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Thomas Houseago

Posted by Cindy on May 26, 2014

May 262014

Foundry Square
1st and Howard

These two sculptures are by Thomas Houseago. The standing is titled Boy III and the one laying is Sleeping Boy. These are both white coated bronze.

Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco Planning Commission

This information about the artist comes from the San Francisco Planning Commission.

Thomas Houseago was born in Leeds, England in 1972. In 1989 he received a grant to attend a local art school called the Jacob Kramer Foundation College, and later continued his studies at Central St. Martin’s College of Art in London. After finishing college in London, Houseago attended De Ateliers in Amsterdam, after which he worked in Brussels for several years until 2004 when he moved to Los Angeles with his wife Amy Bessone.

Although Houseago had previously shown his work in Europe, his art has gone largely unrecognized in the United States until 2007 when a collector from Miami purchased eights of his sculptures. In 2008, Houseago had his first solo show in the United States titled Serpent, at the Los Angeles based David Kordansky Gallery. Houseago was inspired for that showing by Virgil’s The Aeneid and the Hellenistic masterwork Laocoon and His Sons.

Thomas Houseago draws inspiration for his art from the past, in particular the myths of Ancient Greece. He portrays the human body with the abstraction of the modern era, while rejecting the late-modernist notion of the purity of materials. His intense and impatient personality is reflected in his art, which tends to be rough and crude at times. Houseago is drawn towards materials like plaster because of his ability to heap it on to his sculptures with little precision. These particular works, Boy III and Sleeping Boy, are cast bronze with a white patina finish, a new medium for Houseago.

Thomas Houseago’s sculptures advance a psychological hold over their viewers through a highly evolved artistic language that embodies multiple contradictions: his works are simultaneously three dimensional and flat; sculpture and drawing; sharply angular and bulbous. They exude menacing strength whilst at the same time conveying vulnerability. Their rough surfaced forms seem inchoate, yet sophisticated, to be strangely autonomous: they are empty and yet alive.

Houseago has described himself as a realist. His concern, more than with the appearance of his sculptures, is to impart a sense of anima into the works: “As a sculptor, I am trying to put thought and energy into an inert material and give it truth and form” he has said. His sculptures reject the ironic re-workings of readymade vocabularies so prevalent in contemporary art in favor of a deeply individual reckoning with matter. His influences are the heavyweight sculptors of Western art— Picasso, Brancusi, Rodin, Moore and Michaelangelo can all be felt in his art, but his work equally draws from the everyday art forms of music, cartoons and movies: “I see Modernist art through the lens of pop culture, not the other way around.”

The process of making is extremely evident in Houseago’s sculptures. Materials such as plaster, iron rebar, hemp fiber and un- treated wood exert a raw physicality, and their rough forms reveal the actions that have made them. In Sleeping Boy and Boy III, bronze sculptures that arrest the plasticity of clay, the molding process has left each body part riven, with no attempt made by the artist to smooth over the joins or to fill in the hollows of their forms. Houseago’s sculpture is wantonly unrefined. His limbs emphasize their fragmentation rather than the humanist concerns of his art historical forbearers. In both works, Houseago draws broadly on Classical sculpture, seeing them through his own, unique vision. Boy III reaches back through time to refer to the kouroi, the proto-classical representations of male youths that emerged in ancient Greece. But the pose of Houseago’s youngster is informed less by those Archaic Period sculptures than the struts of fashion and pornographic photography, one arm looped behind the head, the other jutting so that its hand is on a hip.

Sleeping Boy by Thomas Houseago at StormKing

The Financial Times did a very detailed article about Houseago and his creative process with some very informative photographs. You can read the article here.

Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Planning Commission

The two planted walls behind the sculptures at Foundry Square are 27 feet in height. One of the walls is “hedge-like” while the other is a multitude of different colored leafage. The firm of SWA is the landscape architect. “The original idea was to consolidate the open space for all four buildings in a single plaza. The four corner bosques soften the intersection and create open space.”

Sargent Johnson Tile’s the Maritime Museum

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2014

May 112014

Maritime Museum
Aquatic Park

This 14′ x 125′ glazed tile mural was created by Sargent Johnson in 1939 with the help of FAP (Federal Art Project) funds. The east end, however, is incomplete.

When the project began, the building was to be a publicly-accessible bathhouse. However, shortly after it opened, the City leased a majority of the building to a group of private businessmen who operated it as the Aquatic Park Casino, limiting the public’s use of the building. Because of this, Johnson walked away from the project before he had completed this interior tile mosaic.

Johnson has been in this website before here for the slate art piece on the front of the building.

This shows the unfinished section of the mural.

And yes, those two animals are by Beniamino Bufano.

Arelious Walker Stairway

Posted by Cindy on May 5, 2014

May 052014

Innes Avenue
Bay View / Hunters Point

This was the proposal that was written for the Call for Artists by the SFAC:

The Arelious Walker Drive Stair replacement is a dynamic community project in partnership with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the Department of Public Works to create ceramic tile mosaic steps on the Arelious Walker Drive extending uphill from Innes Avenue to Northridge Road in the Bay View Hunters Point neighborhood. The stairway provides a vital connection from an isolated low-income community to the India Basin Shoreline, the Bay Trail, Herons Head Park, and future development at Hunters Point Shipyard. The mosaic steps project will enhance the character and livability of the surrounding area so that it becomes a gathering place consistent with the nature and spirit of the neighborhood. The project will also beautify the site by landscaping it with California native plants, succulents, and other drought tolerant species to attract birds, butterflies, and other wildlife.

The new stair comprises 87 equal steps, each measuring four feet wide (4’) and seven inches high (7”). Each riser will be faced in ceramic tile mosaic ½ inch thick.

The artists chosen are the same lovely ladies that are responsible for two tiled stairways in Golden Gate Heights, Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr. Both ladies have been in this website many times before. The cost for the installation was slated to be $90,000.

Exultadagio

Posted by Cindy on April 28, 2014

Apr 282014

San Francisco Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street
Civic Center

Fulfilling the 1% for public art requirement for private development in San Francisco, this glass curtain wall of the music school includes 8” deep horizontal and vertical glass fins. A dichroic glass bevel at the front edge of each fin casts colored light across the building facade and the interior classrooms. The combination of sunlight and glass creates an ever changing composition of colored light throughout the day.

The project is by Daniel Winterich. The glass was fabricated by Lenehan Architectural Glass Company.

Interior Shot courtesy of Winterich Studios

According to Daniel Winterich’s website he was raised in a ninety-five year old family business devoted to the liturgical arts, his training in stained glass, painting and mosaic work began in 1975. His extreme attention to materials and details developed over these early years while working on ecclesiastical projects across the Midwest and southern states.

During his studies at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design, Winterich expanded his education at the German stained glass studio, Oidtmann Glasmalerei in 1982 where he apprenticed in glass painting while working with Germany’s leading glass artists.

After completing his undergraduate design degree, Winterich’s interest in the integration of art and architecture led him to work with three award-winning architectural firms from 1984 to 1994 and become a registered architect in the state of California.

Reflections

Posted by Cindy on April 21, 2014

Apr 212014

680 Folsom Street
SOMA East of 5th

This piece by Gordon Huether is titled Reflections. It is part of the 1% for Art program in San Francisco.

According to his website Gordon Huether was born in Rochester, NY in 1959, to German immigrant parents. Having dual citizenship in Germany and the U.S., Huether has spent much time traveling between both countries. Huether learned art composition and appreciation at an early age from his father. In the course of his initial artistic explorations, Huether was resolved to create a lasting impact on the world around him through the creation of large-scale works of art. He took a deliberate step towards this goal in 1987 when Huether founded his studio in Napa, California.

