11
Pioneer Mural
1954
PETER HURD (AMERICAN)
Fresco
Holden Hall
Peter Hurd’s fresco depicts 16 Lubbock pioneers from
all walks of life. It is over 12 feet high and 108 feet long,
encircling Holden Hall’s rotunda. He began painting the
fresco in February 1953 when the building housed the
university’s museum. It was Hurd’s seventh mural and the
largest painting project he undertook during his career.
Hurd was an apprentice to painter N.C. Wyeth and was well-
known for his landscapes and portraits, including a portrait
of President Lyndon B. Johnson, which now hangs in the
National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
01
Freedom of Youth
1986
ROSIE SANDIFER (AMERICAN)
Bronze
Holden Hall
The subject of this piece, a young girl swinging on a rope,
expresses the essence of a child’s carefree spirit through its
sheer simplicity of movement. “As I watched the easy rhythm
of my daughter, Jamie, swinging on a rope…in our backyard,”
Sandifer remembers, “I realized a truth…the freedom of a
youth. We adults lose those peaceful and simple moments in
our hectic pace of life.”
02