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Painting of children comes back to Wisconsin governor’s mansion

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers discusses the painting "Wishes in the Wind" that former Gov. Scott Walker had removed but that Evers had re-installed in the governor's mansion, Friday, April 5, 2019, in Maple Bluff, Wis. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)

MAPLE BLUFF, Wis. (AP) — A painting showing three children blowing bubbles and playing together on the streets of Milwaukee was back on display Friday at the Wisconsin governor’s mansion, eight years after former Gov. Scott Walker had it removed.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers welcomed the artwork back during a ceremony also attended by the artist, one of the children in the painting and former Gov. Jim Doyle, who was in office when it was first put up in 2010.

The painting by David Lenz called “Wishes in the Wind” is a realistic portrait of three children playing with bubble wands on a Milwaukee street.

Lenz, who took 10 months in 2010 to paint it, said the goal was to express hope through the children while placing them in an urban background that speaks to challenges society faces.

The boy at the center of the painting, Brogan Calvillo, stood smiling next to Evers as he discussed the painting.

Lenz said he selected Calvillo to be in the painting because his father and brother had been killed by a drunken driver. A black girl in the painting spent three months at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission and a Hispanic girl was a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee.

After Walker took office in 2011, he had the painting removed and replaced it with a century-old painting of Old Abe, a Civil War-era bald eagle from Wisconsin. He tweeted a picture of the Old Abe painting on Friday, saying he wanted “to honor the more than 91,000 soldiers from Wisconsin in the Civil War, including the 12,000 who paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

Lenz’s painting hung in the Milwaukee central library until returning to the mansion this week.

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