2010 Update - Home Savings/Wamu/Chase - The Millard Sheets Pasadena Mural Panic!

Now Chase is lighting up their Colorado and Lake location at night with blue neon!

Here is an update on the Millard Sheets murals which were removed from this location, even though they depicted a Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade scene from the turn of the 20th century! Perhaps we should be boycotting this bank, as they do not seem to respect the community they live in; First Federal was more sensitive in Claremont as you can read in this article: http://pasadenaindependent.com/latest_news/relocation-of-banks-millard-sheets-mural-under-discussion/

Rochelle Branch, City of Pasadena's Manager of Cultural Affairs sends us this email: The mural panels were donated to the Millard Sheets Foundation. Tony Sheets, his son and foundation president, has met with members of PCOC who have expressed a serious interest in exhibiting them there. I believe he has committed to trying to work with them. The family sculpture is still in the bank as from what I understand will stay there.

Here is information on the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts (Millard Sheets Foundation in the above email): http://www.lacountyfair.com/fp/foundations/millardsheets/index.asp

End of update: We have lost some very significant Pasadena-specific public art due to unbridled capitalism, again. Perhaps we should exercise our economic muscle and move our accounts to a local credit union, as we have been advised by many financial experts.

We were alerted that Chase Bank at Lake and Colorado, located in what was Washington Mutual, who inherited art works commissioned by the Ahmanson Corporation, the owners of Home Savings which was originally located at this site, were about to do something nefarious to the Millard Sheets mural panels depicting the Pasadena Tournament of Roses around 1890, located on the walls behind the teller area.











Rochelle Branch, of the Pasadena Cultural Affairs Office was alerted to this by an observant Pasadena Library employee, Catherine Haskett-Hany (here from another blogpost: Pasadena Branch @ Lake and Colorado is now being converted to CHASE and they were about to paint over the mural. Stopped by alert Library employee. Cultural Affairs will follow-up to find a new home. Sculpture also).











You can read about the Home Savings artwork and contribute to its saving by going to this blog, The Home Savings bank art project:


http://adamarenson.wordpress.com/homesavingsbankart/


For those of you who do not know Millard Sheets, he was one of the preeminent local artists of the 20th century and his work is all over the country, including a number of murals in public places.











At the moment, Chase has put the mural behind a wall, so it's not very visible except at the ends. This artwork is monumental and is about 15 feet tall and about 100 feet wide. Unfortunately, I have no picture. I wish I would have taken one when it was fully visible! So let that be a lesson to all of us, don't assume what you see today will be there tomorrow!











Apparently, the sculpture, depicting a man, woman and child, was originally on the corner of Lake and Colorado, in the midst of a fountain. The Home Savings building was demolished in the 1990's and replaced by what you see there now.











If you appreciate something let others know, and if it is in any way historic, let the City's Design and Historic Preservation Department know so we can keep an eye on it and also inform the owners of its value to our community.