Santa Rosa Plaza  - Promo Ad

This is one of a number of paintings Drew did for a firm who constructed shopping Plazas.  As well as this painting he did for the Santa Rosa shopping Plaza Drew also did paintings for the Pasadena Plaza, the Long Beach Plaza and the Las Vegas Shopping Plaza.  They were used as posters or brochures and any number of promotional applications.
This particular painting for Santa Rosa had a special purpose.  Santa Rosa is a quiet little town just north of San Francisco in the California Wine growing area.  It has a lot of history and the population was afraid that a shopping center would destroy the quaint feeling of the town.  Drew was hired to show how the shopping center would feel within the setting of their town and within it's spirit.  You can see that the backdrop for the painting is the brick shopping center and montaged with it is all the historical and architectural vignettes from the towns history.  You can note the march trough it's history from left to right.  See the shot of the town as it appeared in the early part of the century and the old train station starting on the left.   That's Luther Burbank who lived there in Santa Rosa and his famous cross pollinated beans.  You can see the twenties with the flappers, the thirties architecture, the forties with the car, the fifties and sixties fashion, right on up to the "present".
Oh and they liked the painting; the Plaza was built.