Lesson 4: History Through Art
Four murals which represent courage, enterprise, labour, and justice, painted by George Southwell in 1932, were commissioned and hung in the rotunda of the beautiful B.C. legislature in Victoria, B.C. They depict native men and women, bare-chested and watching or working as clothed colonial men sign documents or supervise.
First Nations complained that the murals are demeaning and show First Nations as a subservient, conquered people. The B.C. legislature decided to cover the art with other works that would better represent the history of B.C. Let’s evaluate this for ourselves with thoughts from Mr. McMurtry.
Art Featured: Labour, by George Southwell (1932) source
