Louise Emerson Ronnebeck - Denver

Denver

Besides her Section murals, Emerson was commissioned to execute many murals and frescoes in the Denver area, including, Kent School for Girls (1933), Morey Junior High School (1934) (still extant but in deplorable condition), the City and County Building (1935), the Church of the Holy Redeemer (1938), the Bamboo Lounge at the Cosmopolitan Hotel (1938) and the Robert W. Speer Memorial Hospital for Children (1940) (still extant, also in deplorable condition). She worked in tempera and oil, but fresco was Emerson’s preferred medium. Unfortunately, since frescoes are part of the architectural structure, many of them were lost when the buildings were torn down. Her shortest lived mural, however, was entitled The Nativity, painted on canvas and installed on the pediment of the City and County Building. As planned, it was only up for the Christmas season of 1935. The mural was 76 feet long and she completed it with the help of two assistants within two weeks after being asked to execute it. It was painted in sections in the basement of a Denver auditorium and it took three days to install. Additionally, in 1942, the Denver Defense Council called for volunteers to work in areas that people were best suited. Emerson volunteered to paint a mural for the Denver’s new USO Center and spent eight hours a day for three months painting a mural for the center. She pictured the peacetime pursuits of the then 26 United Nation countries who were then fighting the war. For this work the Governor of Colorado named her civilian “Hero of the Week”.