Talk: Hidden Murals and a Lost Artist In-Person / Online
For many decades the work of a distinguished Latin American artist lay hidden beneath the wallpaper in a cottage in Feltville—Union County’s “Deserted Village". Eventually uncovered by volunteer maintenance workers, the colorful images depicting rural Mexican life displayed a compelling talent. Research revealed them to be the work of Roberto de la Selva, a native of Nicaragua. De la Selva became renowned as a bas relief sculptor in wood, working as part of the movement known as Mexican Modernism in which artists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco celebrated post-Revolution social reform and the heritage of indigenous cultures.
Speakers Pricilla Hayes (in person) and Ron Burkard (from Oklahoma, on Zoom) will discuss the life and works of Roberto de la Selva, and the discovery and restoration of the Feltville murals..
The program will be held in person and online. Please register to receive the Zoom link.
PRISCILLA HAYES left a career in law to become a writer. Along the way, she developed a career of activism in trash and recycling policy and school gardening. In addition, Priscilla has spent more than 30 years researching the history of the “Deserted Village” of Feltville, in Union County’s Watchung Reservation. Early in her research, she interviewed Edward Engel, nephew to Edward Grassmann, owner of much of the village in the 1920s. Grassmann had commissioned murals on the interior walls of one of his cottages at the village. His files identified the long unknown muralist as Nicaraguan artist Roberto de la Selva. Priscilla plunged into researching de la Selva, and trying to save the murals, which were the only ones known to have been done by de la Selva, who was a sculptor.
Art collector RON BURKARD was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. In the mid-1930’s his maternal grandmother began traveling throughout Mexico as a buyer of art, handicrafts, clothing and jewelry. In Mexico City she met Roberto de la Selva and began purchasing his bas relief carvings for resale. She liked them so much that she gifted several to her family and kept three until she passed away in 1993 at the ripe old age of 94.
In 1963 Ron was hired by the international organization CARE and assigned to Mexico City. In subsequent years Ron was assigned to Colombia, then Nicaragua, Peru, India, Bangadesh and New York. In 1983 Ron and his very understanding wife returned to Mexico City where Ron decided to try to locate Roberto de la Selva, only to learn that Roberto had passed away in northern Mexico in 1957. A Sunday visit to Mexico City’s flea market turned up a de la Selva bas relief, Ron’s first. Ron also met friends of the late Roberto, two of his nephews and his sister. Only then did Ron learn that Roberto was originally from Nicaragua.
Ron acquired the de la Selva bust of Nicaraguan hero Sandino from Juan de la Selva. It has been displayed in the National Portrait Gallery and other museums and spent several years on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art. In addition to inheriting several de la Selva carvings from family Ron has avidly sought more from various sources. He presently owns more than forty.
The San Antonio Museum of Art owns five of ten large bas relief carvings Roberto de la Selva carved in the early 1930’s. All five and three others that are privately owned were displayed in the 2016 exhibition “ROBERTO DE LA SELVA - Modern Mexican Masterpieces in Wood”). Ron loaned the Sandino bust and several other pieces from his collection for that successful exhibition.
Ron currently lives in Oklahoma.