Wilshire Bowl Mural Study
John Decker, 1941
Gouache, watercolor, silver paint, ink, and pencil on board.
John Decker (1895-1947), about whom playwright Ben Hecht once wrote "[He] is a man who paints everything ...", created a set of four caricature murals for the Wilshire Bowl Restaurant. They were installed on September 1941 to accompany a cabaret production about the golden age of film entitled "The Silver Screen". The actors, from left, are Bob Hope, Joe E. Brown, Charles Winninger, Charles Boyer, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Humphrey Bogart, W.C.Fields, Mae West, and George Arliss.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,
Wendy Wick Reaves, Celebrity Caricature in America
(New Haven 1998)

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