In 1989 Huether was awarded his first public art commission for the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute. Given the opportunity to collaborate with a building design and construction team, allowed Gordon to realize what he envisioned, and proved to be a significant step for him.

Reflections draws on Huether’s belief that our essence can always be found in nature and light. The dichroic glass panels mounted to the stainless steel frame allow the viewer to explore that essence through the images they reflect, whether beautiful and pristine, or dirty, damaged and decayed. The piece is made of glass and metal and stands 5 X 12 X 5 feet.

Marine Firemen’s Union

Posted by Cindy on April 14, 2014

Apr 142014

240 2nd Street
SOMA East of 5th

The Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association often referred to as the Marine Firemen’s Union is an American labor union of mariners working aboard U.S. flag vessels. The Marine Firemen’s Union is an affiliate union of Seafarers International Union.The union was formed in San Francisco, California in October, 1883 by firemen on coal-burning steamers.

The building that holds this bas-relief was opened in 1957. Sculptor Olof Carl Malmquist designed the exterior bas-relief depicting marine firemen at work in a ship’s engine room.

Olof Carl Malmquist (1894-1975) was born in Wallingford, CT on October 26, 1894. Malmquist studied under Lee Lawrie at Yale and continued on a fellowship at Rome’s American Academy. After settling in San Francisco in 1922, he provided architectural embellishments on many public buildings in northern California. He contributed greatly to the sculpture on Treasure Island for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. He died in San Francisco.

I want to especially thank the authors of a wonderful book The San Francisco Labor Landmarks Guide Book, that was the only place I was able to find the artist of this historic piece.

Rain Portal

Posted by Cindy on April 7, 2014

Apr 072014

SFPUC Building
525 Golden Gate Avenue
Civic Center

Rain Portal by Ned Kahn. Kahn has several pieces around San Francisco that you can read about here.

Ned Kahn’s Rain Portal is located inside the lobby of the new Public Utilities building. Kahn’s Firefly graces the exterior of the building and you can read about it here.

Rain Portal seeks to permeate an interior architectural wall with rain. Drops of water falling inside of an undulating polycarbonate membrane suggests the endless cycle of evaporation and precipitation.

According to Kahn, “One of the paradoxes of the Rain Portal is that much of the entire history of architecture can be viewed as the endeavor to keep rain out. Here we have invited it in.”

The installation covers two walls located on either side of the lobby stairway. The installation is a self-sustaining system that continuously recycles water to create the illusion of rain inside the clear polycarbonate wall panels. The extruded polycarbonate has multiple cells of plastic that through which water is pumped up from a reservoir at the bottom of the panels and released as small drops into the top. The artwork was dedicated with the opening of the building in June 2012.

The installation of Rain Portal cost $24,800, and was done by Gizmo Art Productions. I was unable to find what the piece itself cost.

These two plaques are not part of Ned Kahn’s installation, but rather part of the buildings effort to be one of the foremost water conscious buildings in the world. An important reminder while California enters another year of severe drought.

This work has been deaccessioned.

Peace

Posted by Cindy on March 31, 2014

Mar 312014

154 McAllister Street
Civic Center

According to Reka’s own website:

James Reka – Melbourne, Australia

Self-taught artist

James Reka is a young contemporary Australian artist based in Berlin, Germany. His origins lie in the alleyways and train lines of Melbourne’s inner-suburbs where he spent over a decade refining his now-emblematic aesthetic. His character work has come to represent the beginnings of a new style of street art: clean, unique and not necessarily on the street (much to his mother’s joy). With influences in pop culture, cartoons and illustration, Reka’s style has become known for its fusion of high and low art. This style emerged from his Pop-Art-influenced logo design background, featuring simple but striking lines and colour ways. Over time, the logos and symbols he created for clients evolved into more structured, animated forms and embraced variances of the different media he began experimenting with.

This is Reka’s art: a paradox between sharp design and graffiti, held together with a fuse of passion and spray paint.

This installation was a result of Reka’s show at White Walls Gallery titled 3am Femmes. The show ran October 12 – November 2, 2013.

Island Fever

Posted by Cindy on March 24, 2014

Mar 242014

50 8th Street
SOMA/Civic Center

I am a huge fan of Lady Mags and Amanda Lynn, and they have been on this website many times. I have also been walking by this piece for quite a while, admiring it and yet not quite having a chance to take pictures when it wasn’t blocked by cars. Finally, I had the chance, so here it is for your pleasure.

According to Amanda Lynn’s website:

Lady Mags and I (aka Alynn-Mags) recently completed the largest mural production we have ever created, and it all happened in less than 5 days! We were asked to collaborate with JanSport and their ‘Live Outside’ campaign, to create a mural any size and any content that we could imagine. Mags and I decided to go bigger than ever and create a piece that was enhanced by elements of our fine art collaborations, traditional graffiti, and of course some lovely ladies! We are so honored and humbled by all the amazing support we have received with this project, and look forward to doing many more. Stay tuned for the official campaign launch and accompanying video of the whole process.

If you follow this website often, you will notice that I have been doing fewer and fewer murals. The reason is they have become repetitive. I am in awe with anyone that can take brush or spray can to a wall and create something of beauty. However, the art of so many of the artists I have focused on in this website can be recognized without the help of a guide. The same might be said of Alynn-Mags, but it isn’t quite true. Their work, while often of beautiful women, are of the same genre, but the paintings themselves are each unique and beautiful.

I look forward to catching other great street artists breaking out of their molds.

Neptune Society Loses its Ruffle Shirt in the Loma Prieta Earthquake

Posted by Cindy on March 21, 2014

Mar 212014

729 South 2nd Street
San Jose, California

After the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake the owners of this building came to work to find that the ornamentation on the front of the building had cracked, broken and in some cases fallen off.

Upon further inspection they found that the building was a wood structure and that the original plaster ornamentation was simply nailed onto the wood structure and adhered with a bit of stucco. The front of the building needed to be completely restored.

After taking field molds of the pieces, Michael H. Casey Designs brought the pieces back to their studio and made a mock up of the actual design in order to reproduce it. A mold was made and the pieces were cast for installation on the building.

The pieces that you see are discolored due to the rain in the photograph, but are made of GFRC (Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete) backed with a steel frame.

The building began its life (sometime in the 1920’s) as the Cambiano Lighting Studio. The Cambiano studio made elaborate wrought iron lighting fixtures in the Spanish Colonial Style for the many churches and mansions of the south bay that incorporated that classic “California” look into their architecture.

The driving force behind the complete renovation, both inside and out was A.J. Moore and Associates.

McDowell Hall

Posted by Cindy on March 17, 2014

Mar 172014

McDowell Hall
Franklin Street
Fort Mason
Marina District

Fort Mason was originally called Fort Point San Jose

According to a 2005 Historic American Buildings Survey Quarters 1 was built in 1877. General Irvin McDowell secured $9,998.74 from Congress to construct Quarters 1. This building was not named McDowell Hall until July 1958, in honor of the General.

From the Report:

“The original building plans have not yet been found. Quarters 1 was originally built for General Irvin McDowell, the commander of the Military Division of the Pacific, who was stationed at Fort Mason. Prior to 1877, the building site was home to the Brooks- Grisar house, a privately-owned building constructed in 1855. In the course of constructing the general’s residence, the old Brooks-Grisar house was moved from its former location and relocated approximately 250 feet to the north. During the construction of Quarters 1, the Brooks- Grisar kitchen and servant’s wing were retained on site, moved slightly and set on new foundations to serve the same function for the new house. ”

This oil painting, which once hung inside McDowell Hall when it was an Officers Club documents landscape characteristics of 1868 when Point San Jose (Now Fort Mason) remained an isolated outpost.

