One of 19 Art Deco reliefs on the Ann Arbor News building. The figure is using an ergonomically-challenged switchboard phone system.

Since The Chronicle launched last fall, we’ve been covering the monthly meetings of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission. At that first meeting we attended in October, the group discussed a project to take inventory of all the public art in the city – the idea is to create a database that can eventually be accessed by the public, giving details of where each piece of art is located, who the artist is, and any other relevant information.

Separately, we were later contacted by a Chronicle reader who said she’d like to see a series about public art in the city – essentially, the same kind of thing that AAPAC is compiling. So until their project is online, The Chronicle will be taking up our reader’s request in an occasional look at this city’s public art. In our definition, we’ll look at art on public and private buildings, as long as it’s visible to the public. We’re starting with something that’s connected to the field of journalism: the Art Deco reliefs on the Ann Arbor News building.

These pieces – 19 of them – are affixed to the original Albert Kahn building that was constructed in 1936 at the southwest corner of Huron and Division. (The building has undergone several expansions and renovations over the decades, so the stateliness of the original structure is somewhat diminished.) The 15-x-12 inch reliefs, made of cast aluminum, are easy to overlook: they’re placed on the upper half of the building and face two busy streets, with lots of motor vehicle traffic but few strolling pedestrians. It’s not the kind of setting where you linger, unless you’re waiting for the light to change.

An Art Deco relief, facing South Division Street, representing the printing industry. The Ann Arbor News is no longer printed this way.

Still, they’re worth a linger. Made by sculptor Corrado Parducci, each of the 19 square-ish reliefs (with some duplicates) represent 13 topics covered by journalists, based on a 1930s worldview: art, aviation, drama, justice, literature, music, photography, printing, radio, science, sports, telephone, and travel. [Aside: We wonder what 13 fields would represent the focus of today's journalists, and whether those topics will seem as quaint in 2082 as "telephone" seems today.] Parducci also did exterior reliefs on the University of Michigan’s Rackham building as well as on several buildings on the Eastern Michigan University campus.

The Art Deco style is reflected in the “rounded corners, the clear lines, the essential shapes of the small reliefs, along with the words set into the edge,” write Martha Keller and Michael Curtis, authors of “Public Art in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.”

Keller and Curtis note that the figures in these reliefs are typically kneeling, a position that better allows them to fit into the square design – though, it must be said, also it makes them look extremely contorted. The figures are also relentlessly buff, a fact not remarked on by Keller and Curtis.

The Art Deco relief representing the journalistic topic of photography. The equipment is something we imagine might still be used by members of the Ann Arbor Crappy Camera Club.

Art Deco reliefs on the Ann Arbor News building, facing East Huron Street, are set into the dark granite about midway up the building. Also visible is the original front entrance of this Albert Kahn structure, which has been turned into a window.