Arnautoff Murals

The Roth Building in Palo Alto, California was constructed in 1932 to house the Palo Alto Medical Clinic. It operated as a medical facility until it was purchased by the City of Pal Alto in 2000. In June 2010, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also listed on the California Register of Historical Resources and as a Category 2 Building, a building of major regional importance, on Palo Alto’s Historic Inventory.

On the building’s north elevation a series of frescoes and hour decorative medallions were completed by famed Depression-era muralist, Victor Arnautoff, who was a student of Diego Rivera. The series of murals are recessed under the north elevation loggia and the four medallions are on the exterior wall of the loggia. The murals are medically themed. The four main color frescoes depict modern medical practices and are paired with smaller frescoes depicting the more primitive practices. The four exterior medallions depict Lister, Hippocrates, Pasteur, and Roentgen.

ARG Conservation Services (ARG/CS) was contracted by the City of Palo Alto’s Public Art Program to provide an existing conditions assessment of the murals and prepare recommendations to guide to development of specifications for the protection of the frescoes during construction as the Roth Building undergoes a comprehensive rehabilitation.