Cindy

The Don Lee Building

 Posted by on June 20, 2013
Jun 202013
 

1000 Van Ness Avenue
Tenderloin

Cadillac Building on Van Ness Avenue  San Francisco's Auto Row Architecture

This magnificent building was built in 1921. Designed by Weeks and Day it is the largest and one of San Francisco’s most architecturally significant auto showrooms.

As the private automobile became a standard commodity of middle-class American life, hundreds of manufacturers rose to meet the demand. Within this increasingly competitive field, manufacturers quickly learned the value of the showroom in marketing their products to consumers. They understood that the architecture of the showroom was at least as important as its primary functional role: as a place to display, store and repair automobiles. In an era in which smaller automobile manufacturers were being weeded out, larger manufacturers aimed to reinforce customer confidence by designing automobile dealerships that, like banks, conveyed a sense of stability and permanency.

In San Francisco Don Lee was the first to commission such an elaborate showroom for his prominent corner lot on Van Ness Avenue. The completion of the Don Lee Building in 1921 led to increasing rivalries between local dealers, as each tried to outdo each other by commissioning prominent architectural firms to design increasingly elaborate showrooms.

Although the Don Lee Building is a utilitarian concrete loft structure, the architecture of the building embodied popular historicist imagery derived from a multitude of sources including Renaissance Italy and idealized Spanish Colonial architecture.

The main elevation on Van Ness Avenue is divided into three horizontal bands, conforming to the classic Renaissance composition of a base, shaft and capital.

The base is clad entirely in rusticated terra cotta blocks with chamfered joints designed to replicate dressed stone. The recessed entry contains brass double doors that once provided access to the auto showroom. Flanking the entrance are pairs of terra cotta Tuscan Order columns supporting a broken entablature.

The shaft, faced with light-colored stucco and bracketed by terra cotta quoins, is demarcated from the base by a terra cotta entablature and from the cornice by a prominent terra cotta frieze. The shaft is articulated by a grid of fifteen double-height window openings fitted with wood, double-hung sash, decorative metal spandrel panels and twisted metal colonnettes.

The façade terminates in a prominent fiberglass cornice which projects seven feet from the building’s face and duplicates the original sheet metal cornice removed in 1955.

The above is from the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco.  This building is  National Register #01001179.

 

Weeks & Day (1916-1953)
Charles Peter Weeks (1870–1928)
William Peyton Day (1886–1966)Charles Peter Weeks was born in Copley, Ohio on September 1, 1870, the son of Peter Weeks and Catharine Francisco. He was educated at the University of Akron and obtained some preliminary experience working in the Akron office of architect Charles Snyder.
From 1892-95 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, having been accepted into the atelier of Victor Laloux. Returning from Paris, he worked in Cleveland for a while and then moved to New York, initially working as an interior decorator, until in 1899 he joined John Galen Howard at the firm of Howard & Cauldwell.

In 1901 Howard moved to Berkeley, to become supervising architect for the University of California, and he invited Weeks to join him as head designer. That association did not continue for long. In 1903 Weeks joined established San Francisco architect Albert Sutton (1867-1923) as junior partner in the firm of Sutton & Weeks.

Weeks wrote a plaintive article for the June 1906 Architect and Engineer magazine titled ‘Who is to blame for San Francisco’s plight?’, referring to the devastating earthquake and fire damage. The article hit owners first for a lack of concern for quality, the City for performing inadequate inspections, architects for acquiescing on cheapness, and contractors for not giving value for money. In April 1907 he wrote another article on the renaissance of apartment houses in the City, which featured several Sutton & Weeks designs. Sutton moved to Hood River, Oregon in 1910, leaving Weeks to practice on his own.

In 1916 Weeks took on engineer William Peyton Day as a partner and together they designed this magnificent Don Lee Building, the Huntington Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Brocklebank apartments at 1000 Mason and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Powell at Sutter. Weeks & Day were responsible for designing the main mausoleum at Mountain View Cemetery, where Weeks is buried.

After the Brocklebank was completed in 1926, Weeks and his wife moved into the building. Sadly, on March 25, 1928, Weeks was found dead in the living room of the apartment by his wife’s maid.

William Peyton Day continued the operations of the company for another 25 years.

Entryway to Don Lee Cadillac on Van Ness Avenue San Francisco Architecture

The sculpture above the doorway is by Jo Mora you can read all about it here.

Richmond District Police Station

 Posted by on June 19, 2013
Jun 192013
 

461 6th Avenue
Richmond Police Station
Richmond District

Richmond Police Station

The Richmond District Police Station was built in 1927 in a red-brick Romanesque Revival style.

