Fountain Family Group Explained
Fountain Family Group |
Artist: | Richard H. Ellis |
Medium: | Bronze sculpture |
Metric Unit: | cm |
Imperial Unit: | in |
Museum: | Hilbert Museum of California Art |
City: | Orange, California, U.S. |
Mapframe: | yes |
Mapframe-Zoom: | 13 |
Fountain Family Group, sometimes called Nuclear Family, is a 1969 bronze sculpture and fountain by Richard H. Ellis, formerly installed along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.
Description and history
The artwork features four figures: a father, a mother, a boy, and a girl. The original location of the fountain and bronze was the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street in Santa Monica, with a street address of 2600 Wilshire Blvd.[1]
The tall[2] sculpture was installed in 1969 at one of Howard Ahmanson Sr.’s richly decorated Home Savings of America branches, along with a mosaic mural called Pleasures Along the Beach by Millard Sheets.[3] The Millard Sheets Studio hired Ellis several times. Ellis created statues for five Home Savings branches, all on family themes.[4]
Family was surveyed by the Smithsonian Institution's Save Outdoor Sculpture! program in 1995.[5]
The fountain and mural at the former Santa Monica branch were relocated to the Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange, California in 2019, along with a third piece from the building, John Edward Svenson's cast bronze Child on a Dolphin.[6] [7] Family and Dolphin will be installed in the museum's California native plant garden when it reopens after expansion in 2023; the Sheets mosaic will be installed on the facade of the museum building.[8]
The original building also featured stained glass windows by Susan Hertel; they were removed and put into storage in 2021.[9]
Further reading
Book: Arenson, Adam . Banking on beauty : Millard Sheets and midcentury commercial architecture in California . 2018 . University of Texas Press . 978-1-4773-1529-3 . Austin . 986993216.
Notes and References
- Web site: Arenson . Adam . 2018-08-01 . Master Inventory of Millard Sheets Studio and Home Savings Art and Architecture . Banking on Beauty.
- Web site: Richard H. Ellis - Curriculum Vitae . 2022-10-15 . www.richardhellis-sculptor.com . 2021-05-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210511074838/http://richardhellis-sculptor.com/about/CV.html . live .
- Web site: 2020-06-25 . Richard H. Ellis Sculpture to Be Preserved and Displayed at Forest Lawn . 2022-10-15 . MyNewsLA.com . en-US . 2022-10-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221015184952/https://mynewsla.com/orange-county/2020/06/25/richard-h-ellis-sculpture-to-be-preserved-and-displayed-at-forest-lawn/ . live .
- Spring 2022 . Millard Sheets Public Art Sculpture Identified in San Marino . The Grapevine: Newsletter of the San Marino Historical Society . 3 . 2022-10-15 . 2022-10-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221006214059/http://sanmarinohistoricalsociety.org/grapevine/may22.pdf . live .
- Web site: Fountain Family Group, (sculpture). . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220616042643/https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!341109~!0#focus . June 16, 2022 . June 15, 2022 . Smithsonian Institution.
- Web site: 2019-06-06 . Citywide - New home for Millard Sheets mural . 2022-10-15 . Santa Monica Daily Press . en-US . 2022-10-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221015184956/https://smdp.com/2019/06/06/citywide-new-home-for-millard-sheets-mural/ . live .
- Web site: Chang . Richard . 2019-06-14 . Chapman's Hilbert Museum of California Art to Expand and Nearly Triple In Size . 2022-10-15 . Voice of OC . en-US . 2022-04-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220422163548/https://voiceofoc.org/2019/06/chapmans-hilbert-museum-of-california-art-to-expand-and-nearly-triple-in-size/ . live .
- Web site: Arp . Dennis . 2022-02-22 . Chapman Announces Plans to Greatly Expand Hilbert Museum of California Art . 2022-10-15 . Chapman Newsroom . en . 2022-10-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221015185509/https://news.chapman.edu/2022/02/22/chapman-announces-plans-to-greatly-expand-hilbert-museum-of-california-art/ . live .
- Web site: Another One Bites the Dust: Santa Monica Edition (Updated for 2022) . 2022-10-15 . 2022-01-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220120011239/https://www.avoidingregret.com/2018/08/another-one-bites-dust-santa-monica.html . live .