In 2025, a Jean Ames’ mural, “Woman on Horseback” (pseud0), was donated to the Tile Heritage Foundation by Donato V. Pompo, founder of Ceramic Tile and Stone Consultants, Inc. The mural was originally purchased from the artist by Donato’s father, Vincent N. Pompo, a manufacturer, importer and distributor of ceramic tile in Southern California. The mural hung above the family’s living room fireplace.
Vince Pompo began his tile career around 1950 working for Gladding, McBean in Glendale, California, unloading box cars of quarry tile. From there he worked his way up from the warehouse to upper management over a 25-year period. It should be noted as well, that Vince’s mother worked at the Franciscan dinnerware factory, hand-painting the dinnerware when she was pregnant with her son.
Vince Pompo worked together with Millard Sheets (1907-2089) at Franciscan Tile in Glendale where Vince was a sales manager when Gladding, McBean and Interpace owned Franciscan. Vince sold Home Savings and Loans bank on having Sheets’ murals installed on the outside of their banks, many of which are still in existence on those buildings now owned by different companies. The pair also worked on the original Hilton Hotel Rainbow exterior veneer tile installation in Honolulu.
Sheets and Pompo were personal friends as well and owned race horses together. Millard was not only renowned for his tile murals, but he was an accomplished watercolor artist whose paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington DC and the Los Angeles County Museum.
A protégé of Millard Sheets, Jean Goodwin Ames (1903-1986), muralist and educator, was born in Santa Ana, California and studied at the Chouinard Art Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pomona College, and UCLA, receiving her master’s degree from USC. Jean taught at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University. In 1958 she was named a Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year. (Wikipedia.org)
THF would like to acknowledge the generosity of Donato Pompo and his family for gifting this mural to the Foundation, an art piece that reflects a mid-20th century period of tile excellence in the United States.
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