03/04/2026
No, the mural isn’t miraculously back up, sorry. This is an old photo.
Here’s an update on the wall at 400 W Walnut.
We talked to David, the owner of the building, Monday morning. He’s moving his business, into the building. The walls were painted to prep them for a patriotic mural he’s hired an artist to paint there. He’s a veteran and his business serves veterans and he was excited to invest in a big piece of art to honor them. He didn’t realize how much love there was for this mural and there were no restrictions from the city to prevent him from painting over it.
We’re not apologizing or defending what he did. It sucks. But what does a healthy community do next?
We connected with Nicole Brown, who had been working over the weekend to find potential locations for a mural, get access to the original painting it was based on, and get funding to recreate it. We told David we’re working to get the mural recreated and he said he wants to help. We think getting the mural painted again is really achievable.
The moment is a bigger opportunity to show how much our community cares about public art, renew interest in Robert E. Smith’s work and legacy, and start making changes that prevent incidents like this from happening.
We’d like the recreation of this mural to be a community effort. Maybe not in the actual painting (we’ll leave that to professionals), but in the funding and coordination. As soon as we can, we’ll be sharing a way for people to give to recreate the mural. Excess funds will be reserved for maintenance and restoration of other murals downtown. The funds will be managed by a trustworthy arts nonprofit.
We think the best ending to this story is one where Robert E. Smith’s art gets a prominent place downtown again, a new mural honoring veterans joins the cityscape, and this moment is a turning point for how we treat public art downtown.
