Early in 1929, Pflueger met Ralph Stackpole, an art professor at California School of Fine Arts and a former student of Mathews, who agreed to sculpt monumental figures for the stock exchange project as well as recommending and supervising other artists. Stackpole wrote later of his experience that "the artists were in from the first. They were called in conference and assumed responsibility and personal pride in the building." Pflueger hired nine artists to help decorate the neighboring Stock Exchange Tower at 155 Sansome, and instructed them only to keep their themes light and airy. Diego Rivera was brought with some difficulty from Mexico to paint a two-story mural in the stairwell between the 10th and 11th floors of the Stock Exchange Luncheon Club (now the City Club). Stackpole himself worked with a crew of assistants to direct carve heroic figures in stone above the tall 155 Sansome entrance, as well as carving two large sculpture groups flanking the Tuscan columns of 301 Pine Street.