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# Santa Monica artist was a creative spirit
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-artist-was-a-creative-spirit/
- Published: 2002-07-13T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:30:13.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By MELISSA PRICE Special to the Daily Press*

The effort artist Stanton Macdonald- Wright’s put into creating Santa Monica Library’s murals took such a toll on his health he wasn’t sure he was going to make it.

“For weeks I dragged my legs like a bug that has been stepped on, half paralyzed through nervousness, at other times influenza made me fall off the scaffolding and pass out of consciousness,” he said to a friend at the time.

The 1935 sequence was completed at great personal sacrifice. Macdonald- Wright refused payment so that the city could fund two assistants, and he produced an amazing amount of work in 18 months. The “history of imagination” series contains eastern images, reflecting Macdonald- Wright’s conviction that legends, faiths and imaginative designs originated in the East. The technical side portrays historical figures ARTIST, from page 1

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 13, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071302.pdf?ref=smdp.com)