Quarters 1 Circa 1885-Library of Congress

“The original architect is not known. The building was probably built from standard army quartermaster building plans. The United States Army contracted the construction of this building.

The building was owned by the United States Army from 1877 to 1972, when the property of Fort Mason was transferred to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, National Park Service.

The original builders and contractors for this building are unknown. It is presumed that the original and all subsequent contractors were hired through the army’s quartermaster office. Almost immediately after the building was constructed, the army began modifications and upgrades to the building. Over the years, there were several different contractors hired for the work, although their information has not been found.

Quarters 1 Circa 1891

Quarters 1 played a significant role during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The Commanding General’s house experienced little damage from the earthquake and the building was quickly pressed into service as the army’s emergency headquarters for firefighting and relief activities in the aftermath of the disaster. The divisional commander, General Adolfus Greeley, was not in San Francisco at the time of the earthquake so his second in command, Colonel Frederick Funston, assumed command until the general’s return. It was Funston who realized that the army’s Divisional Headquarters, located in downtown San Francisco, had been grievously damaged during the earthquake and would probably not survive the expanding fires. Reacting quickly, Funston established Quarters 1 as the emergency command post and coordinated the critical martial and civil law enforcement from the building. While much of the city’s down town was on-fire, Fort Mason was quickly designated as San Francisco’s temporary City Hall and emergency command center. Fort Mason was also home to the essential earthquake relief camps, where the soldiers provided food, water and temporary shelter to hundreds of homeless citizens. ”

Fort Mason’s earthquake relief encampment. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library; photo circa 1909

Midway through World War II Quarters 1 was turned into an Officers Club it remained so until 2002 when the building was turned over to the GGNRA

The following two photos are from the Fort Mason website, as the house is now available to rent for private parties.

Sadly the renovation looks as though it was done by the government, the rest of the interior is not worth any further photographs, but the views are rather fabulous.

Atlantis and Mu

Posted by Cindy on March 13, 2014

Mar 132014

Maritime Museum
Aquatic Park

The interior of the museum is painted with a large mural by Hilaire Hiler, These murals depict the mythic continents of Atlantis and Mu.

Many know the story of Atlantis, but Mu is not as well known. Mu is the name of a suggested lost continent whose concept and the name were proposed by 19th-century early Mayanist, archaeologist, photographer, traveler and writer, Augustus Le Plongeon Le Plongeon claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu—which he located in the Atlantic Ocean. This concept was popularized and expanded by James Churchward, who asserted that Mu was once located in the Pacific

Hilaire Hiler was born in St Paul, Minnesota on July 16, 1898. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania; University of Denver; Golden State University, Los Angeles; and the Nat’l College, Ontario, Canada. Sailing to France in 1919, he continued at the University of Paris while playing saxophone in a jazz band. During the 1920s he ran the Jockey Club (an artists’ hangout) on the Left Bank. At the club he often played jazz piano with a live monkey on his back.

Upon moving to San Francisco in the 1930s, he was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration to paint these murals in the Maritime Museum. He contributed illustrated maps for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939 and exhibited at the fair.

From San Francisco he moved south to Hollywood where he opened a short-lived nightclub on the Sunset Strip. He then lived in Santa Fe (New Mexico), New York City, and in the early 1960s returned to Paris where he remained until his death on January 19, 1966.

Hiler was a Modernist. He helped found the idea of ‘Structuralism’ which aims to create harmony by the presentation of organized color and form. Structuralism design is made for contemplation.

Hiler’s works are in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of New Mexico, Oakland Museum of California, Portland Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and Georgia Museum of Art. His work is in numerous private collections in the United States and abroad.

I found this when pursuing the Hiler papers in the Archives of American Art. I thought it to much fun not to share.This was drawn up around 1965.

Spirogyrate

Posted by Cindy on March 11, 2014

Mar 112014

Terminal Three
SFO
Post TSA

One weekend in January 2014 the city of San Francisco and the contractors opened the new Terminal Three to the public before it went live.

I used the opportunity to capture as much public art as I could before you had to buy an airline ticket to get access to this part of the airport.

The lighting in the terminal is pretty bad. There are big windows letting in lots of natural light, but the placement of the art made reflections, often the only thing, I was able to photograph.

This piece by Eric Staller proved to be very popular, it didn’t hurt that there was a DJ playing music for the kids to enjoy as well.

Eric Staller was commissioned by the SF Arts Commission to create a children’s play area at SFO. These are twelve, six foot diameter, spirals that seemingly propel one another like gears. The gears are laster-cut acrylic and are motorized to move both clockwise and counter-clockwise. The spirals sit under plate glass, and motion sensors activate the spirals to not only move, but change colors as people walk over them.

Eric Staller was born in 1947 in Mineola, New York. His father’s avocation has been architecture, this inspired Staller to study architecture himself. In 1971 Staller completed a Bachelor Degree in Architecture at the University of Michigan.

Spirogyrate was commissioned by the SF Art Commission for $304,000.

Oscar Wilde

Posted by Cindy on March 7, 2014

Mar 072014

Merrion Square
Dublin, Ireland

This fun statue of Oscar Wilde, laying back without a care in the world is in Marrion Square, Dublin. He is facing his boyhood home just across the street at 1 Merrion Square.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, was born in nearby Westland Row in 1854. Wilde, who spent much of his adult life in England, is regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest literary figures. Until the late 1890s, owing to a gay affair which led to a prison sentence and disgrace, he was the darling of the upper classes, entertaining them with his considerable wit and lively conversation.

The statue was commissioned by the Guinness Ireland group for 45,000 pounds. It was unveiled in 1997. The sculptor was Danny Osborne. Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson was the model used for the sculpture’s head.

The sculpture is carved from a variety of colourful semi precious stones from many parts of the world. Green nephrite jade from Canada, white jade from Guatemala, pink thulite from Norway, black granite from India and blue pearl granite. The boulder on which the figure reclines is granite from the nearby Wicklow Mountains.

The two pillars which flank Oscar Wilde on both sides are used to set out his thoughts,opinions, witticisms on art and life. These quotes were selected by a mixture of poets, public figures, artists, and scientists, who use Wilde’s own words to pay tribute to him.

Danny Osborne was born in Dorset, England in 1949. He now resides in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada and Cork, Ireland. Osborne studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art. He is best known for his public sculptures, particularly this Oscar Wilde Memorial, listed by The Irish Times as one of the sites to see before you die. Osborn is also known for his paintings of the Canadian Arctic and his experimentation with lava flows to create sculptures. He is believed to be the first to figure out a process of casting sculpture out of live lava flows. His work has included lava casted sculptures from the active complex volcano Pacaya.

On the top of these two pillars are Dionysus and Constance. Male and Female. With Oscar in the middle – the perfect triangle.

“The bronze torso of Dionysus stands on the pillar of Art. Oscar had a plaster cast of a statue of this god in his study in Tite Street, London, associating this image not only with wine and youth but also with drama. Because it is fragmented, the sculpture represents not any particular body, but the unattainable or lost ideal that is Art.

