11. Academe

At the West entrance of Chico State is a mural called academy by John Pugh this was originally done in 1981 when John was a student at Chico State and it quickly became one of Chico's favorite artworks is really iconic and it is beautifully done we all love looking at it and I see something different every time I look at it.The style is called Tromp leil which in French means, “Fooling of the eye” And the idea that we're looking Classical Greek columns and through the wall of the current Academy the current institution just really is Meaningful for a lot of people it has an interesting story in that when the former art building was going to get torn down people just really were worried about the mural there were a lot of letters to the editor there was a big effort to make sure that it was going to get preserved and Chico state did a very unique thing in that they hired John Pugh all these years later to recreate the mural instead of preserving the actual original one which would have been very very costly in terms of tearing down a whole building and leaving one wall they hired him to recreate it and he did an amazing job with this mural and we really are grateful to Chico State for making sure that we still have this beloved image to enjoy every day.