Walls of Light: The Murals of Walter Anderson

by Anne R. King, Stephen E. Ambrose (Foreword), John Lawrence (Photographer)

Although his art took form in many mediums, this lush and colorful book is the first to focus on Walter Anderson’s murals. Anderson’s home was in Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where he spent his lifetime recording the region’s flora, fauna, life forces, light, and history of his native Gulf Coast. He is known today as mythmaker, local legend, mystic poet, painter, inveterate voyager, and, most of all, brilliant artist.
Walls of Light presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of Anderson as muralist. His major mural projects, now housed in the Walter Anderson Museum of Art and the adjacent Ocean Springs Community Center, reflect the artist’s own arduous journey and struggle to balance a sense of social obligation with a greater desire to exist in a state of oneness with nature.

The WPA murals ( Ocean Past and Present ), painted for the auditorium of the Ocean Springs Public School, were government commissions. They are the work of an emerging artist. The expansive murals in the Community Center reveal a mature artist sharing his vision of the Gulf Coast’s history and environment with a public audience. The Shearwater Cottage murals, seen in their entirety only after his death, manifest a private, personal epiphany in the light of Anderson’s immediate surroundings. Watercolors and block prints―individual works that can be pieced together to create a greater whole―are also viewed as the work of Anderson the muralist.

Walls of The Murals of Walter Anderson further expands our understanding of the life work of this richly complex artist.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1999

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading of Walter Anderson’s Oldfields murals in his wife’s memoir, Approaching the Magic Hour: Memories of Walter Anderson, I looked online for images; finding none, I bought this book. Oldfields was the name of the pecan-plantation home his father-in-law owned; at one point three generations lived there together. Mr. Grinstead refused to let his son-in-law paint on the surfaces of its expansive white walls, so Anderson painted on very large sheets of charcoal paper and hung those on the walls instead. After Anderson’s death, these paintings were found in a trunk in the family workshop. The ‘murals’ are of lines of cows; spirals of birds; ducks; pelicans; waterspouts; and more cows; even street scenes of New Orleans.

I’m familiar with, and have seen in person, the other murals detailed in other sections of the book. Redding S. Sugg Jr. in his A Painter's Psalm: The Mural from Walter Anderson's Cottage has already extensively discussed the "little room" murals; but it’s nice to have the images in a larger format here. And though I’ve perused the murals of the Ocean Springs Community Center multiple times, on my next visit I’ll have new things to look for, and a new way of observing, thanks to King’s insights.

[Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great art book with reproductions of Anderson's murals. The format is larger than in _A Painter's Psalm_ and King's book includes murals from Oldfields, the Ocean Springs public school, and the community center.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchased this in very good used condition online after a visit to the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs MS where I was able to view the community center murals, the Shearwater Cottage Little Room, and the school murals now at the museum. What a wonderful artist! There is no way one can look at this work and not feel the exuberance and joy of creativity. This has been my year to discover Walter Anderson and his work, and I'm so glad I did. Next, I'll read a biography and learn more about his self-imposed exile on Horn Island. Anderson was definitely a mystic and great artist. This collection of short essays about the murals and excellent reproductions is proof.