On the pillar of life, kneels the figure of Constance, 6 months pregnant, her hands cradling the life she is carrying, gazing across the path over her shoulder at Oscar. It is significant that Oscars first homosexual encounter occurred when she was at this stage of pregnancy with her second child. Here the figure is complete and realistic, and represents the tyranny of fact, and Oscar is not looking at her but beyond her.” From Danny Osbornes website.

For information on travel in Ireland check out PassportandBaggage.

Art under the waterfall

Posted by Cindy on February 27, 2014

Feb 272014

Blarney Castle – Rock Close
Blarney
County Cork, Ireland

Puffballs from the Inside Out

These ceramic pieces are by Michelle Maher. Maher is a Ceramic Artist who lives and works in Castleknock, Dublin. She graduated from N.U.I. Maynooth in 1996 with a Master’s degree, after studying English and History.

According to her website:

My ceramic sculptures are an exploration of colour and texture. Microscopic organisms often inspire my work and unusual plant forms and the science behind living things continues to fascinate me. My passion is for large-scale sculptural work and my pieces are mostly for outdoor exhibition.

Symmetry by Michelle Maher

I often design my work for installation in lakes, ponds, rivers and streams – the interaction of the ceramic with the water is very important to my practice. Indeed, I have won a number of sculpture awards for large-scale outdoor pieces in a water setting.

These pieces are part of Blarney Castle’s permanent collection. The Symmetry piece won the Public Award for the sculpture most popular with visitors to the Castle in 2013. In 2012, this same piece was exhibited in the National Botanic Gardens and won an award for Sculpture in Context. Symmetry was inspired by coral and dahlia flowers.

For more information on traveling in Ireland checkout PassportandBaggage.com

Bog Wood

Posted by Cindy on February 26, 2014

Feb 262014

Blarney Castle
Blarney
County Cork, Ireland

Blarney Castle has a fabulous curator. There is art work spread out throughout the grounds, and it is all so beautiful chosen for its particular site. This piece is by artist Pieter Koning.

The pice is actually a 7000 year old piece of bog oak and is titled Organic Growth. Pieter has done many pieces out of bog wood and according to his website: Bog Wood is found in the Irish bogs where it has been preserved for 5,000 years or more. There are three types of Bog Wood: Oak, Yew and Pine. The wood was part of the great forests which covered the central plains of Ireland. The fluidity and impression of movement are very endearing features of these bog wood sculptures.

Koning was born in Holland in 1948. He turned to sculpture after three years studying sociology and then subsequently worked with qualified stone sculptors for two years. Koning now lives in Ireland in Teeraha, Caherciveen, County Kerry where he also has his studio.

I was curious about working with bog wood and this is what I found. Bog-wood, is also known as abonos or morta, especially in the world of the pipe smokers. Which means to me, it must be somewhat easy to carve. The wood is usually stained brown by tannins dissolved in the acidic water. Bog-wood represents the early stages in the fossilisation of wood, with further stages ultimately forming lignite and coal over a period of many millions of years.

For information on traveling in Ireland checkout PassportandBaggage.com

Famine

Posted by Cindy on February 23, 2014

Feb 232014

St. Stephen’s Green
Dublin, Ireland

There are many famine statues around Ireland, as well as the world, and this one is by Edward Delaney.

Edward Delaney (1930–2009) was an Irish sculptor born in Claremorris in County Mayo in 1930. His best known works include the 1967 statue of Wolfe Tone and famine memorial at the northeastern corner of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the statue of Thomas Davis in College Green, opposite Trinity College Dublin. These are both examples of lost-wax bronze castings, his main technique during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Delaney attended the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and, supported by the Irish Arts Council, studied casting in Germany. He represented Ireland at the Biennale de Paris in 1959 and 1961.

Arts writer Judith Hill points out that these statues make no attempt at an exact likeness of the figures they portray, instead, they communicate the public stature of their subjects and, indeed, the public role of memorial statues through their proportions and scale.

The following is his obituary from The Guardian:

The Irish sculptor Edward Delaney, who has died aged 79, is best known for his two major public monuments in Dublin, the Thomas Davis and Wolfe Tone memorials, which were unveiled in 1966 and 1967 respectively. When the figure of Wolfe Tone, weighing three-quarters of a tonne, was placed in St Stephen’s Green, there were complaints that it was too big. He rejected them out of hand: “Tone figured life-size in a park setting would look like a leprechaun.”

Asked what the four famine figures flanking the fountain at the rear of the memorial had to do with Tone, he replied that the failure of the French-backed 1798 rebellion presaged the disaster of the late 1840s. “I would like to have depicted him in French uniform, plumed hat and victorious sword. But history decided otherwise.” The Davis memorial, opposite the gates of Trinity College, also attracted unfavourable comment, and was dismissed by one critic as “an elephantine-footed” monster. Delaney retorted: “Truth lies in proportions, not in size.” In 1971, the memorial was blown up and had to be reconstructed by the artist when only the head survived.

Described as direct to the point of brazen, Delaney cultivated the image of the “angry man of sculpture,” as one newspaper portrayed him. He lambasted collectors who did not buy his work and was scathing in his criticism of some public art. The Irish public, in his view, had little understanding of sculpture: “They think you are codding them, so if I get the chance to throw sculpture at them, I do it with style.”

He grew up in Farmhill, Crossboyne, Co Mayo. By his account, his forefathers, the De Laniers, were French stonemasons who came to Mayo in the mid-19th century. He recalled growing up “surrounded by stone fireplaces made by my grandfather”. But his father chose to be a farmer. Delaney left school at 14, to work as an assistant in a hardware shop. Wanting more out of life, he headed for Dublin. There, he “infiltrated” the National College of Art, attending classes without ever enrolling.

He was drawn to sculpture after reading an article about the German sculptor Josef Wackerle and used bursaries from the West German and Italian governments to travel. His aim was to learn the art of lost-wax bronze casting, an exceptionally faithful method of casting that allows for fine detail. His quest led him to study in Rome and Munich, after which he worked in seven different foundries in Germany and northern France.

He got to work with sculptors such as Toni Stadler and Giacomo Manzù, whom he considered “the greatest sculptor in Christendom”, and came to identify with the postwar tradition of European figurative sculpture. Other artists who influenced him were Marino Marini and Emilio Greco. His return to Ireland in the early 1960s coincided with an expanding art market, a consequence of economic growth and cultural change. Reflecting the optimism of the times, he established his studio in Dún Laoghaire along with a foundry capable of casting monumental sculpture. Until then, such work had been cast only in London, Paris or Milan.

He regularly exhibited in Dublin, showing lithographs as well as small bronzes. He also designed album covers for the Chieftains and illustrated Wolf Mankowitz’s play The Samson Riddle.

In the mid-1970s he built a studio in Carraroe, Co Galway, moving there permanently in 1980 to live and work on a 21-acre farm. He grew vegetables, but devoted most of his efforts to developing an outdoor sculpture park. The bronze figures of humans and animals that first dotted the landscape were in time joined by pieces in pressed steel.

He represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1959 and 1961, and exhibited his work in Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Budapest. He complained that London did not welcome Irish artists.

Represented in many private and corporate collections, he created an altar piece for St Michael the Archangel church in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and work for Our Lady’s hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth. His six-metre-high steel sculpture Celtic Twilight is situated on the campus of University College Dublin. His bronze statue Eve With Apple was recently donated by a private collector to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The piece was inspired by the artist’s years in Germany and the postwar poverty he witnessed there.

His reputation may ultimately rest on his small-scale work – animal and human figures, as well as more abstract creations. Of this work the critic Anthony Butler wrote: “Place these small sculptures on some Atlantic headland, letting the wind whistle through their complex spaces and cupping the rain on their raw texture, and they would be as natural as the limestone cliffs of Aran.”

