LIBERIAN MURAL LIBERTY

New York : Wood Carving, depicting village life and slave trade, joins hospital's art collection.

It was the first time the 18 panels of the mahogany relief carving had been placed side by side since Maria King Wallace found them leaning against-

A wall on the  dirt floor in the artist's workshop in Liberia more than three decades ago.

Workers at Harlem Hospital Center in New York had just slid the last panel into grooves in the  Mural Pavilion, while Ms. Wallace unsuccessfully fought back tears several feet away.

The carving, which is 30 feet tall and 20 feet wide, depicts the early history of Liberia, on the West African coast.

The first set of panels shows village life.  Next, the Slave traders and cargo ships arrive, taking people away in  chains and forcing them into slavery.

Another set of panels portrays freed slaves returning from America in search of a new home. The final panels show the difficult transition and eventual success of those who returned.

''I am just overwhelmed,'' Ms. Wallace several times to herself.

The carvings is the latest addition to  the hospital's art collection, which includes restored murals of black life from the  Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, by artists such as-

Georgette Seabrooke and Vertis Hayes.

The W.P.A. murals were the first federal commissions awarded to African-Americans.

Now, after a trans-Atlantic journey and decades in a warehouse, the relief is on indefinite loan from Ms. Wallace to the hospital.