A giant mural by conservationist artist Robert Wyland has been painted over in Dallas to make way for a mural promoting FIFA, the international soccer federation.
The destroyed piece was one of 100 “whaling wall” murals that the artist has painted from Osaka to Detroit, and from Sydney to New York. Whaling Wall 1 appears alongside the Pacific Coast Highway and was dedicated in 1981; number 100 was painted outside Wyland’s own studio building in 1996.
The Dallas mural, Ocean Life (1999), is number 82, and it covered two sides of the Texas Utilities Building. The larger portion, measuring 164 by 82 feet, depicted endangered whales and dolphins swimming in the ocean. Crews started painting over that section of the mural last week, and CBS News shot photos of the larger side of the mural, almost completely painted over. A smaller panel on an adjacent side, measuring 50 by 78 feet, remains visible, says CBS.
“This mural was created as a message of hope, conservation, and respect for our oceans,” Wyland said in a statement to CBS. “It was a gift to the people of Dallas and a reminder that protecting our oceans is a responsibility we all share. To see an important public artwork with that kind of meaning treated as disposable is deeply painful.”
