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A yearslong effort to restore the murals of artist Maxo Vanka in a Millvale church now is short on funds after cuts to a federal grant.
Since 2009, conservationists have been braving the high scaffolding in St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church to preserve the nearly 80-year-old murals of Vanka, an artist who fled to the U.S. from Croatia.
The group spearheading the effort, the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, was awarded a $471,670 Save America’s Treasures grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Last week they were notified that the unspent funds would no longer be available, said Anna Doering, the Society’s executive director.
Even in a best-case scenario, the group faces a $135,000 shortfall – and that’s if they’re able to be reimbursed for expenses into early April, she said.
“It’s frustrating. We had met all of our benchmarks, we’ve done all the work that we said we were going to do,” Doering said. “I think we’re in the same boat as many libraries and museums.”
The money was earmarked to pay conservators and for a climate control system.
The nonprofit plans to appeal the grant termination, she said. If the appeal isn’t approved, Doering said they will seek community support to make up for the lost grant funding.
“Whether that’s individuals or foundations, we’ll ask them if they can help us bridge that gap,” Doering said. “Our mission is to save the murals and we’re not going to get another chance to put this scaffolding up anytime soon.”
For now, the work will continue as though the funding from the grant were still available.
“We don’t have an option at this point because of the needs of the conservation work. These are circumstances we have to push through.
The cuts followed an executive order from President Donald Trump’s administration, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.” The executive order requires seven federal agencies, including the IMLS, to limit their scope to the legal minimum.
Vanka, the artist behind the murals, immigrated to the United States from Croatia in 1934. The Rev. Albert Zagar, a priest at St. Nicholas, asked him to paint murals in the church. Vanka worked on the murals in 1937 and 1941.
The 25 murals contain social commentary from the time.
The paintings “Mary on the Battlefield” and “Christ on the Battlefield” depict the Christian figures being attacked by soldiers, reflecting Vanka’s pacifist attitude toward World War II. Another set of paintings, “The Capitalist” and “The Simple Family Meal,” juxtapose the lives of the upper and working classes.
“We think of these as a text and very much a learning tool that really speaks to the past but also the present,” Doering said. “A lot of great conversations happen inspired by these murals and we think it’s an important conversation to be happening.”
Scaffolding in the church is currently set up for work on the “Old Testament” mural, which takes up an entire wall.
Conservation technician Kate Pirilla has been working on restoring Vanka’s murals since 2022.
One of the 14 conservators on the project, she has been working on retouching the green and blue trim on the “Old Testament” mural for about a week.
“We’re just trying to get it to read cleanly and fill in where there might have been some losses,” Pirilla said.
NGN is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.
