Garden Walk

Garden Walk by artist Barbra Smolen was located in the King Village neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mural is a formal garden scene recalling a more idyllic and peaceful time but with a sky whose red, unsettled clouds acknowledge the tensions of inner-city life. The composition was influenced by a number of things. The unfinished the concrete oval in the lot became the shape of the pool in the mural. The landscape and figures are adapted from a Dutch 18th landscape of a formal garden. The figures in the mural reflect the individual who live in the community surrounding it. The sky, which is very dramatic and even somewhat menacing, was intended as a “reality check” to the pastoral theme and an acknowledgement that the community has to work to maintain its harmony and beauty, just like cultivating a garden.

Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location (covered by adjacent construction in 2018).