About MCLA, the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles

To mark the hosting of the Summer Olympic Games in 1984, the city of Los Angeles decided to create ten painted murals along the two main freeways leading up to the Olympic stadium. Over the years, many of these and murals fell into minor to significant disrepair. Rogue taggers began to vandalize public murals with graffiti on top of the existing artwork. Some murals were completely covered or destroyed as a result, resulting in a significant cultural loss for the city. When Kent Twitchell's "Freeway Lady" was painted over without notice in 1986, he and Bill Lasarow decided on the need for what became the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (MCLA). Thus founded in 1987, MCLA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to selectively restore, preserve and document the public murals that are located at various points around the City.

MCLA has cooperated with local and state agencies in selecting and conducting restorations, and also legislatively. In 2013 a multi-year effort culminated in passage of Los Angeles’ Mural Ordinance, designed to recognize and protect public murals as artistic assets distinct from forms of commercial signage such as billboards. The success of MCLA has led to the extensions of its work in the City. For example, MCLA collaborated with the organizers of the 2015 Special Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, with three new murals commissioned to celebrate those Games while simultaneously commemorating the 1984 Olympics.

Following a period of hiatus throughout the Covid pandemic, the City of Los Angeles generously provided MCLA with its new space downtown at 260 S. Main in order to renew the commitment to the preservation of key public murals.