WPA Murals at Laguna Honda Hospital

Laguna Honda Hospital
375 Laguna Honda Boulevard
Foresthill

Professions by Glen Wessels is one of five murals in the entry to the older wing of Laguna Honda Hospital. These five 8′ x 6′ murals were painted in 1934 with funding from the PWAP (Public Works Art Projects).

Glenn Anthony Wessels was born in Cape Town, South Africa on December 15, 1895, the son of a wealthy Dutch diamond merchant. The Wessels family moved to California about 1902, having lost everything in the Boer War. Wessels earned his B.F.A.  at the California School of Arts and Crafts and his M.A. degree at UC Berkeley. He began his art career as an illustrator for the San Francisco Call. He furthered his art training at AcadeŽmie Colarossi in Paris, and with Karl Hofer in Berlin and Hans Hofmann in Munich. While in Munich, he became Hofmann’s assistant and in 1930 returned to the U.S. as his interpreter and guide.

Wessels teaching career began at the California School of Arts and Crafts but he also taught at Mills College in Oakland, Washington State College, and the University of California Berkeley. He painted these five murals as part of the Federal Art Project and later became technical adviser and superviser in the Oakland area. In the early 1930s Wessels was the art critic for the San Francisco Fortnightly, and between 1934 and 1940, he was art editor for the San Francisco Argonaut. Wessels retired from teaching in 1963 and was invited by Governor Edmund (Pat) Brown to become a California State Commissioner of Fine Arts. He was a member of  the San Francisco Art Association, Friends of Photography, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Oakland Art Museum.

Wessels final years were spent in Placerville, California where he died on July 23, 1982.

These murals were lost for a time until they were “rediscovered” in 1981 when the hospital was being refurbished. Mayor Dianne Feinstein issued a proclamation in Wessels honor.