Great football teams like the 2017 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles have a “next man up” credo.

Knowing team members will get injured in this violent game, they expect the next player in line to step right in and compete successfully.

But you wouldn’t expect the genteel art world to need a similar mentality.

“The Dream Garden” Tiffany Mosaic in Philadelphia, however — planned for what was then called the Curtis Building — went through 10 artist candidates before it was installed in 1916. And three of them died along the way.

Was It a Coincidence?

An article by Kim Sajet, Director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, titled “From Grove to Garden: The Making of the Dream Garden Mosaic,” said that Edward Bok, who commissioned the work, finally came to believe “some fatal star” hung over the work.

Bok was the executive charged with developing all decorations inside the company’s new headquarters.

When the building opened in 1910, no majestic artwork hung in the lobby off Sixth Street above Walnut Street. Instead, “visitors were greeted by strategically placed topiary trees,” Sajet said.

Mystified by the unexpected and long delays he experienced, Bok wrote this message to Maxfield Parrish (the eventual artist): “The hoodoo that is following me in regard to that panel is simply amazing! Just think of the record: Abbey, Howard Pyle, and de Monvel” [all dead]. “You had better get a little anxious about your dealings with me, because the moment I have mural relations with a man, he seems to run off the Earth!”

The Artists’ Deaths Appear to Have Been Random Coincidence

But in Parrish, the 10th artist was the charm. His three-by-nine-foot rendering of a real garden at his New Hampshire summer home, The Oaks, “became the template that the Tiffany craftsmen used to create the final mosaic,” Sajet said.

The resulting 15-foot-by-49-foot masterpiece — which includes 24 panels, 260 colors, and 100,000 pieces of iridescent glass weighing about four tons — took six months to install. And it was well worth the wait.

Even today, 106 years later, the work enjoys great acclaim from both visitors and tourists entering The Curtis lobby.

Fortunate residents of The Lyndon at The Curtis — luxury apartments added in 2018 — pass the mosaic every day on their way in and out of the building.

Bok Brought Art into American Homes

Bok, Vice President of the Curtis Publishing Company and an heir through marriage, was also managing editor of Ladies’ Home Journal, which had reached one million subscriptions in 1902.

Once four-color presses became available, Bok began producing magazine reproductions by famous painters in the magazine. His goal: to improve pictures on the walls of American homes.

He succeeded and circulation boomed as well, jumping to 1,750,000 copies. Ladies’ Home Journal also distributed more than 70 million productions of art nationally, Sajet said.

Interesting Oddities

• Cyrus Curtis, head of Curtis Publishing Company, wanted art to be available to the general public “in their workplace and their everyday lives, rather than in museums.” He certainly accomplished that with “The Dream Garden” Tiffany Mosaic.
• A bronze marker in the lobby claims the first three painters died. Sajet’s article said two of the first three selected died. After that, some were rejected, some declined the job, and one more died. Parrish himself, who already was doing a huge mural on the top floor of the building, initially declined “The Dream Garden” assignment, too.
• As I note in my book, Real Philly History, Real Fast, Parrish and Comfort’s interactions behind the scenes were tumultuous. After the mosaic was completed, Parrish would never discuss it. For his part, Comfort once said he “improved” upon Parrish’s original design.
• Parrish, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was one of the most successful commercial artists in the country. Wikipedia said he earned over $100,000 a year by 1910, when houses could be bought for $2,000. The National Museum of American Illustration reportedly said his painting “Daybreak” was the most successful art print of the 20th century.
• Philadelphia almost lost “The Dream Garden” Tiffany Mosaic in 1998, when the estate of the owner agreed to sell it to Las Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn. A huge Philadelphia uproar ensued. Fortunately, The Pew Charitable Trusts, along with the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Arts, Bryn Mawr College, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts worked together to purchase it for $3.5 million. PAFA is now the permanent owner and custodian, and the piece will remain in its original location. Whew!

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Jim Murphy is a writer, certified tour guide, and Philly resident who lives inside the limits of William Penn’s original, two-square-mile planned city. He is the author of Real Philly History, Real Fast: Fascinating Facts and Interesting Oddities about the City’s Heroes and Historic Sites.

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