Banking on Beauty

California native Adam Arenson is an associate professor of history and director of the urban studies program at Manhattan College. He has written or coedited three previous books on the history of the American West and the politics and culture of US cities, including the award-winning The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War. Arenson has also written for history blogs, including the New York Times and other national publications.

Lovers of California art and architecture will swoon at the photos of the murals, statues and mosaics that Sheets designed for about 200 Home Savings and Loan branches between the 1960s and 1980s. . . . Banking on Beauty invites readers to remember a time when our captains of industry cared about public spaces as much as they did the bottom line — and it also challenges us to preserve those remaining buildings that possess Sheets originals. - Gustavo Arellano (Los Angeles Times) Banking on Beauty is a thoroughly researched and thought-provoking exploration of the distinctive Home Savings Bank branches designed by the Millard Sheets Studio…Banking on Beauty provides a compelling case for preserving these structures. (Journal of American History) Once upon a time, a visit to a department store or a branch bank was a chance to be inspired by fine art…waves of corporate takeovers doomed most of the art, but some remain, like the 1968 masterpiece at Sunset and Vine that's now a Chase bank. This richly illustrated book finally tells their story. (Los Angeles Magazine) [L]avishly illustrated…If you'd like to explore [Millard Sheets's art] yourself, you won't find a better guide than Arenson's Banking on Beauty." (The Objective Standard) Banking on Beauty…shows that commercial architecture does not have to be drab. (World Magazine) Arenson alternates between telling the story of, on the one hand, [Howard F.] Ahmanson and the growth of his savings and loan business, and, on the other hand, [Millard] Sheets and the development of his artistic practice, to great effect. (Journal of Urban History) This lavishly illustrated book by Adam Arenson offers an in-depth and insightful history of Millard Sheets…With almost 160 color plates, this beautiful book is a stunner that not only gives Sheets's lifework a place to shine but also offers an unusually rich study of the places, people, and events that shaped the artists creative vision over a fifty-year period. (California History)

• Introduction: The Story, the Letter, the Building1. Origins: Millard Sheets, Howard Ahmanson, and Architecture before the Letter2. Creating the Millard Sheets Studio, Creating the Home Savings Style3. Building New Places4. Home Savings in Your Changing Community5. Expansion and Change after Howard Ahmanson6. Beyond Millard Sheets, Beyond California7. Preservation after Home SavingsAcknowledgmentsAppendix A: List of Sheets Studio Artists and Contractors and Home Savings ArtistsAppendix B: How the Sheets Studio Mosaics Were Made, by Brian Worley, Sheets Studio ArtistList of Interviews and Archival Collections ConsultedNotesIndex