When the Alfred P. Murrah federal building opened in downtown Oklahoma City in 1977, it was full of vibrant art.
The 1995 domestic terror attack that destroyed the building and killed 168 people destroyed some of the art as well.
But about two dozen pieces survived.
"Cathy Keating, who was the first first lady of Oklahoma at the time, she and her staff and volunteers helped bring the art out and salvaged it," said Kari Watkins, the director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.
A few of the surviving pieces stayed at the Memorial and Museum. Nineteen others have been on display in the University of Central Oklahoma's Chambers Library for decades. But now they're moving back to the site of the Murrah building, where the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum now stands.
The art will be featured in a new addition to the Memorial and Museum, a lobby area called Foreword.
"As we are building Foreword, this new project that is kind of adding on some space to the memorial, one of the things we wanted to think about was bringing that artwork back all together and being on display on the same ground in which it was nearly destroyed," Watkins said.
Lupita Gonzales is the coordinator of special collections and university archives at UCO's Chambers Library. Her second-floor office sits directly above several of the pieces in the collection.
"It's really inspiring and just really neat to think about how resilient these pieces were, that they survived something as horrible as that bombing was," Gonzales said. "And also that they've just been around for this long and that they're going to continue to be available for people to see and enjoy at the museum."
The pieces were commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration as part of its Art in Architecture Program, which reserves a small percentage of a federal building's construction costs for art to display on site.
Although the Art in Architecture Program began in 1963, the Murrah building was its first project, where the art was selected by a panel appointed by the National Endowment for the Arts. The panel commissioned Oklahoma artists for many of the pieces, which ranged from photography prints to large-scale fiber art to bronze statues.
She said even beyond the pieces' history and significance, they've brought joy to library visitors.
"I think people really enjoy just how visually appealing they are," Gonzales said. "They're really large pieces. They're very colorful. They're very vibrant."
The Murrah Collection is owned by the General Services Administration, which has contracted with UCO to display the art. It was first exhibited at the library in 2000 and became a permanent collection there in 2002. Since then, it's stayed in custom glass cases on the walls of the library's first floor.
"I don't think anybody either from the General Services Administration or from UCO has actually taken them off the walls or, like, cared for them in the time that they've been up, which is part of the concern of the Memorial staff," Gonzales said. "They've been on display and under fluorescent lights for so long without any break. So there has been some — I don't know if damage is the right word. But they have been impacted by that over the course of the time that they've been here."
When Foreword opens next spring, Watkins said, the Memorial and Museum will likely exhibit half of the collection. Pieces will be rotated in and out periodically, so nothing stays on display for too long.
But first, the pieces will go into dark storage for a year, where they'll undergo conservation.
"We'll do a conservation assessment," Watkins said. "GSA will come in and review them. We'll repair anything that has been overexposed or dusty or whatever happens in 25 years of, you know, being in a public library."
Last week, specialized art moving crews removed the collection from the walls at Chambers Library and transported it to the museum.
Gonzales called the relocation bittersweet.
"Library staff, especially folks that have been here for a long time, are sad to see it go, obviously, because we've housed it for so long and it's found a home here," she said. "But I think generally the consensus is that they're really happy to see it return to the Memorial."
Watkins said she's grateful to UCO for holding and honoring the collection for so long, but she is glad to have it at the Memorial and Museum.
"To our survivors and our family members who knew that building well, that art, those art pieces are sentimental," Watkins said. "They're meaningful. They remind them of what they had and also what they lost."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