Richmond District Police Department Horse BarnThe Horse Barn

Behind the police station this brick building housed horses with a loft to hold their feed in the back.  Both buildings were renovated in 1990 and the horse building now houses offices as well as a neighborhood community room.

I had come to the Police Station to photograph and write about the glass entry door by Shelly Jurs.

Shelly Jurs - Richmond Police Station Front DoorShelly Jurs trained in architectural glass techniques at the Cummings Studio in San Rafael, California (1973-74) and the Swansea College of Art, South Wales, Great Britain,  in 1975. She did a formal apprenticeship training at the Willets Stained Glass Studio, Philadelphia, PA, 1976-77. She served as personal Assistant to Ludwig Schaffrath, a major figure in the glass art renaissance of post-war Germany and a world-renowned architectural glass designer. In October of 1978 she opened her own architectural glass studio in Oakland, California and has since completed well over 200 custom architectural glass works.

 

Jaap Bong at the Richmond Police Station

A delightful policeman invited me in to see the rest of the station. This Bronze, Granite and Marble piece in the lobby of the Police Station is by Jaap (Jacob) Bong.  Bong has a piece on Fire Station #24 that you can see here.  Jaap Bongers was born in Stein, Holland and studied at the Jan Van Eyck Academie of Fine Arts and the Stadsacademie of Fine Arts, both in Maastricht, Holland. In addition to his travels to Africa, Bongers also visited the United States for the first time in 1985 and settled permanently in San Jose in 1987.

On the wall behind this mosaic were these lovely framed originals of the police station’s blueprints.

Richmond District Fire Station Blueprints

*Richmond District Police Station Horse Barn

Washington High School and the WPA

 Posted by on June 18, 2013
Jun 182013
 

George Washington High School
600 32nd Avenue
Richmond District

George Washington High School, San Francisco

George Washington High School opened on August 4, 1936, to serve as a secondary school for the people of San Francisco’s Richmond District. The school was built on a budget of $8,000,000 on a site overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

The architect was Timothy Pflueger, here he begins moving away from the highly decorative elements of his earlier Telephone Company Building and begins using symmetrical central elements, minimally embellished with fluted speed lines and simple plaques.

The lobby is decorated with WPA murals by Victor Arnautoff in the “buon fresco” styles. They depict scenes from the life and times of George Washington. In the second floor library, there is a WPA mural produced by Lucien Labaudt, entitled “Advancement of Learning through the Printing Press”, another by Ralph Stackpole titled “Contemporary Education” and “Modern and Ancient Science” by Gordon Langdon.

The stadium, auditorium, and gymnasium were added in 1940. The school was formally dedicated on Armistice Day of 1940.

George Washington High School Sculpture

The three figures over the door were sculpted by Victor Arnautoff.

Victor Arnautoff, painter, muralist, lithographer, sculptor and teacher, was born in Mariupol, Ukraine, in 1896. He served as a Cavalry officer in Czar Nicholas II’s army, receiving the Cross of the Order of St. George before escaping to Manchuria to avoid the Bolshevik Revolution. Arnautoff traveled to China and Mexico before emigrating to the U.S. and San Francisco in 1925.

He enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts where he studied sculpture with Ralph Stackpole and painting with Edgar Walters. Arnautoff returned to Mexico and studied mural painting with Diego Rivera.

By 1931 he had returned to San Francisco and shortly thereafter taught sculpture and fresco painting at the California School of Fine Arts. He also taught at Stanford University where he was Professor of Art from 1939 – 1960. His art affiliations included memberships in the San Francisco Art Association and the California Society of mural painters. Arnautoff was technical director and art chief of the Coit Tower murals project and is represented by a mural depicting city life.

He exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition, New York World’s Fair, Art Institute of Chicago, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Toledo Museum of Art, Foundation of Western Art, California Pacific Exposition, as well as annual shows of the San Francisco Art Association.

After the death of his wife in the 1960s, he returned to the USSR and died in Leningrad in 1979.

Shakspeare by ArnautoffShakespeare

Washington by ArnautoffGeorge Washington

Edison by Arnautoff

Thomas Edison

On the science building are two Arnautoff sculptures titled Power and Industry.

Power by Victor Mikhail Arnautoff*

Industry by Victor Arnautoff

Herakut #7

 Posted by on June 17, 2013
Jun 172013
 

McCoppin
Between Gough and Valencia
Mission / SOMA

Herakut at Flax

This mura, by Herakut is on the walls of the Flax Art Store on Market Street.  Herakut has been in this website before with a piece in the Tenderloin.

