St. Nicholas Church

St. Nicholas Church

St. Nicholas Church Photograph by Jeremy, Discover the Burgh
Altar murals "Injustice" mural
1901; 1922, Frederick C. Sauer. 24 Maryland Ave., Millvale

This yellow brick church's Colonial Revival exterior, with its twin towers (added by Frederick Sauer in 1922), gives no hint of the congregation's Croatian heritage, but inside lies an unforgettable portrayal of their former homeland in Maximilian Vanka's 1937 mural cycle. It depicts the Croatian experience in the New and Old Worlds in an eye-catching mix of Byzantine forms and social realist imagery in the manner of then dominant Mexican muralists José Orozco and Diego Rivera. Characteristic is the scene of a Pittsburgh millionaire, deathly pale, dining at a table outfitted with a stock ticker.

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