The Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita houses a bevy of planes and other flight memorabilia. But it also houses murals and other works of art.
Logan Daugherty, the museum’s curator and director of collections, is a musician outside of work. But while he’s at work, he sees art on the building, in the building and outside the building.
“Obviously, that's a tricky word to define, but I would say planes a
re art. In an old-timey definition, they would call anything you make art,” Daugherty said.
Because of the weather, Daugherty, accompanied by his dog, offers a tour of the building.
“My dog's name is Jeff,” Daugherty said. “There's some cool ones outside. Really foggy today.”
After walking upstairs, Daugherty shows off a bright painting on the wall.
“We do have paintings scattered around, which these are definitely art,” Daugherty said.
Daugherty takes a walk down a hall to point out a long mural.
“This is pretty great,” Daugherty said. “So these are murals that hung in this building when it was an airport. So if you didn't know, this building was the Wichita municipal airport from ‘35 to ‘54. They were actually painted for the main post office in downtown Wichita, but they didn't like them at the post office, because [this is] ... an art style called regionalism that was kind of part of the culture war in the 1930s.”
Daugherty points to the famous painting featuring abolitionist John Brown holding a rifle in one hand and a bible in his other hand.
“So this is ‘Tragic Prelude’ by John Stuart Curry,” Daugherty said. “It hangs in the Capitol Building in Topeka, and that painting actually had a curtain in front of it for years because it was considered controversial. People didn't like the chaotic view of Kansas that it was putting forward.”
Besides the coarse nature of its Dada and surrealist style, Kansans were opposed to this style of painting because they thought it was socialist. Local history is found throughout the painting, including the old hangar from the municipal airport.
“I think they painted that just because it was a cool local building, and then it ended up hanging next to the hangar,” Daugherty said.
After the building was an airport, it was used as office space for the Air Force. Some forgotten details were rediscovered once they started restoring the piece for museum purposes.
“When they did that, they uncovered these designs that they knew from historic photos were all over the ceiling, so they used these to create stencils to repaint them on the ceiling,” Daugherty said. “Remember, if you're walking up those stairs, that would have been how people came into this airport, if they flew here. They would land out there on the ramp and walk up then the ceiling is very obvious from that view.”
Walking a little further down the hall, Daugherty shows off a propeller display.
“I see these, and I definitely think ‘art,’” Daugherty said. “I like woodworking and the skill that it would take to get this perfectly smooth propeller — it blows my mind, and also the fact that it has to be so balanced. When something is spinning so fast, if the balance is off a little bit, it will shake terribly. So the idea of getting an organic material like wood to be perfectly balanced and perfectly round sounds crazy to me. I think these are definitely art.”
Visitors can see all of this before getting to the archives. Daugherty hopes to give the public more access to the archives soon. But you’ll need to book an appointment ahead of time to do so.
