A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

343 Sansome Street
The Financial District

Four Seasons by Joan Brown

This tiled obelisk is by Joan Brown. Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the “second generation” of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

She studied at the California School of Fine Art (now San Francisco Art Institute), where her teachers included Elmer Bischoff.   Her sculpture is not as well known, and yet she did several of these obelisks, there are at least 3 in San Francisco.  These include the Pine Tree Obelisk in Sidney Walton Park, Obelisk in the Rincon Center, and this one.  Sadly, in 1990, she was killed while doing an obelisk installation in India.

The sculpture is a result of both the 1% for Arts Program and the POPOS program of San Francisco and is available for viewing between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday through Friday.

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Privately-owned public open spaces (POPOS) are publicly accessible spaces in forms of plazas, terraces, atriums, small parks, and even snippets that are provided and maintained by private developers. In San Francisco, POPOS mostly appear in the Downtown office district area. The 1985 Downtown Plan created the first systemic requirements for developers to provide publicly accessible open space as a part of projects.

The public art requirement created by the downtown plan is commonly known as the “1% for Art” program. This requirement, governed by Section 429 of the Planning Code, provides that construction of a new building or addition of 25,000 square feet or more within the downtown C‐3 district, triggers a requirement that provide public art that equals at least 1% of the total construction cost be provided.