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From 1948 to 1952, Greek immigrant and artist Athanasios Efthimiou Stefopoulos, known in America as "Tom", created a series of paintings on the supporting pillars of the old Lovejoy bridge ramp in Portland, Oregon.
Tom worked as a watchman for the SP&S Railroad when he began the paintings during slow times. He initially drew them in chalk, but after passersby encouraged him on retraced them with paint. The paintings quickly gained Tom local notoriety and media coverage. The paintings depict a mixture of Greek mythology and Americana, painted in a highly calligraphic style. One of the best-known paintings was of the philosopher Diogenes, walking the streets of Athens with his lantern, looking for an honest man.
It is believed that Tom completed a total of about a dozen paintings, but there is no known photographic evidence of them all.
Beginning in 1997, a rescue effort was undertaken to protect the paintings from the ravages of time and development pressure. The Lovejoy ramp was slated for demolition as the old railyard was to be rebuilt as a new neighborhood and extension of the Pearl District. Through extensive lobbying with the city and meetings with the neighborhood, a group of dedicated volunteers managed to convince the city to save not just the paintings but the entirety of the columns they were painted on, arguing that if the paintings alone were cut free, much of their magic would be lost. Extracting the columns both captured the space created by Tom and preserved a ruin that would continue to tell a story. The fragile paintings preserved the mighty concrete.
Portland based filmmaker Vanessa Renwick has been chronicling the effort to save the columns and restore the paintings in her documentary entitled "Lovejoy". Through her brilliant vision we have been able to show this project to a wider audience. Read more at her site www.odoka.org
Due to the initiative and generosity of local developer John Carroll, the two Lovejoy Columns bearing the majority of the paintings have a new and very public home in the plaza of the Elizabeth Tower at NW 10th between Flanders and Everett.
If you have any old photos of the paintings or know anyone who might, especially from the period 1948-1979, please contact me at Mail@JamesMHarrison.com. To help this project with your tax deductible donation, please call the Regional Arts and Culture Council at 503.823.5111.
For more information about the Lovejoy Columns, visit www.LoveJoyColumns.info
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