@ Shaker Library
20 SUMMER 2018 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
Since its founding the Library has acquired a growing
collection of public art. Some highlights at Main
Library include a large mural depicting scenes from
Alice in Wonderland, which was purchased for Woods
Branch by Society Bank (now KeyBank). The mural
was created by Andrew Karoly and Louis Szanto,
Hungarian-American artists from New York, who
dominated the mural painting scene in Cleveland
after World War II. (One of their murals hangs in the Children’s Ward at New York City’s
Bellevue Hospital.) The pair mainly worked through the Shaker Square-based Irwin and
Gormley Co. interior decorators, and painted over 30 murals for local businesses.
“The Sleepy ABC,” a three-panel collage by author/illustrator Esphyr Slobodkina,
which was given to the Library on permanent loan by the artist’s stepdaughter and
Shaker resident, the late Charlotte Van Stolk, enhances Main Library’s children’s room.
The now-defunct Cooperative Nursery School at Plymouth Church financed “Childhood
Unabridged,” four pastel and acrylic pictures of children at play by artist Heather Drago.
A fabric art quilt created by Shaker children and adults hangs on the wall in the
Children’s Room at Woods Branch along with a letter from Jack Prelutsky, whose poem,
Children, Children Everywhere, inspired the 1992 intergenerational quilting project. The
project was underwritten by Friends of the Shaker Library and coordinated by textile
artist Ruta Butkus Marino.
Colorful stained glass art by Al
Brickel of New Daisterre Glas is located
in the center bay window and flows into
the tops of two adjoining windows in the
Children’s Room at Woods Branch. The art
was donated in 1996 by Lucille Winston in
memory of her parents.
The Library is at the center of the
community and provides an ideal place to
promote and display the talents of local
artists and community groups. When the
City wanted to display the architectural
entries in its Shaker Design Competition
for the Moreland neighborhood, the Library
was one of the sites chosen. The Nature
Center Photography Club took advantage
of the Library’s gallery space to display
winning entries in its photography contest,
and the Shaker Schools use the gallery for
its yearly Art Exposed exhibits to showcase
students’ work and to highlight the depth
and breadth of the art curriculum.
Cultivating
Community
Art
Libraries are places that
nurture an individual’s free
and creative expression
– and that includes art
Walk into either Library
building and you can
enjoy art on a regular
basis, from small exhibits in
glass cases, to visual art hung
on reading room walls, or
exhibited in the formal gallery
on Main Library’s second floor.
/WWW.SHAKER.LIFE