Lost Murals in Hollywood

To the Editors:

Here’s some additional information about Paul Revere Williams, whose work Martin Filler discussed in “Hollywood’s Master Builder” [NYR, October 21]. In early April 1951 the Haitian modernist artist Roland Dorcély (1931–2017) was working on a mural at the El Rancho hotel in Pétionville, above Port-au-Prince, when the Hollywood producer David O. Selznick and his new wife, Jennifer Jones, arrived for a holiday. Selznick admired Dorcély’s mural and commissioned him to paint one in his Beverly Hills mansion. On May 27, 1951, Dorcély left Port-au-Prince for California. There, he spent three and a half months painting a mural of Haitian folk scenes in the vestibule of the (long since demolished) house at 1400 Tower Grove Drive. While in LA, he also painted a mural for Williams. Selznick introduced the two men.

I am at work on a biography of Dorcély and have been searching in vain for images of the works he produced in Los Angeles for Selznick and Williams. Any help your readers could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Judith Kumin
Contoocook, New Hampshire
jmkumin@gmail.com