For information about travel in Ireland checkout PassportandBaggage.com

Famine

Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2014

Feb 222014

Custom House Quay
Dublin. Ireland

This breathtaking group of statues is titled “Famine” and is by Rowan Gillespie.

The accompanying plaque reads ” Unveiled by Her Excellency President Robinson – Commissioned and Donated to the people of Ireland by Norma Smurfit 29th May 1997″

“A procession fraught with most striking and most melancholy interest, wending its painful and mournful way along the whole line of the river to where the beautiful pile of the Custom house is distinguishable in the far distance……”
Irish Quarterly Review, 1854

This location is a particularly appropriate and historic as one of the first voyages of the Famine period was on the ‘Perserverance’ which sailed from Custom House Quay on St. Patrick’s Day 1846. Captain William Scott, a native of the Shetland Isles, was a veteran of the Atlantic crossing, gave up his office job in New Brunswick to take the ‘Perserverance’ out of Dublin. He was 74 years old. The Steerage fare on the ship was £3 and 210 passengers made the historical journey. They landed in New York on the 18th May 1846. All passengers and crew survived the journey.

No event in history effected Ireland more than the Great Irish Famine, which lasted 1845 to 1849. During that time more than one million men, women and children died and a further one and a half million emigrated.

Rowan Fergus Meredith Gillespie (born 1953) is an Irish bronze casting sculptor of international renown. Born in Dublin to Irish parents, Gillespie spent his formative years in Cyprus.

In 1969 he attended York School of Artwhere he was first introduced to the lost-wax casting process by the bronze sculptor Sally Arnup.In 1970 he attended Kingston College of Art where he was tutored by woodcarver John Robson and through whom he met, and was encouraged by, Henry Moore. Following his studies at York and Kingston, he completed his studies at the Statens Kunstole in Oslo.

For information on travel in Ireland check out PassportandBaggage.

Love and Marriage San Francisco Style

Posted by Cindy on February 14, 2014

Feb 142014

City Hall
South Light Court

In 2004, San Francisco General Hospital launched Hearts in San Francisco to generate revenue to support its numerous programs. This heart, in City Hall’s South light court, was part of that program. Designed by Deborah Oropallo the interlocking Heart, titled LOVE + MARRIAGE, was sponsored by Ambassador James Hormel and Timothy Wu. The heart displays the first names of many of the gay couples married in San Francisco in 2004.

ARTIST’S THOUGHTS: “I wanted to make a heart that would not just be decorative, but somehow be relevant to what is going on in San Francisco today. The list of same-sex names represents some of the 4,161 gay marriages that took place in 29 days, and has now become an important part of our city’s history. The names were done on my computer and printed onto canvas with a digital permanent pigment printer. At the center of the heart and the literal focal point are the names of Del Martin, 83, and Phyllis Lyon, 79, who were the first couple to get married on Feb 12. The names fade out away from the center like a drop of water in the middle and its ripple effect. I was extremely happy that the heart was appropriately placed on the spot where these marriages took place.”

Deborah Oropallo is a Bay Area painter and sculptor who has exhibited her work at various museums around the country including the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. and the Whitney Museum in New York City.

Oropallo got her MA and MFA from the University of California, Berkeley

Sargent Johnson and Aquatic Park

Posted by Cindy on February 13, 2014

Feb 132014

Maritime Museum
Aquatic Park

This carved sandstone entry to the Maritime Museum was done as a Federal Arts Project (FAP) by Sargent Johnson. Johnson was in this site before for the log.

This building was originally a New Deal WPA (Works Progress Administration) building called the Aquatic Park Bathhouse. Construction began in 1936 and the building was dedicated in 1939. It is a stunning Streamline Moderne style building and a focal point of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.

Both the interior and exterior of the building contain art funded through the FAP.

Johnson designed and carved this green Vermont slate that adorns the museum entrance. The two-inch thick pieces of slate were cut into three by four foot pieces and carved by Johnson offsite. They were then attached to the building using wires and plaster of Paris.

According to Gray Brechin, author of Imperial San Francisco: allowing Johnson a prominent piece of art on a large scale, was a significant tribute to him and the African American community. WPA projects should also be remembered for efforts in gender and racial equality. Almost half of the artists who worked for the WPA were women, and room was made for Chicanos, American Indians, Asians and African Americans.

Judge James Seawell

Posted by Cindy on February 11, 2014

Feb 112014

Second Floor
City Hall
Civic Center

The San Francisco Call ran this article on November 8, 1898:

Judge James M. Seawell.

No better nomination has been made by any party than that of Judge James M. Seawell, one of the Democratic candidates for Superior Judge. During the six years he has served in that capacity he has built up a reputation as a jurist that he may justly feel proud of. He has shown conspicuous ability, has ever presided with dignity and has been honest and conscientious in his interpretation of the law. It can be truly said that his services have helped to elevate the bench of San Francisco and gain for it the confidence and respect of the people. Judge Seaweil was born in 1536 at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, where his father, who was at the time a captain in the regular army, was then stationed. The Judge graduated at Harvard College In 1855. and at the law school of Louisville, Ky., in 1857. He came to this city in 1861 and has resided here ever since. He was elected to the Superior bench in 1892, and his candidacy for re-election is most favorably received because of his eminent fitness for the position.

The artist of this bust was Ralph Stackpole. Stackpole is responsible for many statues throughout San Francisco that you can see here.

Ralph Ward Stackpole (May 1, 1885 – December 13, 1973) was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco’s leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realism, especially during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Federal Art Project for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Stackpole was responsible for recommending that architect Timothy L. Pflueger bring Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to San Francisco to work on the San Francisco Stock Exchange and its attached office tower in 1930–31.

The statue was a gift of the SF Bar Association.

Sky

Posted by Cindy on February 10, 2014

Feb 102014

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 3
Post TSA

This is Sky by Merge Conceptual Design. Merge Conceptual Design is comprised of Franka Diehnelt and Claudia Reisenberger who are both architecture graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and currently teach at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Sky is a suspended light sculpture comprised of 27 mirror-polished stainless steel spheres in varying sizes. The globes are hollow with circular openings oriented at various angles. The interior of the globes is painted an even matte blue, and illuminated by LED edge lighting that creates a soft interior glow. A computerized program will cause the lights within the globes to brighten and dim at various intervals creating an ever changing pattern of light.

According to Merge, the installation explores the human perception of space. The exterior of the mirrored spheres use reflections to camouflage themselves in their surroundings; they reflect their environment, and distort and reproduce it in miniature. The optical effect caused by the blue interior and the edge lighting will cause the viewer to lose a sense of the spheres’ proportions as objects. Through subtle shifts in color and light intensity the space will become unreadable – both expanding and flattening at the same time.

Sky was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for $290,000.

Dianne Feinstein

Posted by Cindy on February 7, 2014

Feb 072014

City Hall
Mayors Balcony
Civic Center

Dianne Feinstein was the head of the Board of Supervisors on the day that Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were tragically assassinated. She instantly became Mayor.

This sculpture (the second of Dianne Feinstein to sit in City Hall) was done in 1996 by Lisa Reinertson.

According to Lisa’s website:

Lisa Reinertson is known for both her life size figurative ceramic sculptures and her large-scale public sculptures cast in bronze.

