Old Main (Pennsylvania State University) - Frescoes

Frescoes

The frescoes located on the upper walls of Old Main’s lobby were created from the ideas of professors Harold Dickson, J. Burn Helme and Francis E. Hyslop to pay a tribute to the University’s land grant education. With financial aid from the graduating class of 1932, the professors of art and architectural history hired artist Henry Varnum Poor, a well known fresco artist, to design and create the frescoes. He began sketches in 1939 and began painting in April 1940. It only took him four short months to complete his original sketches. He was rehired in 1948 to paint additional frescoes on either side of his original piece of work. The complete mural covers about 1,300 square feet (120 m2).