George Beattie’s Agriculture Murals

In 1956, George Beattie, an Atlanta-based artist, painted a series of eight murals that hung at the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s building in downtown Atlanta until 2011. The four on display in this exhibition address the state’s history of agriculture, beginning with a representation of the American Indians who originally lived in the region and including two that focus on slavery. When newly elected agriculture commissioner Gary Black took office, he decided to remove the murals from the walls of the building, saying, “I think we can depict a better picture of agriculture.” Rather than allow the works to languish in government storage, the museum offered to take them and to mount the display to promote discussion about what the murals portray, how they portray it and why they are controversial.

In an effort to contextualize the murals, the museum produced a series of short videos, in which academics examine the works’ problematic approach to such sensitive issues as slavery and representations of women. James Cobb, Spalding Distinguished Research Professor in the UGA department of history; Laura Adams Weaver from the UGA Institute of Native American Studies; Valerie Babb, professor of English and African American studies and director of the Institute for African American Studies; and Paul Manoguerra lent their talents to the effort, discussing the context for Beattie’s murals and the complex historical and cultural issues they raised in the 1950s and today. Those videos were mounted next to the murals for visitors to watch and are available on the museum’s YouTube page.