Portmouth Square Tot Park

In researching the artists I found this 2002 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by M. V. Wood.  I loved it so much I thought I would just reproduce it here for all to enjoy.

They were hip.

 

They were young and beautiful. And they were both artists living in San Francisco in the 1940s, when the city was already romantic, and the cars and tourists were still scarce. Their crowd ruled the scene long before the Beats bought their bongos. They were the countercultural kings when Jerry Garcia was a toddler playing somewhere along the city’s streets.

Years later, Robert McChesney would become recognized as one of the leading figures of American Modernism. His works would be in numerous museum collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And Mary Fuller would become a well-known sculptor and writer, awarded public art commissions throughout the Bay Area.

But back then, McChesney was an emerging, hotshot artist, and Fuller was a successful potter. They kept bumping into each other in artsy North Beach. Finally, during a gallery exhibition of his work, McChesney drew Fuller into a closet and kissed her.

Since that kiss, more than a half-century ago, the Beats had come and gone. Garcia grew up and died. The Berlin Wall went up and came down. So did the World Trade Center. And through it all, McChesney and Fuller continued creating art.

On Saturday, the couple, who moved to the North Bay in the mid-1950s, will return to their old stomping grounds in San Francisco for the opening of the Art Exchange Gallery’s show of his paintings and her sculptures.

A lot has changed in the world and in the city since they were young, McChesney says. “And all of that goes into the art,” he adds. “Everything about life influences your art.”

While 89-year-old McChesney tells the story of their early years and that first kiss, Fuller, 79, smiles. Her husband gives her a sly grin and sidelong glance, probably much like the look he gave her in that closet long ago.

Older couples who give each other that look tend to elicit a characteristic response from younger people: to cock one’s head to the side and whisper, “Oh, aren’t they cute?” It’s the same kind of endearment bestowed upon puppies and other sweet, benign creatures.

McChesney and Fuller do not elicit that sort of behavior. They’re still too wild, too passionate, too fierce to be cute.

They’re still hip.

Robert died in 2008 at 95 years of age.

The sculpture, done in 1984, is cast cement.  It represents the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac.