CAPA Student Mural by Jesse Vaughan and Pete Lambert

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

In the 90’s, a wise lady and homeowner in Oakland hired some artists from the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA) to paint a mural on a garage wall. She realized then what we’ve realized since we began mapping all the murals – that the street artists tend to respect other artists. Her primary goal was to stop the constant tagging that kept showing up on that wall, and her efforts were mostly successful. For 20 years no one defaced the artwork and even now the damage is relatively minor.
She requested an angel to be included in the design, but left the rest of it up to the artists.
Jasmine K. contacted us with the story and this old photo of a portion of the mural before the vines and weeds overtook it.

Jasmine told us that about 10 years after the mural went up, someone from the city noticed it and realized that there was no permit for it. They wanted the artwork removed, but a strong community effort along with the help of our current mayor (then councilman) Bill Peduto saved it. This artwork was especially important to the neighborhood because one of the artists died in 2004, at the very young age of 23. No one wanted to lose this piece of Jesse Vaughan.
We weren’t able to find out the last name of the other artist that worked on this. If anyone knows Pete, please send us an email.
In 2015 the woman that commissioned this mural contacted us:

Hi! I am the "wise lady" who commissioned the mural and Jasmine's mom. I wanted a mural on that wall because I could see it from my kitchen window, and the view from my kitchen was so abominable - a garbage dumpster overflowing with garbage. We were trying to figure out how to go about getting the owner's permission to put a mural on their garage wall, and then learned that they wanted to sell the property, so we bought it. The year was 1996. Thank you for featuring our mural and this story. Best regards, Nan

Randy Pausch Bridge by multiple artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

The late Professor Randy Pausch was an inspiration to the world. After viewing his Last Lecture video, or reading his book you can’t help looking at things a bit differently. What a tremendous loss for his family, friends, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and the world when he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2008.

This professor had a profound impact on us all. CMU chose to build a memorial to him on their campus, and we couldn’t imagine a nicer one than the Randy Pausch Bridge.

During the day is doesn’t appear to be exceptional. It’s a nice enough looking pedestrian walkway, but you wouldn’t really think twice about it as you crossed between the Purnell Center and Gates and Hillman Center buildings. At night though... well that’s a different story. At night the bridge comes alive in ever changing colors. Using more than 7000 LEDs, the computer generated patterns were designed to represent the metaphors that Professor Pausch used in The Last Lecture. There’s a description of each of them on a CMU web page. It is a beautiful tribute to a beautiful human being. We hope the students that use it never forget the man that inspired it.

A Scene from a Garden by multiple artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

This is one of two Oakland murals done in 2013 by the Green Team of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, in partnership with the MLK Community Mural Project.

An article in the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation’s newsleter said residents decided the tone of the murals. They wanted a tranquil feel that reflected their vision for a greener Oakland. The newsletter quotes one of the young artists as saying I think the mural represents how the Oakland community has become more natural. The tree within the mural represents life and growth in Oakland.

In that same article we read that lead artist Olga Brinda used photos of her mother’s garden to create the final design.

Alphabetasaurus by Carl Goldman, Multiple Artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

The dinosaurs from the Carnegie Museum’s DinoMite Days were all adopted and moved to their new homes years ago. A handful remain scattered around the city in public places and those are the ones we’ve included in this website.

This is Alphabetasaurus. The letters were done by the students and teachers at Phillips Elementary School on the Southside. Their art teacher, Carl Goldman, oversaw the project.

Rainbow Ravioli by Stevo Sadvary

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

This tile mural is in an otherwise nondescript apartment complex near Carnegie Mellon University. Stevo Sadvary wanted an international flavor for the mosaic he would install here. With a nod to Picasso, he duplicated patterns found in Picasso’s Girl Before A Mirror done in 1903.

Using similar colors and patterns, he used a small portion of the original painting as his inspiration and enlarged the design to create this mural. It really brightens the area between these buildings nicely.

Vintage Coca-Cola Ads by unknown artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

Two vintage murals for Coke on adjacent buildings. Yes, they’re commercial, but the historic nature of the ads compelled us to include them.

