A painting by a world-famous artist hung behind the bar at an American Legion Post in Lehighton for 70 years.

But in 2016, Franz Kline’s “Lehighton” mural found a new home at the Allentown Art Museum. The museum is restoring the painting with help from an online fundraiser.Kline, who lived in Lehighton as a teen and had family in the area, painted the colorful, 14-by-6-foot mural in 1946. That was several years before he achieved massive fame with his minimalist black-and-white works.The news that the Legion had sold the mural, which depicts the borough as it looked during Kline’s childhood, complete with a roaring steam train, was circulating around town during the month of October, and just around Halloween, Legion officials confirmed they had made a deal.The price of the sale was not disclosed. As part of the sale however, the museum is providing full-size replicas of the painting for the Legion as well as Lehighton Area High School.The museum also plans to host a lecture with Robert Mattison, an art history professor at Lafayette University, and a Kline biographer.Earlier in the year, Kline made headlines in the art world when his 1961 painting “Elizabeth” sold for $7.9 million. His paintings have sold for as much as $40 million.On Nov. 2, the Legion invited the public into their banquet hall to reminisce about the painting and have one last look. In the following days, conservators painstakingly removed the canvas, which had been glued to the wall of the Legion.in mid-December, the Allentown Art Museum launched an online fundraiser on Kickstarter help pay for conservators to hang and preserve the painting at the museum. Contributors can receive souvenirs featuring images from the mural, as well as a limited edition book chronicling Kline’s career, which was just reaching its peak when he died at age 51 in 1962.As of Friday, contributors had given $3,699 toward the $14,000 goal. If that amount isn’t reached by midnight on Jan. 23, none of the money will be collected, per Kickstarter rules.For more information about the museum’s online fundraiser, visit

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/630954504/franz-kline-mural-restoration.