NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of the City of New York is presenting Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier’s Alice Mural, an exhibition spotlighting the rescue and restoration of New York’s most whimsical and historically significant public mural series.
Another Wonderland brings to light a remarkable example of New Deal-era public art, Alice of Wonderland Visiting New York, a mural cycle created by Abram Champanier for the children’s ward at Gouverneur Hospital between 1938 and 1940. Commissioned through the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project, Champanier reimagined Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in 1930s New York City. The result was a sixteen-panel mural—each panel over seven feet tall—blending fantasy and city life to uplift young patients and hospital staff, and adding color, movement, and magic into a space dedicated to healing.
Once it was installed, the work that Champanier titled Alice of Wonderland Visiting New York transported young patients into surreal and joyful scenes of Alice and her friends exploring iconic New York City landmarks—cramming into the subway, flying over the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building, parachuting into Coney Island, and enjoying an animal orchestra at the Central Park Children’s Zoo.
Though nearly lost after the hospital’s closure, fifteen of the original works were rescued and painstakingly conserved in a decades-long effort. The exhibition marks the first time that the mural series have been on complete display in nearly 50 years.
“At the Museum of the City of New York, we are committed to presenting the city’s rich and layered history through the lens of its people, institutions, and creative legacy,” said Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, Ronay Menschel Director and President. “Another Wonderland reintroduces an extraordinary WPA-era mural that captures both the artistic imagination of the 1930s and the evolving role of public institutions during that time. We are especially grateful to NYC Health + Hospitals, whose Arts in Medicine team champions the role of the arts in health and ensures that treasures from its art collection serve health and civic needs, and to the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, whose scholarship, advocacy, and thought partnership were essential in bringing this exhibition to fruition.”
The exhibition begins with the remarkable life of Abram August Champanier—a Jewish immigrant from Russian Poland who arrived at Ellis Island in 1905 and after high school studied at the Art Students League under notable artists of the time, including Frank Vincent DuMond and Kenneth Hayes Miller, whose students over the years included George Bellows and Reginald Marsh. In 1918, Champanier became a charter member of the Whitney Studio Club (the predecessor of the Whitney Museum of American Art), along with emerging and established artists including Stuart Davis, John Des Passos, Edward Hopper, Boardman Robinson, and Alexander Calder, as well as art historian and studio manager Juliana Force.
Champanier’s career intersected with a pivotal moment in American history: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s massive New Deal initiatives during the Depression included the Federal Art Project, designed to create jobs for artists and build civic spirit. Through the WPA, more than 10,000 artists were employed to bring beauty and inspiration to public spaces across the nation, including schools, libraries, and hospitals. New York City had more WPA hospital murals than any other city, and Champanier was hired for the City’s historic Gouverneur Hospital on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Larissa Trinder, Assistant Vice President, NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine commented: “Another Wonderland speaks directly to our mission at Arts in Medicine—to integrate creative expression into spaces of healing and care. We’re proud to collaborate with the Museum of the City of New York to share this powerful story of resilience, imagination, and the enduring impact of art in our public hospitals.”
Following the closure of Gouverneur Hospital, Champanier’s mural fell into disrepair—until 1981 when it was rescued by art conservators Alan and Denise Farancz and a team of volunteers. After decades of conservation work, fifteen of the original sixteen pieces were preserved. Fourteen of the original panels—along with two faithfully reproduced versions by Dawn D’Aulsio and John Lippert, the latter mentored by conservator Alan Farancz—will form the heart of Another Wonderland, presented alongside archival photographs, conservation documentation, original hospital ephemera, and earlier examples of Champanier's work.
“Bringing Champanier’s Alice murals to light after decades in obscurity has been a profound curatorial journey,” said Lilly Tuttle, Curator at the Museum of the City of New York. “These works are not only visually stunning, they’re a testament to the belief that art can uplift, inspire, and heal. Through this exhibition, we honor a moment in New York’s history when public investment in the arts transformed civic spaces and enriched the lives of everyday New Yorkers—including the city’s youngest and most vulnerable patients.”
“With Another Wonderland,” says Trinder, “we hope visitors feel the same sense of discovery and delight that these murals once gave to young patients decades ago.”
