Artist:	Frank Matranga
Date:	1971
District:	Fifth Supervisorial District
Location:	La Cañada Flintridge Library 4545 N. Oakwood Avenue La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011
Department:	Public Library

Visitors to the La Cañada Flintridge Library encounter a large ceramic tile mural by Frank Matranga as they enter the building. Located on the right side of the exterior entryway to the library, Matranga’s mural is approximately 15’ h x 15’ w. The mural features abstract forms that gracefully interlock in a beautiful display of soft shapes and muted colors. This was one of the artist’s first large-scale tile murals and, like many of his other works, is inspired by the movement of the wind and sea.

See Frank Matranga, Diamond Bar Library
and Frank Matranga, Marina Del Rey Library
and Frank Matranga, Masao W. Satow Library
and Frank Matranga, View Park Library

About the Artist: Frank Matranga received his BA and MA from California State University Los Angeles. 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.