The Steveston Hotel has been chosen as the site for the City of Richmond’s special Canada 150 mural.
The southern wall of the hotel will be painted by award-winning maritime artist John Horton, who was commissioned by the city earlier this year to also produce a 24x36-inch framed oil painting as part of a $75,000-project to commemorate Canada’s 150th anniversary.
On Wednesday, city council’s planning committee approved a heritage alteration permit to have the mural, which will replicate the painting, on the protected building.
Horton said previously that his smaller painting, which will be hung outside of city council chambers, will have multicultural and “working river” themes.
The painting will reflect Richmond’s “rich tapestry of cultures, recognizing the original First Nations residents, early European settlers and the immigrants from a multiplicity of cultures that have since made their homes here,” according to a report to city council from public art planner Eric Fiss.
Horton, an official Canadian naval war artist, is considering painting the docking of the SV Titania — a clipper owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company that loaded the first shipment of canned salmon to Europe in 1889 — in Steveston.
The hotel’s owners can alter or remove the mural after five years.
