After years of efforts to save it, Isaiah Zagar’s ‘Skin of the Bride’ mural is being taken down for good

Twelve- and 15-hour work days for nine years: That’s how long it took famed Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar to place the final touches on Skin of the Bride, one of the largest public murals in his storied career.

The 7,000-square-foot mosaic wrapped around the former Painted Bride Art Center for more than 25 years. But after years of uncertainty and legal battles, the mural is finally coming down. On Wednesday, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens sent a team of preservationists to begin retrieving some of the mural’s vibrant tiles.

While the decision to take down the mural has been known for a while, Magic Gardens executive director Emily Smith said there’s been no shortage of heartbreak. “It’s been a really difficult couple of weeks,” Smith said, “and this week in particular has been painful for neighbors and community members who have been following this story. It feels really difficult and upsetting to be destroying something that we love so much, and it’s been really difficult for our preservation team.”

Smith said the fact Zagar, who is no longer making art at the age of 84, is having a piece of his legacy razed is a “failure” on the part of the city. “For the people upset, my advice is to stay involved in your community and keep advocating and asking our city representatives what’s their plan to protect public artwork. I think we failed here. The city failed, all of us did, even though we tried.”

Architect and developer Shimi Zakin plans to replace the former Painted Bride with an 85-unit short-term rental building with an underground parking garage, 4,800 square feet of restaurant space, and 1,000 square feet of café space.

Zakin’s development company, Atrium Design Group, purchased the former theater and gallery space last year. He initially proposed a building that would have kept Zagar’s Skin of the Bride intact. But that structure would have been taller than the area’s 65-foot height limit for residential buildings.

Fearing congestion and traffic, a group of Old City residents successfully appealed the city zoning board’s decision and put a stop to the construction. Ultimately, Zakin, Magic Gardens, and Zagar’s family decided to try to repurpose some of the mural’s broken tile, glass, and handmade ceramic pieces.

Workers are using chisels, hammers, and small power tools. Magic Gardens preservation and facilities manager Stacey Holder said the process has been difficult because of how well the tiles have stuck to the building’s frame.

“It’s really a tile-by-tile process,” Holder said. “We’re finding that it’s a lot harder to remove than we ever would have imagined.”

Due to the size and structure of the mosaic, Smith said it would be impossible to recreate the piece.

The plan, she said, is to remove as many useful pieces as they can within a two-week window, and then use them to potentially build a memorial that commemorates Zagar and the supporters who fought to keep the mural. The pieces they can’t reuse will be placed in a bucket for community members to collect.

While the fight to keep Skin of the Bride alive was lost, Zagar’s wife, Eyes Gallery owner Julia Zagar, said Magic Gardens’ effort to preserve and repurpose his work provides a glimmer of positivity.

“Those are tiles that will never be made again,” she said. “But we’re going to save what we can, and use it again for new projects.”

Holder, too, is hopeful that Philadelphians will rethink how they view the city’s public artwork and symbols of its history.

“This is the kind of stuff people travel to see, and [Zagar] spent an important period of his artistic career working on the mosaic. It’s such a shame to lose something so unique,” she said.

“This is a gem we have in Philadelphia that we’re going to lose, and I don’t feel like the city understands that.”