A Bridge of Wings
On the second floor of Building 262 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, is the 40' X 8' mural, A Bridge of Wings, completed in 1944. Chief artist for the mural was Sgt. Stuyvesant Van Veen, assisted by Corporals Eva Mirabal and Edward Sachs. Van Veen undertook the mural at the request of Major General Walter H. Frank, Commander of the Air Service Command, which had its headquarters in the recently-constructed building. Before entering the Army in World War II, Van Veen was already a noted artist who had worked with the famed American muralist Thomas Hart Benton, and had painted works displayed at the New York World's Fair of 1939. From 1949 to 1974 he taught painting and drawing at the City College of New York. He died in 1988.
Van Veen was 34 when he painted A Bridge of Wings, his 23rd mural. It represents the artist's vision for the Western Hemisphere in the post-World War II period, united by air power. The description of the mural's elements which follows was apparently composed at about the time of the mural's completion. Although the language incorporates stereotypes which current readers may now find offensive, the mural included several elements which were in advance of common American attitudes at the time. Van Veen's portrayal of black and white musicians playing in harmony appeared when the U. S. Armed Forces were still segregated by race, for example. Also noteworthy was the portrayal of women as professionals, equal to their male counterparts. He reinforced these two points by using himself as model for the bass player and his wife as model for the seated scientist.
... On the left, the Latin-American side, is seen Mother Latin America who pushes forward all her offerings for North America with her right hand, while with her left hand, which is also one of the mountains of that continent, she launches her end of the "Bridge of Wings," made up of the Constellation and a line of planes of the future. In turn are seen Spanish colonial architecture, a gold Incan mask, Colombian pottery, the china poblana costume of Mexico, and the guitarrista of all Latin countries. There are crude oil workers and oil wells, a coffee picker,(Detail Photo) a gatherer of bananas and cacao, the hand loom weaver who creates unique woven beauty, and the miner. In the background is the famous Sewell copper mine whose pyramidal shape suggests as well a Mayan pyramid. There, too, is the Argentinian gaucho, proud and surly, beside his whitefaced cattle, his horse, and famous rawhides for export. Then comes the sugarcane worker and the crude-rubber gatherer. Above all, stretching his hands out in a plea for brotherhood of man, is the figure of the Christ of the Corcovado, which stands 150 feet tall above the harbor of Rio de Janeiro.
The winged bridge crosses the western hemisphere and on the right side, from right to left, can be seen Mother North America. Her right hand, the smoke from North American factories, launches a C-74 (the supercargo plane); her left arm embraces a giant automobile press, pushing forth a line of new cars, a machine which symbolizes all of the industrial equipment which the U.S.A. produces for South American consumption. In turn are seen white and black jazz musicians playing in musical and racial harmony, while behind them is the "emancipated" American girl standing before The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, symbolic of our democracy. (Detail Photo)
The cotton picker unloads his crop, which, touched by the magic of the research scientist, turns to bolts of cloth. Behind her is another scientist who influences the oil refineries behind him on one side and the steel mills on the other. There is, too, a radio transmitter and a cameraman who represents our cinematic contributions, and finally the unique manifestation of 20th century cosmopolitan North America, "the burlesque stripper."(Detail Photo)
Van Veen completed a second mural, "Wright Field", which previously hung in Building 126, Area B, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1996 both A Bridge of Wings and Wright Field were formally added to the U. S. Air Force Art Collection.