Tuesday Art ATTACK- Paul Julian “Orange Pickers”

Paul Julian was born in Illinois in 1914. In the early 1930s Julian moved to California and started his art career. Julian received his art education at the Chouinard Art School which is now the California Institute of the Arts. Millard Sheets was one of his classmates. In the early 1940s Julian worked for the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was a New Deal program that employed artists to create art for public buildings. This mural is titled the "Orange Pickers" and was created in 1942 for the Fullerton, California Post Office. The mural shows life in Fullerton during the mid 1930s with Fullerton High School students picking oranges to make extra money. When the mural came out it caused a minor controversy in Fullerton because its inaccurate depiction of orange picking. The ladder in the mural is a three-legged latter which were not used for orange picking. Also oranges were always placed in large shoulder bags when being picked on the field, not boxes. You can still visit the Fullerton Post Office and see this awesome mural. Julian is most well known for his work in animation. He created many backgrounds for Looney Tune Cartoons. He was very respected and continued to work until his death in 1995. Julian was the inspiration and voice for the Looney Tunes character the Road Runner. The Warner Brothers animators thought of the the Road Runner because Julian would run through the Warner Brother studios exclaiming "Beep, Beep" when people were in his way. The two lower pictures are studies for the final.