Buffums Department Store

East Second Street (between Park Ave. and Linden St.) Pomona, CA

1962

Welton, Becket & Associates were the architects for the Buffums building, but Millard Sheets designed the Pomona Mall itself and made interior artworks for Buffums.

Epoxy resin and bronze.

Likely 6 ft. tall

Unknown

Buffums/Millard Sheets

Unknown. The store closed in 1991 and its artifacts were auctioned off in liquidation sales.

N/A

Designed by Millard Sheets, the nine-block Pomona Mall opened in 1962 and was “hailed as one of the first pedestrian malls in the United States and nationally recognized as a blueprint for urban revitalization.” [1] Buffums’ $4 million store anchored the east end of the Mall.

 Historian Adam Arenson identifies the Sheets Studio team for the Pomona Buffums as “Millard Sheets, Susan Lautmann Hertel, Tom Van San[t]; Welton Becket architect; Ray Patucek grille.” [2] Van Sant’s sculptural mobile was likely installed in the department store’s Palomares Room restaurant where the Sheets Studio made two large murals, a “mobile sculpture group,” and a floor mosaic. [3]

[1] Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, Millard Sheets: A Legacy of Art and Architecture, Los Angeles Conservancy, 2012.

[2-3] Adam Arenson, Inventory of Millard Sheets Studio and Home Savings Art and Architecture, 2018, https://adamarenson.com