Hurry if you want to see the famous long-lost William Cumming mural

Three years ago, a large-scale mural that had been moldering away in a Western Washington barn for decades found its way to the Skagit County Fair. A local arts patron noticed a photograph of it in the Skagit Valley Herald and sent a copy to John Braseth, the veteran Seattle gallerist who runs Woodside/Braseth Gallery. He immediately suspected it was a long-lost 1941 mural by Pacific Northwest artist William Cumming (1917-2010).

When he got a closer look at the signature, he was sure of it.

Seattle art-lovers can now see the mural — they should hurry, though, as it’s only up through June 17 — at Woodside/Braseth. Painted on a piece of linen sailcloth 28 feet wide and 7 feet tall, it’s a vigorous depiction of rural industries at the end of the Great Depression: timber-felling, hay-baling, berry-picking, cow-milking and more.

“It’s an important discovery for the history of Pacific Northwest art,” Braseth said this week. “Many of the works from the WPA period have been destroyed or stolen. Those that remain deserve to be restored, honored and enjoyed for generations to come.”

Cumming’s mural is battered. Yet it has an undeniable power and verve. Displayed at Woodside/Braseth alongside Cumming’s 1998 tempera-on-board “Workers at Pike Place Market,” it makes it clear that Cumming, only 24 when he painted the mural, found his voice early on.

Braseth is now helping to raise funds to restore the mural. Woodside/Braseth represented Cumming’s art for 35 years, and the artist and gallerist were close friends.

“This discovery is bittersweet, but mostly sweet,” Braseth says. “He and I had been searching for the mural for a very long time.”

His only regret: “I wish Mr. Cumming were still alive to know that his mural was found and being restored and enjoyed once again.”