A Mural of Bouncing Beach Balls by William Schlough

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

In 2006 the Oakland Business Improvement District (OBID) had a program called Stores and Doors designed to renovate some of the local businesses’ facades. Within that program they had the Doors of Oakland Public Art Project that paired artists with unused doors in the central business district. Artist Will Schlough said in his blog that the objective was to beautify and reclaim the streetscape.

Information on the project is sparse and conflicting. We found a map that showed 9 doors in the program, but in articles written for the ribbon cutting ceremony, they said there were 9 artists and 7 doors. Whatever there might have been originally, there are currently 7 doors to see. We did find the location where an eighth door once was, but no information on it. There’s a plaque at that location (for Door #1), but no door.

This mural is Door #4 by Will Schlough. On his own website he lists it as untitled (Beach Balls). He doesn’t say much more about the design or the project.

We thought this mural was especially fun. The beach balls tumbling down a spiral staircase are sure to get a smile from people walking past. Mr Schlough did a nice job with the Trompe l’oeil technique. You almost want to jump out of the way when you approach it.

Mosaic Mural at Holy Spirit Church by unknown artist

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

The Holy Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church broke ground on this location in Oakland in 1960. According to their website, the stained glass windows and exterior facade triptych subsequently were blessed on the 11th of September in 1966.

The church offers a virtual tour on their website where Monsignor Duker provides this information about the mosaic mural:

It is one of the four largest in the country. It is created from seven million pieces of Venetian glass. It was made in Pietro Santo, Italy. The mosaic was shipped to Pittsburgh in sections and reassembled by Rudolph N. Rohn Co. The center panel shows the Trinity nature of God, while the left panel shows twelve figures from the Old Testament and twelve figures on the right panel from the New Testament.

Iron City Bikes mural by multiple artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

On the back side of Iron City Bikes, this mural has all the classic images to represent Oakland. Appropriately, it has lots of cyclists (of course we noticed that right away), the Cathedral of Learning, Dippy come–to–life, and Pitt’s mascot prowling at both ends along with a few other Oakland landmarks.

This portion of the mural was already there when Lucas Stock and Temisan Adoki were asked to complete a mural. The bike shop owner wanted to keep the Cathedral of Learning image done earlier by Atomic Arts, so Lucas and Temison built their mural around this image.

They did a pretty seamless job of integrating the old with the new. We never knew that it hadn't all been done at the same time until they told us.

Composit photo by Lucas Stock

A Mural of Oakland by multiple artists

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

In 2005, the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation came up with a long term plan for this community – the Oakland 2025 Master Plan. Part of it involved more public art, and this mural was one of the projects they’ve since sponsored in an effort toward meeting that goal.

Meetings were held for community input on what this mural should look like. It was to represent and celebrate the Oakland community, showing the neighborhood’s diversity and character. The residents got to say something about how that was going to be done. After the first meeting, sketches were done based on the initial ideas and at a follow–up public meeting the proposals were considered and the final design selected.

MLK Community Murals Project handled the artistic side of things, and Oakland youths were hired and trained to execute the design. We can readily identify many of the neighborhood landmarks – places and things that make Oakland unique.

Interpretations of Oakland by Jonathan Laidacker

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

The black and white background in the mural is an image of the same (century old) building that the mural is painted on. Scattered around the top are photographs of the neighborhood today and toward the bottom you see two prominent Oakland figures.

It’s doubtful that anyone wouldn’t recognize the larger of the two figures. Seeming to form out of a mass of dots, our beloved Mr Rogers dominates this mural. It might be titled Interpretations of Oakland, but to many Pittsburgher’s it’s the Mr Rogers mural. I read somewhere a while ago that the red dots pouring out from the image of Mr Rogers represented love. I haven’t been able to locate that reference again, so I can’t give proper credit or verify that my memory is correct. Still, it seems an appropriate interpretation.

There’s another smaller figure of a woman done in the same technique. That’s Mary Schenley. Maybe not as well known as Mr Rogers these days, but she also had a huge impact on Oakland and Pittsburgh. Mary Croghan Schenley inherited a lot of land in the area. In fact she was the largest property owner in the county in her time. She donated many tracts to various groups, but one of her larger donations to Pittsburgh was the 300 acres for the establishment of Schenley Park in 1889.