![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\" "\\"colin08\\"")
<\/a>He\u2019s an artistic gadfly and bohemian, engaging downtown denizens in animated discourse about politics and current events. But don\u2019t look for him at Starbucks on Congress Square. Because he\u2019s dead.<\/p>\nThe name Ralph Frizzell, a colorful artist born in 1909 who passed away at 33, has surfaced in the news because he created the two murals at Nathan Clifford Elementary School that are being moved to the new Ocean Avenue Elementary School.<\/p>\n
Herbert Adams\u2019s story for us in our September 2000 issue, \u201cMystery Mural,\u201d presents a contemporary appreciation for Frizzell\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
Painted in a Works Progress Administration (WPA) style Diego Rivera might have admired, Frizzell\u2019s mural Fishing<\/em> features \u201cfive sturdy Mainers hauling nets in a harbor below a guardian lighthouse,\u201d Adams writes. The second mural is Farming<\/em>, showing \u201cfive Aroostook potato farmers loading barrels full of bountiful harvest onto a horse-drawn wagon,\u201d with idealistic mountains in the background. Workers of the world unite!<\/p>\n Frizzell was just 31 when he created them, two years before experiencing a deadly heart attack\u00a0 \u201cwhile working as an assistant timekeeper at South Portland shipyards\u201d during World War II.<\/p>\n It plays wonderfully today to see a new generation of children busy in their computer lab below the allegorical sweep of Fishing<\/em>. But amid the buzz, a ghostly sense of the artist persists. His vanishing presence recalls Harry Lime in the film The Third Man<\/em>. If he\u2019s so much like a modern character, what was his life like back in the day?<\/p>\n \u201cIn person, Frizzell cut a dashing figure about town,\u201d Adams writes, quoting the artist\u2019s nephew, Charles Merrill. \u201cHe had a moustache, wavy dark hair, looked great in a good suit, and wore a real artist\u2019s beret.\u201d<\/p>\n His atelier was at 235 \u00bd Middle Street, which he kept with his painting partner, muralist Norman Thomas. Here, these nighthawks engaged in colloquy which \u201cbloomed late into the night\u2026Both partners flirted with socialism,\u201d Adams writes.<\/p>\n Frizzell also created \u201ca classic frieze of Grecian athletes for the indoor track of his alma mater, Deering High School, in 1938-1939\u201dwhich has since vanished or been painted over. Please email us at staff@portlandmonthly.com if you can tell us exactly how and why this artwork disappeared from view.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a rumored third mural Frizzell was developing\u2013which would have made it the centerpiece of the Nathan Clifford triptych. Years ago, Adams asked Frizzell\u2019s daughter, Jane Frizzell, a retired teacher, about it: \u201cIt was dark compared to my father\u2019s other work, in very dark forest colors, in chalk\u2026 I remember many men working on lots of logs, one working a peavey.\u201d Lost to time!<\/p>\n Like Frizzell, it\u2019s the one that got away. What\u2019s your unfinished business?<\/p>\n February\/March 2012 He\u2019s an artistic gadfly and bohemian, engaging downtown denizens in animated discourse about politics and current events. But don\u2019t look for him at Starbucks on Congress Square. Because he\u2019s dead. The name Ralph Frizzell, a colorful artist born in 1909 who passed away at 33, has surfaced in the news because he created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-5361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-februarymarch-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5361"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14481,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5361\/revisions\/14481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"