Millard Sheets

Millard Sheets
Birth name	Millard Owen Sheets
Born	June 24, 1907(1907-06-24) Pomona, California
Died	March 31, 1989(1989-03-31) (aged 81) Gualala, California
Nationality	American
Field	Painting, Sculpture, Mosaics
Training	Chouinard Art Institute

Millard Owen Sheets (June 24, 1907 – March 31, 1989) was an American painter and a representative of the California School of Painting, later a teacher and educational director, and architect of more than 50 branch banks in Southern California.

Early life

Millard Sheets was a native California artist who grew up in the Pomona Valley near Los Angeles. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute and studied with F. Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle. While still a teenager, his watercolors were accepted for exhibition in the annual California Water Color Society shows and by nineteen years of age, he was elected into membership. At twenty, even before he graduated from Chouinard, they hired him to teach watercolor painting while completing other aspects of his art education.

Post-educational career

By the early 1930s, he was well on his way to national recognition as a prominent American artist. He was exhibiting works in Paris, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Houston, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Baltimore and many other cities throughout the United States. At home in Los Angeles, he was recognized as the leading figure and driving force behind the California Style watercolor movement.

Between 1935 and 1941, the recognition, awards, and his output of high quality art increased. He was mentioned in numerous issues of Art Digest, had a color reproduction in the book Eyes on America, and in 1935 at age twenty eight, he was the subject of a book published in Los Angeles. Sales of art enabled him to travel to Europe, Central America and Hawaii, where he painted on location. Although his watercolor painting techniques during this period varied from very tight to very loose, his personal style always came through.

The 30 foot high mosaic on the Mercantile Continental Building in downtown Dallas was created in 1959.

During World War II, he was an artist-correspondent for Life magazine and the United States Army Air Forces in India and Burma. Many of his works from this period document the scenes of famine, war and death that he witnessed. This experience also affected his post war art for a number of years. Many of his works from the 1940s, painted in California and Mexico, reflect these mood shifts, especially when he used dark tonal values and depressing subject matter. After the 1950s, his style changed again, this time featuring brighter colors and often depicting subjects from his travels around the world.

Watercolor and oil painting was only part of Sheets' art career. Through his teaching at Chouinard Art Institute, Otis Art Institute, Scripps College and other institutions, hundreds of artists were taught how to paint, and then guided into an art career. He was director of the art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Fair for many years and brought world class art to Southern California. During the Great Depression, he worked with Edward Bruce to hire artists for the Public Works of Art Project, the first New Deal art project during the Great Depression. In 1946, he served as a president of the California Water Color Society. In later years he worked as an architect, illustrator, muralist, printmaker and juried art exhibitions.

Beginning in 1952, working directly for Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr., Sheets not only designed the mosaics for dozens of branch offices of Home Savings of America throughout California, he designed the buildings as well, and coordinated contributions from other artists such as sculptor Albert Stewart. Outside of California he was commissioned for artwork at the Detroit Public Library, the Mayo Clinic, the dome of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., the Notre Dame University Library, the Hilton Hotel in Honolulu and Mercantile National Bank in Dallas.^[1]

In 1953 Millard Sheets was appointed Director of Otis Art Institute (later named Otis College of Art and Design).^[2] Under his leadership, the school's academic program was restructured so that BFA and MFA degrees were offered. A ceramics department was created with Peter Voulkos at its head and both a ceramics building and a gallery, library and studio wing were completed. By the time Sheets left Otis in 1960, the look and direction of the college had changed dramatically. The Library at Otis was named after him in 1997.

Notable works

• (1939) Early California - Three relief panels, stainless steel and enamel, installed at Mark Keppel High School, Alhambra, California
• (1964) Word of Life mural - A large mural on the side of the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and visible from the university's football stadium. Commonly known among football fans as "Touchdown Jesus" because of its depiction of Jesus with upraised arms, similar to the official's signal for a touchdown.
• (1934) Tenement Flats - A painting in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum done during the Depression for the Public Works of Art Project and chosen to hang in the White House to show President Roosevelt's commitment to the arts and the American people.
• (1943) The Negro's Contribution in the Social and Cultural Development of America - murals on first floor of the Main Interior Building, 1849 C St. NW, Washington, DC

References

1. ^ http://www.lamurals.org/MuralistPages/SheetsM.html
2. ^ "Millard Sheets Named Art Institute Director," Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1953, A1.

External links

• List of artworks by Millard Sheets at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
• "1934: A New Deal for Artists" is an exhibition on the Great Depression at the Smithsonian American Art Museum featuring Millard Sheets and his contemporaries
• California Watercolor
• Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles
• Millard Sheets Artwork Examples on AskART.
• Millard Sheets' works at the Ruth Chandler Wiliamson Gallery of Scripps College
• Millard Sheets Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
• Millard Sheets Murals
• Millard Sheets murals in the Mercantile National Bank Building, Dallas

Persondata
Name	Sheets, Millard
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	June 24, 1907
Place of birth	Pomona, California
Date of death	March 31, 1989
Place of death	Gualala, California