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After sitting in storage for more than two years, a 1963 mural of the first Rose Parade painted by Millard Sheets has a new home in the Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium.

The only problem is its location. No lover of art would think to look for this colorful piece of art in a place like a gym.

“It’s a little out of the way,” said Jim Arnwine, dean of Visual Media and Performing Arts. “But we now have doors on the side of the gym that lead right to where the mural is hanging.”

To find the mural you would have to walk into the gym, through the tunnel and at the end of that tunnel, look up towards the top of the wall to view the artwork.

Joe Futtner, assistant dean of Visual Media and Performing Arts, said that though its placement is off the beaten path, the mural is a great addition to the campus.

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity that’s being much celebrated by the college,” Futtner said.

Arnwine said that the school was going to have a ceremony for the mural with a tentative date scheduled for May 22.

The mural encapsulated the early history of the Rose Parade with stylized horses, carriages, and marchers, was painted on walnut, according to Futtner. In the painting, horses and stagecoaches are passing by Pasadena City Hall.

The mural had formerly been in the lobby of Home Savings on Colorado Boulevard, but was put into storage during the Chase Bank corporate makeover.

Tony Sheets, Sheets’ son, told the Pasadena Star-News that he insisted that the mural only be installed in a location that would accommodate mounting it in a single sweep. He oversaw the restoration of the mural, then gifted it to the City of Pasadena. It will be on loan to PCC for 25 years.

Sheets, born in Pomona, was a painter and muralist whose works are displayed throughout Southern California, including a number of the then-Home Savings branches. He died in 1989.

Philip McCormick
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