Saving Maxo Vanka

USW Members Help Restore Historic Murals in Pittsburgh

Maxo Vanka, born Maximilian Vanka in 1889, immigrated to America from Croatia in the early 20th century due to the growing fascist threat to his Jewish family. During Vanka’s first visit to Pittsburgh in 1935, he fell in love with the steel town and made a fortuitous friendship with Father Albert Zagar of the St. Nicholas Croatian Church in the city’s Millvale neighborhood.

Zagar longed for color on his church’s plain walls, but he didn’t want the usual imagery found in most religious houses. He knew Vanka was the perfect artist for the job.

“I painted so that Divinity, in becoming human, would make humanity divine,” Vanka once said. And that’s exactly what he did with his 25 individual murals that cover the full interior of the church.

Vanka maximized his opportunity to pay tribute to faith while expressing his passionate beliefs about social justice, the horrors of war, and the need to help celebrate an immigrant population. In 1937 and 1941, he adorned the walls that make up what is often called America’s Sistine Chapel with striking images of a mother sacrificing her deceased son to industry, an angel wearing a gas mask, and Mary fighting on the battlefield. 

Decades later, artists and activists, including members of the United Steelworkers, have completed the painstaking yet incredibly vital work of restoring these murals to their original glory, as well as raising awareness about the project and preserving its legacy.

Beginnings

Angelica Marks is a member of Local 9562 and works as a handler at the Carnegie Museum of Art. She grew up surrounded by the arts, thanks to her mother, so when it was time to choose a career path, the field felt like a natural choice.

“When I went to the University of Pittsburgh, I ended up gravitating toward the humanities and getting an art history degree,” said Marks. “I fell in love with it.”

After getting hired at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Marks eventually got an opportunity to learn framing, which then led her to networking with art conservators, including one who was working on the project to restore the murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Church.

Being invited to help restore these murals was not Marks’ first exposure to the historic artwork.

“When I first saw the murals, I was in college, and it was more from a historical standpoint,” said Marks. “Later on, I had the opportunity to return to the space and study the fine details of the walls.”

Attention to Detail

Marks learned that the process of conserving artwork like these murals is not just an art; in many ways, it’s also a science.

Local 9562 member Kate Prilla, who also works at the Carnegie Museum as an art handler, is also restoring the murals. Prilla said this process requires lots of patience and intense observation, similar to when she’s installing a show at the museum.

“You kind of have to take a step back, using the six-foot rule, to make sure you’re getting the detail right,” Prilla said.

When the mural restoration began several years ago, the focus was on removing the decades of dirt and soot that had accumulated due to the smoke from incense and industry. In 2024, the conservators switched to adding color using both chalk pastels and water-based paints.

“It’s a really intuitive process,” said Prilla, who noted that everything they do is reversible. “We have to be adaptable.”

Preserving History

Both Prilla and Marks believe that preserving these murals is vital to preserving a unique moment in American culture and history.

“There was a lot of federal programming during this time to fund murals in government buildings and schools to promote American values, including the valor of war,” said Marks. “Vanka came into this private exchange and he, with the priest, decided together what imagery they wanted to express, which included the perspective of the immigrant community and the working class.”

Marks and Prilla aren’t the only USW members who are firm believers in preserving Maxo Vanka’s work. Meredith Stepp works in the USW Education and Membership Development department and got her first glimpse of the murals in 2012 while she was working as a labor educator at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She attended a conference held in Pittsburgh and took a group tour of the church. It was love at first sight.

“It was miraculous,” said Stepp. “It really wasn’t what anyone expects to see in a church.”

Once Stepp joined the USW family in 2020, she became involved with the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, of which her colleague and now retired Steelworker Steffi Domike served as chair. Now, Stepp has taken up the torch and leads the board in its efforts to raise awareness and educate the public about the murals.

Stepp says this was a natural transition, as a self-professed “fan girl” of Maxo Vanka and a lover of social realism, the style of art he perfected. One of her goals is to spread his story and uplift his work to the same level as other artists of the genre. 

Hope for the Future

“Very few people know about Vanka in our country, much less here in Pittsburgh, and it’s such a treasure, especially the focus on labor and workers and the sacrifices they and their families have made,” Stepp said.

These murals are, in essence, the epitome of the American story. As dark and haunting as Vanka’s depictions are, Stepp sees beyond the surface to find hope for future generations.

“I think the nice thing is to know that this is a fight we haven’t given up,” said Stepp. “Wherever there is injustice, there is resistance, and in that way, I find the murals to be very uplifting.” To learn more about the mission to save the Maxo Vanka murals, visit www.vankamurals.org.