Coming from a family of peace and social activists, Reinertson’s work has an underlying humanism that can be seen both in her poetic ceramic figures with animals, to her more historic public commissions that express ideals of peace and social justice. In her public sculptures of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez she blends bas-relief into her three-dimensional sculptural forms creating an historic and powerfully moving narrative. Her work combines a realism rooted in figurative art traditions, with a contemporary expression of social and psychological content.

Reinertson completed her MFA at UC Davis in 1984, studying with Robert Arneson, and Manuel Neri. She has taught at several universities and colleges in Northern California including CSU Chico, Santa Clara University and UC Berkeley. Her ceramic work has been in exhibitions and museums nationally and internationally, and is in several public and private collections including the Crocker Art Museum, the ASU Art Museum and the Mint Museum. Reinertson has completed over 20 public commissions in bronze.

City Hall in Wood

Posted by Cindy on February 6, 2014

Feb 062014

City Hall
South Light Court
Civic Center

This is one of five wooden models that Don Potts did for the 1982 AIA Convention. The pieces were later purchased by the City and four are now on display in City Hall. You can read about the first two here. Don was a meticulous artist. Another renown project, that has since been destroyed was “My First Car”.

The fourth of these models is of the Hallidie Plaza, a building that houses the San Francisco Chapter of the AIA.

In researching Don Potts I found this article by Hal Crippen about “My Car”

THE FIRST CAR of Don Potts is actually an extraordinary assemblage—a concours d’elegance of one man’s work. The title itself has a sort of parallel to Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout and the objects themselves are resonant with the objects of a now—lost American boyhood—an American Flyer wagon, a soap box derby car, a first bicycle—but here raised to the Nth power of imagination.

At a time when true craftsmanship, and even the idea of it, is fast disappearing in automobiles, and even the very existence of the automobile is called into question, Don Potts has paid a necessary act of homage to the greatest of automobiles. One thinks of Bugattis, Lancia Lambdas, early MGs, birdcage Maserati frames.

The craftsmanship is literally stunning–but it is no more important to know that Potts’s spent six years on this creation than it is to know Michaelangelo’s back bothered him in painting Sistine Chapel. The Potts car is simply there in ultimate perfection. The aim of the craftsman is to reveal rather than to conceal—and thus this Vesalian anatomy of the idea of a car, beautiful in its nakedness.

It is a fantasy of a car—ultimately useless, somehow gut-exciting, doomed and yet with a strange optimism. It is a car for dream riders in dream landscapes.

The entire work consists of the Basic Chassis of wood, the Master Chassis, motorized and radio controlled, and two bodies, one of stainless steel and the other of fabric and steel. The whole work must, for the purpose of classification, be considered as sculpture, but actually it exists beyond classification simply as a work of art. It is not something that one could buy to “decorate” a space. It is, in heroic scale, both a monument and a memorial of an age.

Don Potts Amazing Wood Models

Posted by Cindy on February 5, 2014

Feb 052014

City Hall
South Light Court
Civic Center

Pylon of the Golden Gate Bridge

There are four amazing, exquisite and highly detailed wood models in the South Light Court of City Hall. They are all by Don Potts.

These architectural models were designed and built in 1982 by Don Potts in commemoration of the Centennial of the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The models were first displayed in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which “highlighted the important contribution that architecture has made to the City and County of San Francisco, and which served to reawaken a public awareness of the built environment. Each building or public space represents a unique phase in the evolution and development of San Francisco’s rich architectural heritage and distinguished urban design. Each model also serves as a type of icon, symbolizing various aspects of urban life.”

The models were purchased by the joint committee of the SFAC and the San Francisco Airports Commission for $13,700.

Donald Edwin Potts was born in San Francisco on October 5, 1936. Potts studied at San Francisco City College and received his M.A. at San Jose State College. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley for several years. In 2006 he moved to Fairfield, Iowa.

He has had 24 solo shows at the Whitney Museum (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and others.

His works are held at Pasadena Museum; San Francisco Museum; Oakland Museum; La Jolla Museum; Joselyn Art Museum (Nebraska)

This Italianate Victorian Home was modeled on a home at 1808 California Street. The model was altered to give it a more Italianate feeling. Maplewood was laser-cut to give the model its gingerbread ornamentation. Multi-shaped woods were laminated together to give the desired pattern and three-dimensional image.

George Moscone

Posted by Cindy on February 4, 2014

Feb 042014

City Hall
Mayor’s Balcony
Civic Center

This bronze bust is of the late Mayor George Moscone. Moscone was assassinated by Dan White along with Harvey Milk in November 1978, a tragedy for the City of San Francisco. Moscone was our 37th mayor.

The bust was done by my dear friend Spero Anargyros. Spero has a few works throughout San Francisco, and you can read about them here.

Many people are aware of the highly controversial, but in my opinion, excellent, sculpture of Moscone by Robert Arneson. The bust that Arneson created was not liked by the powers that be. The new mayor, Dianne Feinstein, had a letter hand delivered to each Arts Commissioner just before their vote on whether to accept the bust, asking them to reject it, and they did, by a seven-to-three vote. The bust, being shown at Moscone Center, was removed and Robert Arneson returned the thirty-seven thousand dollars he had been paid to do the work.

In December 1994, Spero Anargyros’s sculpture of George Moscone was unveiled.

The pedestal reads: San Francisco is an extraordinary city, because its people have learned to live together with one another, to respect each other, and to work with each other for the future of their community. That’s the strength and beauty of this city – it’s the reason why citizens who live here are the luckiest people in the world.”…a quote from George Moscone.

Log

Posted by Cindy on February 3, 2014

Feb 032014

Corner of Webster and Golden Gate Avenue
Park behind the Rosa Parks Senior Center
Western Addition

I have driven past this park one thousand times and have always wondered about this tree stump. Then one day my dear friend Netra Roston told me about an artist named Sargent Johnson. Sargent Johnson was not a stranger to this blog, his WPA work is at the Maritime Museum.

Born in Boston on October 7, 1887, Sargent Claude Johnson was the third of six children of Anderson and Lizzie Jackson Johnson. Anderson Johnson was of Swedish ancestry, and his wife was Cherokee and African American. All of the children were fair enough in complexion to be considered white, and several of Johnson’s sisters preferred to live in white society. Sargent, however, was insistent upon identifying with his African-American heritage throughout his life.

The Johnson children were orphaned by the deaths of their father in 1897 and their mother in 1902. The children spent their early years in Washington, D.C., with an uncle, Sherman William Jackson, a high school principal whose wife was May Howard Jackson, a noted sculptress who specialized in portrait busts of African Americans. It was probably while young Sargent was living with his aunt that he developed his earliest interest in sculpture.

Johnson arrived in the San Francisco area in 1915, during the time of the Panama Pacific International Exposition, which impressed him greatly.

The same year Johnson arrived in San Francisco, he met and married Pearl Lawson, an African American from Georgia who had moved to the Bay Area. The couple had one child, Pearl Adele, who was born in 1923. The couple separated in 1936 and shortly afterwards Mrs. Johnson was hospitalized at Stockton State Hospital, where she died in 1964.

Johnson worked at various jobs during his first years in San Francisco but also attended two art schools, the A. W. Best School of Art and the California School of Fine Arts. Johnson was enrolled at the latter school from 1919 to 1923 and from 1940 to 1942. He studied first under the well-known sculptor Ralph Stackpole for two years, and for a year with Beniamino Bufano. Johnson’s student work at the California School of Fine Arts was awarded first prizes in 1921 and 1922.

