Czech immigration mural rededicated in new Cedar Rapids home

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — A decades-old mural depicting the Czech immigrant experience was rededicated at its new location in the Cherry Building in New Bohemia.

David and Lijun Chadima, owners of the building at 329 10th Ave. SE, a 1919 former dairy equipment facility in New Bohemia that is now home to artists and local businesses, showcased the mural during the First Thursday Art Walk on Sept. 5, 2024.

Artist Kathryn Levin, who painstakingly cleaned and restored the mural, discussed the process she used in the restoration work, which included filling in gaps where the mural had been cut in 1981 to fit shelving and other fixtures when the building was modernized.

“We’re very proud of this. It tells a lot of the Czech immigrant experience in Iowa,” David Chadima said, during the first formal public viewing of the mural. “It’s a great fit with the Cherry Building and with the neighborhood down here, too.”

The Západní Česko-Bratrská Jednota, or Western Bohemian Fraternal Association, commissioned artist Edwin Bruns (1899-1970) to create the mural for its then-new building in 1959 at 1900 First Ave. NE.

Bruns, an alumnus of the Art Institute of Chicago and close friend of renowned Iowa artist Grant Wood, spent eight months researching and painting the mural on imported hand-woven Belgian linen canvas.

When the insurance association, later known as Western Fraternal Life Association and then BetterLife, relocated its headquarters, employees reached out to Save CR Heritage in hopes of ensuring the mural did not end up discarded, as a potential new owner intended to demolish the building.

Read more: Rescuing a Czech work of art

The nonprofit group’s volunteers, with the guidance of a mural artist, successfully removed the piece, which had been displayed in two sections.

Save CR Heritage reached out to multiple entities to find a suitable location for the mural in a visible spot in Cedar Rapids. Most cited space limitations or expenses associated with installing the mural before the Chadimas found the perfect location for the 5-foot-high by 31-foot-long piece in the Cherry Building.

The couple pointed out depictions in the mural of Czech composer Antonin Dvořák seated as he composed the New World Symphony, surrounded by inspirations for the masterpiece, including African American spirituals and Native American drumming.

The mill at Spillville, Iowa, where Dvořák spent the summer of 1893, is also shown in the mural.

In other portions, Bruns symbolically depicts Czech immigration, with a central figure of Columbia — the female personification of the United States — next to the torch of freedom, flanked by Tomáš Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, and President Abraham Lincoln.

The mural also illustrates the Charles Bridge in Prague, villages and cities where Czech immigrants originated, a sod house of early pioneers, and the frame house of Alois Blaha, the first secretary of the Western Bohemian Fraternal Association, where the national office was located for its first 10 years at 14th Avenue and Second Street SE in Cedar Rapids.

ZCBJ moved its headquarters from the house to a new building in 1908 that still stands at Third Street and 12^th Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids. Now known as The Olympic, the building also is depicted in the mural.

Guests at the rededication included longtime Western Fraternal Life Association employee Phil Torticill, who noted that the late Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska was instrumental in commissioning the mural, and former employee Jack Minder, one of the people who reached out to Save CR Heritage.

Both had seen the mural in its previous location for years on an almost daily basis and were grateful that it had been saved and restored.

“It looks great,” Minder said.

Related: Historic Cherry Building celebrates centennial

See more from the mural rededication, below: