This article is part of the guide to FT Globetrotter in New York
Large frescoes dot Manhattan’s most historic bars immerse customers in a painted world. At St. Regis in Midtown, you’ll find a 30-foot Maxfield Parish hovering behind a hotel bar called “Old King Cole.” The three-panel mural commissioned at the turn of the 20th century depicts the cheerful king from the rhymes of an English nursery surrounded by his cocky courtiers.
Hotel Elgie’s Monkey Bar Uptown, the main bar is decorated with a variety of primates, etched by Eugene Eakin in 1946 and by Charles Bella in 1955. In 2009, illustrator Edward Sorrell was asked to add a mural inspired by his jazz era to his dining room.
These spots are institutions. Their artwork has come to define the very distinctive features of Manhattan, coloring the same irreverent and city walls you see in the city. Therefore, it has been a shame for the past decade to see a new bar abandoning the tradition of murals. New York City designs are excluded. Beige is the king, and “Japandi” is a practical word. Behind our bar there is enough white walls or worse still exposed bricks.
Thankfully, the reaction is ongoing. I recently came across the revival of wall art at some of the city’s most acclaimed bars. And as an artist and a historic Manhattan nerd, I have no choice but to contextualize these new murals within a larger tradition. Here you will meet designers, artists and owners who will reestablish practice. They tell me that their inspiration is global, but their murals are ultimately in conversation with New York classics.
Scenic oil
river
102 Bayard Street, Chinatown, New York, New York 10013
Behind the unexplained doors on Bayard Street is a panorama of the Hudson River landscape. It envelops a dark wooden paneled bar in Chinatown and is named the River, like a vast crown.
The mural begins as an untouched environment of flora and fauna, then goes through the stages of New York’s development from agriculture to industry, leading to modernist architecture. Bar participants may discover new details when carrying river water (vodka, absinthe, lemon, and club soda). In dim lighting, they may find faint light from a burning church.
For me, the painting reads like a downtown twist on the iconic mural of Bemelman’s Bar at the Carlisle Hotel on the Upper East Side. There, a cartoon-style scene from Central Park, drawn in 1947 by muralist and famous illustrator Ludwig Bemelmann, spreads across the walls.
Like a river mural, major details are hidden in Bemelman’s views, including Madeline, a character from the storybook that he was best known. Also, like a river, Bemelman’s mural has a temporal dimension, depicting Central Park for four seasons.
The river, often filled with New York fashion crowds, is co-owned by designer Emily Bord and husband Aaron Auzilla. Ouzilla will also collaborate on the Green River Project, the design company that created the space. He says they were inspired by an old tavern. Many of them were decorated with painted motifs, so they smacked on Matt Kenny, the artist who regularly paints the New York City skyline.
Auzilla says Barr’s story was something he hoped to reflect on the mural. “We were thinking of a downtown location in Manhattan history.”
Since the work was considered fine art rather than bar art, you may notice an increase in the richness of the blues, greens and browns as Kenny and the team painted them on drywalls with old Dutch oil paint. “I drew it as if I was working on canvas and panels,” Auzilla said. Website; Directions
A primitive
Clemente Bar
11 Madison Avenue, Flatiron, New York, New York 10010
If you’re randomly dropped by Clementevar, you might not assume you’re sitting right above the 11 Madison Parks, often cited as one of the best restaurants in the world. Instead, you might think you’ve landed in a very sophisticated caveman’s house. The vast frescoes decorating the walls and ceilings are rendered in rocky tones, with primitive figures telling visual parables.
Clementevar’s art is referenced, like The St. Regis’ “Old King Call.” This is said to be inspired by all stories and ancient myths. Behind the bar, a fisherman casts a line from the edge of his boat. While the nude enthusiast couples to the deck, he appears to accidentally hook a human swimmer. If this is a common Italian myth, I cannot source it. I don’t care either. Like Francesco Clemente, the Italian artist behind the painting says, “What is drowning in the sea of love is drowning in the sea of love.”
Like Bemelmans, Clemente Bar was named after the author of its wall art. Bemelman is notoriously struggling with murals for 18 months while living at the Carlisle Hotel for free. Meanwhile, Clemente has a long friendship with Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Ham, who commissioned the mural for the bar on the second floor.
Clemente gained fame as part of a wave of artists who returned to formation in the 1980s. He was known for his large oils even then. He created the iconic Palladium Nightclub fresco in 1985 and the 2000 Hudson Bar ceiling mural. Website. direction
Improvisation Tableau
mulberry
240 Mulberry Street Lower Level, Soho, New York, New York 10012
Good night in the mulberry, the faces in the crowd may start to blur with the faces of the walls. Inside the fashionable Soho space, illuminated in red, continuous lines of demolished wall portraits move the bar. It draws space with some kind of dream logic, wraps it behind the booth and reflects it from the ceiling with a mirror.
New York has a history of murals, which feels like the artist behind Kavisist Edward Sorrell, the Curry Catschurist tapestry from Monkey Bar and Waverly Inn above.
When Swedish artist Emery Tolling was asked to paint mulberry murals, she flew from her hometown of Stockholm into the construction zone. The builder worked hot in a bar isolated from the workspace with curtains alone. She turned on the playlist she had just been Curiel’s for now, and reached the zone and first began to outline the outline.
“I’m not a strategist,” she says. “I don’t prepare much or plan. There may be rough sketches, but that’s all.”
The bar team, including design studio Atel jé Nordöst, trusts the Törling process. They wanted the freedom to penetrate the bar’s spirit from the wall, and they wanted the work to be completely out of her artistic practice.
Working 10-12 hours on a mural, I carefully considered the best ways to combine colors to create depth. “I worked with colours, mixed and dirty,” she says. “I knew exactly what I wanted to express, but I didn’t know what would happen until it was finished.” Website; Direction
Mythical Fresco
A quarter bar
383 Broadway Floor 2, Tribeca, New York, New York 10013
Grab a drink at the bar of Quarters decorated like a private loft is like a home for a rich friend who tastes really good. You arrive at the bar through a sofa-filled lounge area and find Crown Jewels in a space filled with eye-catching designs.
Spanning the length of the bar, deep blues and bold greens roam the ceiling, revealing frescoes that feel boldly painted in a more neutral and straight-lined environment. “We wanted to take a different approach,” Nick Ozenba said. “It gives us a sense of an older world rooted in the traditional craftsmanship we always paint.”
Claudio Bonuglia, a traditional fresco who works in Italy, spent six weeks in New York, later painting murals on sophisticated panels installed by hand. The image comes from the myth of Pompeii.
“One of the central motifs is the boy’s pet eel decorated with earrings,” Ozemba said. “It’s quiet detail, but it adds an extra layer of storytelling.”
When Ozemba and Hung opened the bar, they imagined the space, both a daytime hangout and a design showroom. Almost every element there is for sale, but the murals they commissioned are not. It’s kind of thing in Manhattan.
I say one of the kinds because it seems most reminiscent of the installation of a bar lost in time. In 1938, German-born artist Winnold Reese painted eight oval murals for the Long Shamps restaurant, located at the Empire State Building’s base. Like Banuglio, Reiss was colored with bright pigments and stood out in the restaurant’s Art Deco interior. In one of the panels, a snake emerged from the spotted flowers to love the naked figure.
It reminds me of the Bonuglia eel.
Website; Directions
Trey Heller is a New York City-based artist of art and architecture
Do you have your favorite bar mural in New York? I’d like to hear your memories and stories about it in the comments below
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