The 1930s were the most productive decade in Johnson’s career. The W.P.A. Federal Art Project provided a number of opportunities for Johnson during the late 1930s in the Bay Area. Johnson’s first large W.P.A. project was an organ screen carved of redwood in low relief for the California School of the Blind in Berkeley. The eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot panel was completed in 1937 and installed in the school’s chapel. In 1939 he undertook another W.P.A. project, decorating the interior of the San Francisco Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park.

For the Golden Gate International Exposition Johnson completed his largest figures. He designed two eight-foot-high cast stone figures, which were displayed around the fountain in the Court of Pacifica. Johnson’s figures depicted two Incas seated on llamas and were distinctly East Indian in inspiration. They are known as the “happy Incas playing the Piper of Pan,”. He also designed three figures symbolizing industry, home life, and agriculture for the Alameda-Contra Costa Building at the Exposition.

Johnson moved a number of times in the final fifteen years of his life. Following an illness in 1965, Johnson finally settled in a small hotel room in downtown San Francisco. In October 1967 Johnson died there of a heart attack.

This was Johnson’s last large work. It is not titled, and I could find out literally nothing about it and how it came to be sitting at this corner. The brochure that Netra gave to me was regarding a fundraiser titled Reclaiming Our Treasures. The intent was to raise funds to restore and resurrect the “log” along with the intent to place an historical marker near it. The fundraiser took place in 1997, I have not been able to find out anything more.

The Smithsonian has a transcript of a delightful conversation between Johnson and fellow artist Mary McChesney about Johnson’s work that can be found around San Francisco. You can read it here.

update 2016: The log has been removed and is now with the University of California for both authentication and potential restoration. It most likely will not return to this location.

Cyril Magnin

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2014

Jan 312014

City Hall
South Light Court

Cyril Magnin served as San Francisco’s Chief of Protocol from 1964 until his death in 1988. He was responsible for keeping many key international consulates from moving out of San Francisco and to Los Angeles. He is seen here walking his dog Tippecanoe.

In Magnin’s 1981 autobiography, “Call Me Cyril,” opera superstar Beverly Sills is quoted as saying: “He twinkles, he’s a song-and-dance man, a sentimentalist, a tough businessman, a sucker for a hard-luck story–and one of the great philanthropists. He’s a prince of pleasure, a king of kindness, a formidable friend, and I am madly in love with him.”

Cyril Isaac Magnin (1899–1988) was one of the most prominent San Francisco businessmen of the post-World War II era, chief executive of the Joseph Magnin Co., which evolved into a multi-million dollar chain of upscale women’s clothing stores.

Personally gracious and urbane, Magnin was a veteran political fund-raiser and power broker in the Democratic Party, dating back to New Deal days. He was Treasurer of President Franklin Roosevelt’s northern California re-election campaign in 1944, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948 (that nominated President Harry Truman) and again in 1964, when he co-chaired the Finance Committee of President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign in California.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Magnin was one of a quartet of fabulously wealthy San Francisco Jewish contributors to Democratic candidates, appreciatively called “The Green Machine” by career politicians, the others being Fairmont Hotel magnate Benjamin Swig, Lilli Ann clothing company founder Adolph Schuman, and real estate mogul Walter Shorenstein.

The painting was done by Elaine Badgley Aarnaux. While her website is sparse, this article from the San Francisco Chronicle is charming and revealing about the lady:

Elaine Badgley Arnoux, painter of mayors
By Sam Whiting
Thursday, November 1, 2012

Each mayor of San Francisco receives a letter from Elaine Badgley Arnoux with an invitation to sit for a portrait. The strategy has worked for every mayor going back toDianne Feinstein. Badgley Arnoux (her professional name), 86, would now like to advance to governors, starting with Jerry Brown.

Q: Describe your occupation?

A: I am a professional painter. In 1985, I did 100 people in San Francisco, which was shown at City Hall in 2001. I’ve painted 190 portraits of San Franciscans over a 30-year period.

Q: How do you pick your subjects?

A: Carefully. I spend a lot time debating within myself. It is based on how this person relates to the whole feeling. The shoeshine man, for instance, at Second and Townsend. Most everybody knows him who goes to the ballpark.

Q: You set up an easel where you find them on the street?

A: Oh, no. This is one thing I’m very particular about. I really want people to sit for me, so they come to my studio.

Q: How long do they have to sit there?

A: If I’m very direct that day, I can do someone in two hours.

Q: How do you know when the time is right?

A: I’m certain within myself that now I want to do this mayor. It might be after they retire and it might be before they are elected. I was able to find George Christopher after he was out of office.

Q: What was the most recent portrait you did?

A: Eight months ago, I did George Moscone. I found an excellent photograph and was able to draw him and show it to his family before it was shown in City Hall.

Q: How did Mayor Ed Lee react to the finished product?

A: He was absolutely delighted, and he was delightful to work with. He came to my studio twice.

Q: Who was the least delightful to work with?

A: Oddly enough, Willie Brown, who is generally very effusive. It was before he was mayor. He came to my studio because he was told to come, and he didn’t say a word, not one word during the whole sitting.

Q: Which mayor was most difficult?

A: The portrait of Gavin Newsom was the most difficult because he doesn’t really stand still. He moves and moves and moves.

Q: Have another mayor portrait in you?

A: Not a mayor but a governor. I would very much like to do the portrait of Gov. (Jerry) Brown. I think he has an interesting face.

Q: Latest project?

A: It’s not portraiture. It’s figurative paintings and sculptural entities. I’m going to be in a group show at a new gallery in Burlingame. It is called Gallerie Citi. I’m going to be showing a three-dimensional sculpture that includes a donkey, an elephant and Mother Goose all having tea in a voting booth.

Q: Where do you live?

A: My husband and I live in the Golden Gateway, on the sixth floor. We look out at the bridge.

Q: What is your husband’s name?

A: Harold Kozloff.

Q: So were you Elaine Badgley growing up?

A: Now we’re going to get into a sticky wicket. I was Elaine Harper. Then I was Elaine Stranahan. Then I was Elaine Badgley. Then I was Elaine Arnoux. Now I’m Elaine Kozloff. Take a deep breath.

Q: What would you buy if you could?

A: A condominium in San Francisco on a hill so that the earthquake would not topple us down.

Q: When did you arrive in San Francisco?

A: It was 1964.

Q: What do you miss about old San Francisco?

A: The buildings are now so high that they are diminishing the character of the architecture.

Q: What is the key to longevity?

A: You just work all the time, and you work with people and they give you so much of themselves. So you have a thread that goes from one person to another until it becomes a community and a city and a life.

The paining shown above was done in 1981.

Harvey Milk

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2014

Jan 302014

City Hall
Supervisors Legislative Chamber
Civic Center

This is the only bust of a supervisor in San Francisco’s City Hall.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office. Milk won a seat as a San Francisco supervisor in 1977. He served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor. Milk’s election and assassination were key components of a shift in San Francisco politics.

Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. In 2002, Milk was called “the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States”

This sculpture was designed by the team of Daub Firmin and Hendrickson of Berkeley at a cost of $84,000. Rob Firmin said artists tend to avoid busts that show toothy smiles, as Milk’s does. They went for it because, Firmin said, “Harvey Milk’s signature expression was a huge, amused and infectious grin.”

Part of the inspiration for the bust is from a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta, who worked in Milk’s Castro Street camera shop and is a co-chair of the memorial committee. His photograph caught Milk’s tie blowing in the San Francisco breeze and the bust includes that detail.

Engraved in the pedestal is a quotation from one of the audiotapes Milk recorded in the event of his assassination, which he openly predicted several times before his death. “I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give ’em hope.”

