Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb explosion ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Killed in the blast were 168 people, including 19 children, some of whom were in the building’s daycare center. In the days following the tragedy, fire fighters, law enforcement officers, and rescue workers worked tirelessly to save the injured and recover the dead.

As part of the search and rescue efforts, personal belongings and government property were also recovered, including public works of art that were purchased or commissioned for the Murrah Federal Building.  Found on the upper stories of the building were 21 works of arts with little or no damage. Still standing on the east plaza outside was a three-piece kinetic sculpture that had survived the blast.  A round acrylic sculpture, propelled through a window by the explosion, was discovered on the ground sheared in two and surrounded by broken fragments. Nine other pieces, originally located on the lower floors, were lost or damaged beyond repair.

The recovered works of arts were initially taken for safekeeping to the state capitol and a downtown hotel being used by GSA as a command center. They were then transferred to a warehouse leased by GSA to collect and store the personal effects from the bombing victims. “When I first saw the works of arts at the state capitol, I was surprised at their remarkably good condition,” recalls Ronald Lane, who was GSA’s regional fine arts officer at the time. “I thought they would be singed or torn apart.”

An initial inventory revealed that 22 of the 32 works of arts had been successfully recovered. After an article about the retrieval efforts ran in the local newspaper, the most traditional piece in the original collection – a bronze sculpture by cowboy artist Grant Speed -- was anonymously returned. “The sculpture was moved into our new GSA offices in June 1995 and was of some comfort to those of us who survived,” recalls Richard Williams, who retired in 2003 as the Oklahoma District Manager for GSA’s Public Buildings Service. “It still had shards of glass embedded in it from the bombing.”

GSA subsequently moved the works of art from the warehouse to the basement of the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse for stabilization and to await conservation treatment. In 1999, the kinetic metal sculpture by artist William Scott was returned to the east plaza, which was preserved after the Murrah Federal Building was demolished, and repaired in place. The following year, the 22 other surviving works were exhibited at the Chambers Library at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and used as a teaching tool within the university’s visual arts and arts education programs until August 2003.