Edward Laning

{{Infobox artist

| name = Edward Laning

| image = Archives of American Art - Edward Laning - 2217 CROPPED.jpg

| image_size = 200

| alt =

| caption = Edward Laning, 1937
(Archives of American Art collection)

| birth_name =

| birth_date = April 26, 1906

| birth_place = Petersburg, Illinois, United States

| death_date = May 1981

| death_place = New York City

| known_for = Painting

| training = Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago, Art Students League

| movement =

| notable_works = "The Story of the Recorded Word"

| spouse = Mary Fife Laning

| patrons =

| awards =

| elected =

| website =

}}

Edward Laning (1906–1981) was an American painter.

Career

=Background=

Laning was born in 1906 in Petersburg, Illinois.

He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago (1923–1924) and the University of Chicago, (1925–1927). He also studied at the Art Students League with Max Weber, Boardman Robinson, John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller (1927–1930).

=Paintings, murals=

In 1931, Laning's work formed part of the first major show at the newly formed Whitney Museum of American Art.

{{cite news

| title = Edward Laning

| work = The New York Times

| date = May 9, 1981

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/09/obituaries/edward-laning.html

| accessdate = January 31, 2013}} He painted murals for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression as well as a post office mural in Rockingham, North Carolina (1937).Park, Marlene and Gerald E. Markowitz, Democratic vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1984 In 1935, he painted the Ellis Island murals (chosen over Japanese-American artist Hideo Noda):

It was a great relief to PWA, to the College Art Association, to Architects Harvey Wiley Corbett and Chester Holmes Aldrich and to Edward Laning last week to learn that Commissioner of Immigration & Naturalization Rudolph Reimer at Ellis Island had finally approved Artist Laning's designs for murals for the dining hall at New York's immigrant station. Cheered, Muralist Laning and his two assistants, James Rutledge and Albert Soroka, hustled to get his cartoons on tempera and gesso panels as soon as possible.

{{cite magazine

| title = Ellis Island's Railroad

| magazine = Time

| date = 16 September 1935

| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,749021,00.html

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111222071229/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,749021,00.html

| url-status = dead

| archive-date = December 22, 2011

| accessdate = 31 January 2013}}

In 1937, he painted murals in the New York Public Library, including his most famous work, The Story of the Recorded Word.

In 1980, Laning came to Ogden, Utah, to personally oversee the installation of his two 50-foot by 12-foot murals in the Grand Lobby of the historic Ogden Railway Station. The northern side depicts the Union Pacific company coming from Omaha, Nebraska, and the southern side depicts the Central Pacific coming from Sacramento, California. The National Academy of Design of New York City granted $100,000 to Union Station as his commission.

=Teaching=

Laning taught art at the Art Students League (1932–33, 1945–50, 1952), and the Kansas City Art Institute.[http://www.usbr.gov/museumproperty/art/biolanin.html Biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613145409/http://www.usbr.gov/museumproperty/art/biolanin.html |date=June 13, 2011 }}, accessed December 2011 He was a member of the American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers and the National Academy of Design. He served as president of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1970 to 1974.{{Cite web |url=http://nationalsocietyofmuralpainters.com/ |title=National Society of Mural Painters |access-date=August 4, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015204537/http://nationalsocietyofmuralpainters.com/ |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |url-status=dead }}

=Death=

Laning died in 1981 in New York, survived by his wife, artist Mary Fife Laning.

Works

Laning's works have been displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago (1945), the Carnegie Institute (1945), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (1944–45). His works can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Richmond Professional Institute. In addition, his works can be seen at the New York Public Library and U.S. post offices in Rockingham, North Carolina and Bowling Green, Kentucky. In assessing his works, the Smithsonian Institution writes:

In his work, Laning expressed his disenchantment with the political and social uncertainties of post-Depression America and his perception of the degradation of American values; in several paintings he used fire as a symbol of impending societal destruction.{{cite web| title = Edward Laning| publisher = Smithsonian Institution| date = | url = http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=2791| accessdate = 31 January 2013}}

=Art=

Fourteenth Street (1931){{cite web

| url = http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/BreakingGround/Images

| title = Breaking Ground: The Whitney's Founding Collection, April 28-September 18, 2011

| publisher = Whitney Museum of American Art

| date =

| accessdate = January 31, 2013

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130407014908/http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/BreakingGround/Images

| archive-date = April 7, 2013

| url-status = dead

}}

1929 Crash (1929?)
Pantheon (1937)
New York Public Library murals (1937):
The Story of the Recorded Word
Learning to Read{{cite web

| url = http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/catalogroom.html

| title = General Research Division

| publisher = New York Public Library

| accessdate = January 31, 2013

| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130415111453/http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/catalogroom.html

| archive-date = April 15, 2013

| url-status = dead

}}

History of the Written Word

{{cite web

| url = http://www.nypl.org/node/178

| title = McGraw Rotunda

| publisher = New York Public Library

| date =

| accessdate = January 31, 2013}}

The Role of the Immigrant in the Industrial Development of American (1937)
The Past as Connecting Threads in Human Life, triptych, USPO, Rockingham, North Carolina (1937)
The Escape
Coney Island Beach Scene (1938)

{{cite web

| url = http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/blog/collection/813/

| title = Coney Island: 1930's Fun on a Budget

| publisher = Weatherspoon Art Museum

| date = April 12, 2012

| accessdate = January 31, 2013}}

Prometheus (1942)

{{cite web

| url = http://culturenow.org/entry&permalink=01946&seo=Prometheus_Edward-Laning

| title = Prometheus

| publisher = Culture Now

| date =

| accessdate = January 31, 2013}}

Armor in Alaska (1943){{cite book |editor1-last=Stewart |editor1-first=Richard W. |title=American Military History, Volume II: The United States Army in a Golbal Era, 1917-2003 |date=2009 |publisher=Center of Military History, United States Army |location=Washington, D.C |isbn=978-0-16-072541-8 |page=174 |url=https://archive.org/details/americanmilitary0000unse_h7f2/page/174/ |access-date=18 June 2024}}
Kiska Raid (1943){{cite web

| url = http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH-V2/AMH%20V2/chapter6.htm

| title = World War II: The War Against Japan

| publisher = U.S. Army

| accessdate = January 31, 2013

| archive-date = August 3, 2013

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130803062258/http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH-V2/AMH%20V2/chapter6.htm

| url-status = dead

}}

Florence August 1944 (1944)

{{cite web

| url = http://blogs.brown.edu/askb/2010/10/20/world-war-two-drawings-acquired/

| title = World War Two drawings acquired

| publisher = Brown University

| accessdate = January 31, 2013}}

Saturday Afternoon at Sportsmans Park ({{circa|1945}})The Art of Baseball at the Concord Museum https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/west/2015/04/13/photos-the-art-baseball-the-concord-museum/mB7fSvurFaVOqiSqfXKVFK/story.html?pic=5
The Building (c. 1955)
Union Pacific (north side mural at Union Station) (1980)
Central Pacific (south side mural at Union Station) (1980)