Sunday’s demolition of a historic 20-story building in downtown Houston will indirectly be a boon to Artesia, a town about 700 miles west of the sprawling metroplex.
For more than 50 years, a 46-foot-by-16-foot mural by renowned New Mexico artist Peter Hurd graced the foyer of the Prudential Insurance Co.’s regional offices at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. in downtown Houston.
The massive fresco, titled “The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare for It,” soon will become the centerpiece of a planned 25,000-square-foot public library in Artesia.
This is a section of a Peter Hurd mural that will become the centerpiece of a new public library in Artesia. The mural, titled “The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It,” was painted by Peter Hurd in the early 1950s for the foyer of the Prudential Building in downtown Houston. The 60-year-old building, sold to MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1974, was razed Sunday. (courtesy of jamie sims)
The Prudential building was constructed in 1952, and Hurd was commissioned to paint the fresco on a curved wall in the lobby. The building was sold to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1974, and was used as an administrative center until 2009.
At 11:15 a.m. Sunday, the building was imploded by demolitions experts and fell to the ground in 17 seconds, making the end of one of Houston’s iconic modernist buildings.
Dramatic video of the building collapsing in a cloud of dust was replayed repeatedly on national news stations.
The 500,000-square-foot building was designed by Kenneth Franzheim, who often incorporated works of art into his architecture.
The Hurd mural depicts a ranch family and workers harvesting hay, fruits and vegetables.
When MD Anderson officials decided to raze the building to make way for a new medical campus, it began looking for a new home for the mural.
After initial plans by Tulsa, Okla., and Denton, Texas, to acquire the mural fell through, an undisclosed benefactor agreed to acquire it for Artesia.
Published reports have valued the mural at $4 million. MD Anderson agreed to donate the mural, leaving its new owners with the estimated $500,000 cost of removing, transporting, storing and installing it at its new home.
Last April, the mural – complete with the wall to which it was attached and its concrete base – was cut from the building and trucked to a climate-controlled storage facility in Midland, Texas, where it remains today.
Artesia Mayor Phil Burch said Monday that the city plans to begin construction of the new library in the second quarter of this year. After an estimated eight months of construction, the new library, planned for the southwest corner of Second and Quay streets in Artesia, could open early next year, he said.
Hurd was born in Roswell and attended New Mexico Military Institute with an eye on a military career. However, after two years at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., he left to pursue his art.
While studying with famed artist and illustrator N.C. Wyeth in Pennsylvania, he met his future wife, Wyeth’s oldest daughter, Henriette.
After a decade on the East Coast, the Hurds settled at their New Mexico ranch at San Patricio, where Hurd mastered the Southwestern landscapes he loved painting. He also specialized in murals, his largest of which is at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
During World War II, Hurd was a war correspondent for Life magazine.
In 1967, Hurd was commissioned to paint what was to have been President Lyndon B. Johnson’s official portrait. Because Johnson allowed Hurd only one sitting, the artist had to rely on photographs to finish the portrait, which Johnson declared as “the ugliest thing I ever saw.”
The Johnson portrait is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Hurd died in 1984 at age 80.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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