the Knoxville Museum of Art under a five-year, renewable loan agreement between the KMA and UT.