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County CollectionDiamond Bar LibraryArtist:
Frank Matranga
Date:
1977
Region:
Covina/Pomona
District:
Fourth
Location:
Diamond Bar Library
1061 S. Grand Avenue Diamond Bar, CA 91765 Department:
Public Library
 
Click for larger photos
Project DescriptionThis mural, outside of the main entrance to the Diamond Bar Library, is one of six that Frank Matranga created for Los Angeles County Libraries in the 1970s and 80s. It measures 9’ h x 8.5’ w and was installed when the Diamond Bar Library was built in 1977. Matranga conceived, designed and fabricated the mural in his studio and then delivered the tiles to the Library’s site. They were installed by a professional tile setter under Matranga’s supervision. The mural’s forms are organic and rounded and undulate throughout the work. Inscribed in small letters on the mural’s proper right side are words which comment on a library’s purpose, “An enlightened people are a free people.” See Frank Matranga, La Canada Flintridge Library About the ArtistFrank Matranga received his BA and MA from Los Angeles State University. While working on his MA, he was offered a job teaching ceramics at a local high school. This led him to discover a lifelong love affair with clay. He completed his master’s degree in art and later studied at the University of Southern California under Carlton Ball. In 1961 he started his own ceramic studio in Redondo Beach (later moved to Manhattan Beach) and began to teach in the Los Angeles Community College system, which he would do for the next twenty years. His public art career began in 1970 when Sears, Roebuck, and Company commissioned him to create seven murals for Sears stores in the Southern California area. In the following decades he has completed over 50 ceramic mural commissions for libraries, private companies, and homes. In 1977 and 1979 he was invited to be an artist in residence in Japan, where he exhibited at the American Embassy Gallery in Tokyo. His work has also been shown in Australia and Germany. |
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