A large 16-panel mural depicting scenes from Lewis Carroll’s "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" has been fully restored and reassembled in New York, nearly nine decades after its original installation. Painted between 1938 and 1940 by Abram Champanier, the mural once adorned the children’s ward of Gouverneur Hospital in Lower Manhattan, a facility serving immigrant communities during the Depression era.

The mural features Alice and her fantastical companions interacting with iconic New York landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, and the 42nd Street Public Library. Champanier’s work was part of the Federal Art Project, a component of the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) that commissioned around 2,500 murals nationwide between 1935 and 1943 to provide employment during the Great Depression and bring art into public spaces.

Following the hospital’s closure and abandonment in the late 1970s, the mural faced deterioration. In a 1981 operation led by conservator Alan Farancz, a team removed the panels in a risky, guerrilla-style salvage effort to prevent their destruction during the building’s demolition. Although the initiative was undertaken with little official sanction, it saved much of the mural from total loss. The panels were subsequently restored piecemeal, with five being exhibited in the early 1990s, but further work halted for decades due to funding shortages.

Renewed interest and financial support, notably from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, have allowed the completion of restoration efforts. The entire collection, including two faithfully recreated panels of scenes that had been lost, is now on display at the Museum of the City of New York as part of the exhibition “Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier’s Alice Mural.” The exhibit opened recently and will run through September 20. Afterward, the mural will be relocated for long-term public viewing at NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur, several blocks from the original hospital site, where it will be visible across three floors, some panels facing the street.

NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine department, which manages a collection of approximately 8,000 artworks across about 70 community health centers citywide, views the mural’s restoration as a significant cultural milestone. The department, founded in 2018, emphasizes the therapeutic benefits of art in healthcare environments, aiming to enhance patient and staff well-being through visual engagement and stress reduction.

Born Abram Scherschewitz in 1896 in what is now Poland, Champanier immigrated to the United States as a child and later changed his surname, reportedly inspired by the deli his family operated. He studied at the Art Students League and was active among prominent artists of his time, including Edward Hopper and Alexander Calder. Among his varied commissions, Champanier’s Alice mural stands out as a rare surviving example of W.P.A. art created specifically for a children’s hospital ward.

The restoration process, overseen by conservators John Lippert and Dawn D’Aluisio, involved careful cleaning, repair, and re-creation of missing elements without artificially aging the new panels. This approach aimed to honor the mural’s original vibrancy.

The Alice Mural is among 14 Depression-era murals preserved from New York’s public hospital system, joining others located in Harlem, Bellevue, and Queens that continue to offer historical insight and artistic enrichment in medical settings. The successful restoration marks the conclusion of a decades-long effort initiated by Alan Farancz, who passed away in 2016, and celebrated by those who regard the mural as a unique cultural and historical treasure.