Historic Hotel Bethlehem's life-size art collection illuminates city's past
By: Micaela Hood for LehighValleyNews.com
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — During World War II, combat artist and muralist George Gray served as a boatswain aboard the U.S. Coast Guard's Cutter Campbell.
As described by a Coast Guard admiral after Gray died in 2004, the artist was inspired by the day-to-day life at sea with a fondness for the ship's crew dog, a black-and-white terrier mix named Sinbad (Gray's illustrations appear in a book about Sinbad published in 1945).
In 1937, Sinbad was named the warship's official mascot — a year before Gray, then in his late 20s, was commissioned by Gen. J. Leslie Kincaid, president of the American Hotels, to create a series of murals for the Hotel Bethlehem.
Last week, Gray's murals were included in Historic Hotels of America's Top 25 Historic Hotels of America's Most Magnificent Art Collections List.
Hotel Bethlehem is the only hotel that retains its set of murals by Gray, who created 233 murals for hotels across the United States in the 1930s and '40s.
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