Cleveland Public Library

The People's University

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Moravian tileCleveland's branch libraries built prior to 1930 typically included fire places in both the adult and children's reading rooms as a design feature to create a feeling of homelike comfort.  Decorative ceramic art tile, popularized by the Arts and Crafts movement, were utilized around the fireplace openings. Library architects chose tile from important American potteries: the Grueby Pottery in Boston, the Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, and the Moravian Tile and Pottery works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Rice Branch, built in 1927 by architects Walker and Weeks, originally had two fireplaces that were covered over as part of a modernization and renovation of the building in 1981. Prior to 2008, Library staff believed that both fireplaces had been totally removed, and that any art tiles were lost or destroyed.

Eight of the Cleveland Public Library neighborhood branch libraries were built between 1978 and 1984. In this building program, Library trustees and administration chose to accent the new branches with art as part of the Library mission to elevate, instruct, and inspire. "The presence of good art is a mark of respect to the people who use libraries. Books and bare walls are not enough," explained Library director Ervin Gaines in 1983. As part of the building process, architects for the branches commissioned a significant piece of sculpture to complement each building.

Glenville branch is the site of two distinguished works, the Black Family of Man sculpted from local wood by Alan Pucell, and a tonal sculpture by Harry Bertoia, (1915-1978) Pucell’s work is a series of 4 heads representing a father, mother, brother, and sister. They stand in a line on separate cylindrical bases. The faces are unstained. Pucell was a 1960 graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art. In the summer he painted, in the winter he sculpted. He said the physical exertion of sculpting kept him warm in his unheated studio in the Cleveland flats.