A surrealist Depression-era mural was extensively restored in San Francisco

Dorothea Lange. Walker Evans. Coit Tower muralist Victor Arnautoff. Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists have often become household names, known for their searing documentation of social issues during the Great Depression. Yet Reuben Kadish’s “A Dissertation on Alchemy,” a 1937 mural that will be dedicated at the Haight Street Art Center Thursday after an extensive restoration, breaks the mold.