***

Eugene Daub is D & F’s principal sculptor. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and taught there. He has been an instructor at the Scottsdale Artists’ School. He has work in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institute, The British Museum, Ellis Island Museum, as well as many public-sculpture installations across the United States. He is accomplished in all sculpture modes and in a wide range of more general art.

Rob Firmin, in addition to hands-on art creation, works on concepts, composition, research, model building, and project management. Firmin holds a double major in history and art history from Denison University. His career and education have ranged across: realist-figurative sculpture, the formal study of history and art history, to the invention of project management techniques, financial risk reduction, dynamic process control, modeling techniques, and software concepts and design.

Jonah Hendrickson lives in Oakland where he splits his time between sculpture and his real estate business.

Goddess of Progress

Posted by Cindy on January 29, 2014

Jan 292014

City Hall
South Light Court

Goddess of Progress by F. Marion Wells

The plaque that accompanies her reads: On April 17, 1906, the dome atop San Francisco’s City Hall that was completed in 1896 supported a twenty foot statue by F. Marion Wells. The Goddess of Progress, with lightbulbs in her hair, held a torch aloft in her right hand, causing some contemporary counts to refer to it as the Goddess of Liberty. The statue was so securely mounted that on April 18, 1906, when City Hall and the city around it lay in ruins from the great earthquake-fire, it continued to stand at the peak of the now exposed steel tower. After workmen brought it down from the precarious perch when the building was finally torn down in 1909 the statue fell from a wagon and the 700-pound head broke off.

***

It is my understanding that the whereabouts of the body is unknown.

Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library taken in 1906

Francis Marion Wells was born in Pennsylvania in 1848. Wells arrived in San Francisco about 1870 and was a cofounder of the Bohemian Club in 1872. He was Douglas Tilden’s first teacher in 1883 and the following year was commissioned to do a bust of Hawaii’s King David Kalakua who was visiting in Oakland. Wells was active in the local art scene as a teacher as well as a producer of portrait busts and bas reliefs.

Once a very wealthy man, he fell on hard times, as this article from the San Francisco Call of July 14, 1903 attests:

FRANCIS MARION WELLS FORCED TO ENTER THE COUNTY HOSPITAL

Well-Known Sculptor, Artist, Literateur and Former Club Man, Afflicted by Illness, Compelled to Ask Municipality for Help

FRANCIS MARION WELLS, sculptor, literateur, club member and well-known man about town, was forced by dire illness and strain of circumstances to apply for admission to the City and County Hospital yesterday. He is now lying there in a helpless and pitiable state. Not one single friend came to him in his distress, although when in affluent circumstances his beautiful home and grounds at Berkeley were filled with those who enjoyed the royal hospitality that they were always welcome to there.

Broken in spirit, sick nigh unto death, his arms paralyzed, his mind partially deranged from his sufferings, he was compelled to seek the only relief at hand and become a ward of the city. His faithful wife has struggled nobly during his four months illness. He has been during all that time entirely, helpless, the result of five apoplectic shocks.

Two months ago, to save the family from actual starvation, Mrs. Wells took a position as housekeeper at the Vienna Lodging-house, 533 Broadway, where, with their two young sons, she was just enabled to make enough to keep the wolf from the door. As she had to do the entire work of twenty rooms and also cooking for the family, she had no time to give her husband the constant nursing that his case required, but was by his side whenever she could steal a moment from her work.

Yesterday afternoon when the ambulance came to take Wells away he said: “I hope there won’t be a crowd to see me put into the ambulance, as I don’t want the people to see me in this poverty stricken condition.” This was too much for his wife to bear, and she borrowed $2 from some kind neighbors, a hack was procured and the sufferer was, carried down the rickety stairs and placed in it. His wife and sons accompanied him, to the hospital and made him as comfortable there as possible and then bade him farewell and returned to their humble lodgings.

Mrs. Wells, who is a highly educated and refined Parisian, is broken hearted over the thought of his position.” She said with tears streaming down her pale face: “I do not care for myself; I am young and can work for my two boys, but to think that my husband’s friends should allow him to become a burden to the city is almost more than I can bear. When we were in deep distress, surrounded, by poverty and sickness, I wrote to several of his former wealthy, old-time and intimate friends in the Bohemian Club to come to his relief with food and medical attendance, but not one of them replied. I did not ask for anything for myself, only for him, and that appeal they refused him. Today he fainted four times on the way to the hospital, and when I left him he was almost, unconscious. Oh! I do not want him to die there. Don’t you think some of his old friends will do something for him and put him into a private sanitarium where his last hours can be spent?

RUINED BY SPECULATION.

“We have been very unfortunate.. When I came from Paris, fourteen years ago, I brought $60,000 with me and used it in buying property here and then built a beautiful home in Berkeley. All went well until General Ezeta persuaded us to go into his San Salvador scheme, and he was so persuasive that we put in $40,000— and we lost every cent of it.

Bad luck followed, we mortgaged our home; and lost it. Then I commenced to sell my jewels. My $8000 diamond necklace, which my mother gave me, I pawned for $1200. I had hoped to redeem it, although Mr. Shreve had offered to buy it for $5000. Little by little everything went, and now we are worse than penniless. My husband was always goodness itself to me, and we all love him dearly. My oldest son is 13. He has just ha, the misfortune to cut off the end of his finger. My youngest boy, Emanuel, is 11, and helps me as much as he can. “My husband is a member of the Universal Order of Knight Commanders of the Sun, and here are the original parchments granted him. I think he was also one of the charter members of the Bohemian Club. It is a very sad ending to the life of a man with a brilliant brain, with accomplishments and with so generous and kind a heart for all his friends.

He was born in Louisiana, his father being General Francis Marion Wells, but he was educated in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.

SCULPTOR OF LIBERTY. Marion Wells, as he was called, has been well known here for many years and has been one of the most prominent sculptors in the city. His statue of Liberty on the dome of the City Hall is a fine piece of work and a monument to his abilities. The figure is modeled from his wife and the poise is extremely graceful. The bas relief of John Lick, which was executed at the request of the Lick trustees, and now hangs in the Pioneer Hall, is a splendid likeness of the great philanthropist. The John Marshall monument in Sonora County, erected to commemorate the first discovery of gold in California, also exhibits great talents.

Among other works are the bears over the entrance to the First National Bank, which have marked merit in conception and design. He also did some artistic modeling for the Hibernia Bank, which adds much to the beauty of that handsome structure. The great owl which stands at the top of the grand stairway of the Bohemian Club is also of his handiwork. Other work which has been highly commented upon adorns St. Ignatius Church, the quadrangle and the memorial chapel at Stanford University.
***
Wells Died, July 22, 1903

The head suffered a few indignities on its way to the San Francisco City Hall Museum area.

The head was apparently given to John C. Irvine by former mayor James D. Phelan after it was removed from the old City Hall. It was, later, owned by his son, William Irvine.

It then came into possession of the South of Market Boys who gave it back to the city April 18, 1950, the 44th anniversary of the Great Earthquake.

It was later displayed in Golden Gate Park, then placed in storage.

Seven years later, in 1957, the head was sold, along with several cable cars, at public auction to Knott’s Berry Farm, a Southern California amusement park. It was given back to the city by Knott’s Berry Farm in the mid-1970s.

The goddess was, for many years, displayed at the Fire Department Museum, but was moved in 1993 to the Museum of the City of San Francisco. The goddess was then moved to City Hall in 1998 to celebrate the reopening of the structure after it was repaired following the 1989 earthquake.

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