Because the building used to belong to Great Western Savings, and Wayne was part of their marketing in the last few years of his life?

Question 2.
Why is the horse only about 2/3 scale so it really looks like El Duke is riding on a large St. Bernard?

Another statue trivia question: Who is on horseback outside the IHOP at Manchester/Sepulveda in Westchester?

Is anybody? I seem to recall the man is standing next to the horse...could be mistaken here...

I got this one. His name is Millard Sheets and yes, Joseph, he is standing next to the horse.

There are two answers for who Millard Sheets was.

1. He was the victorious general in the Battle of Los Angeles in 1942. This is the answer I tell people and it might surprise you how many accept it as fact (Most people never call bluffs.) There is no truth whatsoever to this answer. However, there was a "Battle of Los Angeles" but it refers to the "UFO" attack on Los Angeles during World War II. I can assure you, Millard was not involved in any way.


2. The real answer is Millard Sheets was an artist and equestrian. He painted the murals on LA City Hall and also designed the official seal for the County of Los Angeles. More notably, he painted "Touchdown Jesus" on the Notre Dame University Library. The "IHOP" building used to be a bank and was designed by Sheets. Later it was converted to the home of the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity.

Sheets! Some of his work is clumsy to my taste (most of the Home Savings branches, for instance), but a lot of it is excellent. The painting at LACMA of Angel's Flight is one that everyone seems to remember, even if they don't remember the artist. The two women in it are actually one woman, rendered in two different poses.

Sheets also was the director of the Otis Art Institute when the original "campus" -- the donated Harrison Gray Otis mansion at Wilshire and Park View -- was demolished and modern studios and galleries were built. He had studied painting at Chouinard and had a rep as a muralist before becoming an architect. He explained that the only way he could get enough commissions from architects was to become one. The Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on Wilshire (now the Wilshire International Pavilion) in Hancock Park is his.

John, regarding question 2, why do I suspect it had somthing to do with making Wayne look bigger...

The reason the horse looks small is because of the very low angle the photographer used. I've walked by the statute a number of times and the horse looks life-sized. (Not that I linger outside the offices of Hustler; I used to bank at that branch when it was still a bank.)

Then you haven't seen very many horses up close. Horses are BIG. I've seen this sculpture up close many times and photographed it from the side. Two-thirds scale is probably an eggageration, but it's definitely too small. I'm sure Kevin is probably right, but I'd always hoped for a more interesting answer. There are so many wonderful demi-myths about equestrian statues--e.g., both hooves lifted means the mountee died in battle, one hoof, gravely wounded, etc.
And Joseph is absolutely right about those execrable Home Savings murals of Sheets'. They aren't worthy of his better stuff. I think Angel's Flight is one of about a dozen really wonderful minor works (aside from the obvious big-name stuff) in the semi-woeful LACMA.

>Then you haven't seen very many horses up close.

I've been riding horses for 31 of my 36 years. I presently own four -- the smallest is a little 11-hand Suffolk, and the largest is a 16-hand Tennessee Walker.

Horses come in many sizes -- smaller than a collie dog at five hands all the way up to a Clydesdale at more than 20 hands. There are several hundred recognized breeds of horses, which are more varied in size than dogs.

>Horses are BIG.

And how big is big?

The measurement for a horse is called a "hand."

I would imagine a city boy like you, John, only sees an occasional horse, probably the ones the mounted cops ride. The mounted police tend to favor tall horses for crowd control -- at least 14 handers. So to someone like yourself, not very familiar with equines, the one in the statute may not seem "real."

But to someone like me, who sees literally thousands of horses every year, it does not seem abnormally sized.

Gosh, I didn't mean to pick a fight. You're absolutely right, Dave, that most of the horses I've seen have had cops on them and they were often bearing down on me with evil intent. That tends to make them seem even larger. Or, similarly, looking up at them on the Hill with very rich girls on them from down on the working class flats in San Pedro where I grew up. And I suppose Duke could be riding a nice little cutting pony in his role as a "cowboy." (Yes, I have heard of a "hand.") I defer to your expertise, though I still think the artist has chosen toward the mid-small end of the spectrum to aggrandize Mr. W. I envy you your horses. They must be wonderful beasts to befriend, if you can put it that way.

Did Millard Sheets actually design the Otis Art Institute on MacArthur Park? I ask because it is currently being desecrated by a lesser talent...

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