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Welcome
to the Hotel Coolidge
The
Vermont Room Mural
The mural - see some of the panels
below - decorating the Vermont Room is the creation of Peter Michael
Gish, a Dartmouth graduate who later attained national prominence as
a mural and portrait artist. In 1950, while a student of the well-known
contemporary artist Paul Sample, Mr. Gish lived at the Coolidge and
painted the mural in exchange for his room and board. The hotel and
restaurant employees posed as models for every figure in the work.
Through a series of allegorical depictions, the mural
traces the history of Vermont. The first scene, beginning to the right
of the fireplace, is one of Vermont before the arrival of the white
man. There, we find a view of the Upper Valley, with Mt. Ascutney in
the background, at the point where the White and Connecticut Rivers
join. The mystical face in the sky represents the Iroquois Indians who
inhabited this region. The mural then traces the development of the
early settlements starting with
a summer tableau in which cabins and lean-tos are being built, followed
by an early spring scene showing settlers arriving in sleighs loaded
with provisions.
The models for the pioneer couple in the corner were
Mr. Gish himself and his then sweetheart. Directly following this, the
land is being cleared for planting. In this segment of the mural, note
the early log cabin that, typically, has a door but no windows. The
final scene of this series depicts the first birth among the new settlers.
In the next series, a solitary soldier and the artist's
rendition of the Bennington Revolutionary War Monument represent the
War for Independence.
The next portion of the mural depicts construction
of the area's first truly permanent settlements, built after the Revolutionary
War. As was customary, settlers provided shelter for the livestock first.
The view is from the mountain at South Royalton towards Lake Champlain.
The
Zollikofer Gallery and the Vermont Room Murals
This gallery opened in March of 1998 through the initiative
of Peggy Adams, wife of Coolidge innkeeper David Briggs. It is named
for August L. Zollikofer, who owned and operated the Hotel Coolidge
at two different times from 1946 until 1970. It was on his watch in
1949 that the Vermont Room murals came into being. This, coupled with
the culture that "Pop" or "Zolly" Zollikofer brought
to White River Junction via his Northern Italian cuisine, is the inspiration
for naming the gallery in his honor. The Hotel Coolidge was indeed the
granddaddy of fine dining in the Upper Valley, and the art form that
was Zolly's work as a chef continued with a wide following through the
1970s, a decade or more after he had retired. Appropriately, the Zollikofer
Gallery provides a unique space for local and regional artists to show
their work in an open and dignified setting.
Most of the works in the Zollikofer Gallery are offered
for sale. Typically, the Hotel Coolidge invites exhibitors to show for
a two-month period. Each show opens with a public gala sponsored by
the hotel in the form of a reception to which the artist may bring special
guests. Since its dedication on March 6, 1998, shows have been hosted
featuring the works of more than 50 artists in the form of
both group and individual exhibits. Work has been purchased and shipped
throughout the Continental United States and overseas.
People
Who Influenced the Vermont Room Murals
The Zollikofer vision for enhancing the Vermont Room
was initially based on the connection of the hotel to the Coolidge family
name. Zollikofer's dining patrons included many on the Dartmouth faculty,
including Philosophy Professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Dartmouth
Artist-in-Residence Paul Sample, Class of 1921. Huessy brought his influence
to bear with his concern for spaces that speak to the community inhabiting
them. Sample's students included the promising, young Peter Michael
Gish, 1949, who also roomed and boarded at Huessy's home, Four Wells,
in Norwich, Vermont. Gish agreed to do what became the Vermont Room
Mural in trade for his room and board at the Hotel Coolidge.
The Huessy and the Sample influence on Gish merge
with an art form reminiscent of the public works art of the 1930s, reflective
of Sample's rise to national prominence. Huessy ignited the thinking
of generations of Dartmouth students by introducing them to the William
James essay titled "The Moral Equivalent of War." It should
also be noted that Gish was in no small way affected by the astounding
Orozco murals in the basement level of Dartmouth's Baker Library. In
any event, the research by the artist, then only in his early 20s, resulted
in an anthology of Vermont arriving at the time of the American Civil
war but concluding with an epilogue no doubt inspired by the heartbreaking
death of Gish's brother Jim in World War II, ending just four
years earlier.
Gish followed with a sequel to the Vermont Room Mural,
a barn dance scene located in Inky's Café. Shown by appointment,
it features Gish's adopted community, insofar as the facial images are
those of the Hotel Coolidge staff in the early 1950s. Gish also helped
to build the Vermont Room fireplace by collecting many of the stones
required, including one trophy from Hanover's Mink Brook region that
caused his Jeep's radiator to overheat as he hauled it back into "the
Junction." Gish worked under the guidance of local stonemason Bill
Guyer, who later had his craftsmanship publicly displayed for the community
to enjoy for decades.
Gish
moved on to the United States Marine Corps as an aviator and a Lt. Colonel,
a professorship at Fairfield University, and also as an on-location
artist for the Marines. Consequently, in 1999 on the occasion of his
50th Dartmouth reunion, he honored the Zollikofer Gallery by being the
Presenting Artist in the May-June show that year. He has 25 originals
from the national collection of military art brought from Washington,
DC, to hang here in White River Junction, thus bringing added esteem
to all artists who show at this location.
Directly following this along to the right of the
door is Mr. Gish's representation of a typical Vermont village in the
second half of the nineteenth century. This scene is actually a view
of Plymouth, home of President Calvin Coolidge. Mr. Coolidge is standing
in the foreground. It is from the President's father, Colonel John Calvin
Coolidge, that the hotel takes its name.
On the last wall is a montage that includes such diverse
elements as the opening of the West-Vermont's role being depicted by
the Morgan Horse-and debris from the numerous wars in which Vermont
soldiers have fought.
The final scene features a man without a face, the implication being
that history is still being made and the future is yet unknown.
Mr. Gish also built the fireplace in the Vermont Room,
hauling the stone himself from the bed of Etna Creek. Another one of
his murals graces the wall behind the bar of the cocktail lounge. Hotel
employees also served as his models for this mural. The portrait of
Vermont Governor Phillip Hoff that hangs in the Capitol Building in
Montpelier is a fine representation of Mr. Gish's mature work.
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