The Rosary

The earliest work by Mulleian was produced in 1951 when he was five years old. Twenty years later the rendering was found in an old trunk kept by his grandmother, Genevieve Mulleian, who raised Mark in his early childhood years. Mulleian painted all through his early pre-teen school years and well into high school. It was here that faculty members would purchase or commission works by the young artist. Recognizing Mulleian’s gift, members of the school board as well as teachers furnished him with paints, brushes and an easel which was set up in an old bungalow marked with the number eight. It was here that Mulleian was left alone to paint.

During this period English teacher Mr. Danielson of Lincoln High School became a mentor to the fifteen year old Mulleian. The artist would become very close to Danielson, and would regard the teacher as his second father. One spring afternoon while visiting Mulleian in his bungalow studio, Danielson, a painter himself, walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and with a decisive flourish, presented two of the artist’s initials on the board in a highly stylized manner. In reaction Mulleian put down his brush and approached the blackboard,

The Rosary Oil, 34"x 44", 1966

studying the newly produced initials. Breaking the silence, the artist picked up the chalk and in five quick slashes added a middle initial with a long diagonal slash through all three, creating what would eventually become Mulleian’s trademark signature and the hallmark of his paintings for all time.

Also during this period, and equally as important a point, art teacher Marilyn Clark played a principle role in supporting the young artist. Miss Clark, also recognizing his advanced gifts, isolated him from the rest of the class by providing him with a second studio in the art department supply room. It was in these two spaces that Mulleian would be left to continue painting through the rest of his school days at Lincoln High. These circumstances, and the generosity and insights of these two mentors, would prove to be crucially important to Mulleian’s development of his work.

This painting entitled The Rosary is Mulleian's earliest recorded work. Mulleian was eighteen years old when he completed this painting. "The Rosary" led to the commissioning of other paintings by officers while Mulleian was in the army. While in Vietnam, Mark was also commission to paint a mural at Co Chi base camp. Early one morning it was discovered that a fragment from a rocket and mortar attack the night before had damaged the mural, leaving a two-inch hole in the canvas. Mulleian had been working on this very same area of the mural the night before.