According to Flax’s website:

In 2004 Herakut came together, finding a magic synthesis between the artistic skills and specialties of Hera’s broad, quick strokes and Akut’s photorealistic detail that has become an internationally recognized style. Their latest concept is the The Giant Storybook Project, which chronicles the creation of a new children’s book that Herakut is developing in collaboration with actor Jim Carrey. Launched in September 2012 and continuing through winter 2013, the project follows the artists as they introduce the story’s characters in murals they are painting around the world.

For the seventh mural in the series, Herakut used a roughly 30′x80′ canvas above our back parking lot. In Herakut’s artwork the people and animals are created as a commentary on human nature, on the ups and downs of all the small wars we fight within ourselves. This mural features a fearful looking Creative Spirit, perhaps an extension of Jay’s creative spirit in Mural 6, chasing a girl over the city rooftops. She appears calm, protected by the Silly Monkeys, and the mural’s text reads ”It’s all in your head. When we can let go of our fear, we are safe.” A growing cast of characters of the imagination, perfect for an illustrated children’s book.

Herakut Mural at Flax Parking Lot

She’s Hera, he’s Akut.

Herakut is a German artist duo made of Jasmin Siddiqui and Falk Lehmann. They share a symbiosis in their art, as well as in their name, which is a blend of their street names Hera and Akut. In addition to their highly visual murals, Herakut’s paintings have appeared in dozens of gallery exhibitions, and two books have been published,The Perfect Merge and After the Laughter.

Herakut Mural #9

 

*

Herakut Mural on McCopping

The Doors of Court

 Posted by on June 15, 2013
Jun 152013
 

400 McAllister
Civic Center

400 McAllister Doors

This building houses the Superior Court of California and was designed by Mark Cavagnero and Associates.

Screen Shot 2013-05-27 at 3.35.33 PM

*doors by Albert Paley

There are three identical doors at the entry to the building.  They were designed by Albert Paley.  Paley’s work can also be found at 199 Montgomery Street.

Albert Paley is a modernist American metal sculptor, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1944. He earned both a BFA and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Paley initially worked as a goldsmith and moved to Rochester, New York in 1969 to teach at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he now holds an endowed chair.

Great Seal of California

 Posted by on June 14, 2013
Jun 142013
 

505 Van Ness at McAllister
Civic Center

State of California Building in San Francisco Civic Center

This is the Edmund G. Brown State Office Building.  Built in 1986 and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merril, it is one of the anchors of the San Francisco Civic Center.

State Seal by Rosa Estebanez

The seal was created by sculptor Rosa Estebanez.

Estebanez’s life has been described as a remarkable story of courage, tragedy and the triumph of the human spirit. Born in Cuba, Estebanez graduated from the National School of Art in Havana with a master’s degree in art and became the official sculptor for Cuban president Fulgencio Batista. In 1960, Estebanez left Cuba following the communist overthrow of Batista’s government.

Estebanez arrived in the United States unable to speak English with her 10 year-old-son, Jorge, and a $5 bill in her purse. She chose to settle in Petaluma, California because she had a brother living there.

At first Estebanez worked as a chicken plucker at a local poultry plant before she was able to resume her art career. For a time she was employed part-time as a “re-toucher” at Decker’s Photo Studio. Estebanez also held a position with Kresky’s Sign, communicating with her supervisor through drawings and sign language. Estebanez taught classes privately and at night at Petaluma High School; led tours abroad, and created a prolific body of work, including murals, bas reliefs, sculpture, public statues, and paintings. In 1978 she joined the National Art Board of the American League of Pen Women. Estebanez also hosted a 7-part television series entitled “How to Sculpt with Rosa” on KQED’s Open Studio.  She died in 1992.

 

The Great Seal of the State of California was adopted at the California state Constitutional Convention of 1849 and has undergone minor design changes since then, the last being the standardization of the seal in 1937. The seal features the Roman goddess Minerva (Athena in Greek mythology), the goddess of wisdom and war.  According to ancient Roman myth, the goddess Minerva was born fully grown. Just as Minerva was born fully grown, so California became a state without first having been a territory. Minerva’s image on the Great Seal symbolizes California’s direct rise to statehood.

The seal also features a California grizzly bear (the official state animal) feeding on grape vines, representing California’s wine production; a sheaf of grain, representing agriculture; a miner, representing the California Gold Rush and the mining industry; and sailing ships, representing the state’s economic power. The phrase “Eureka,” meaning “I have found it!” (εύρηκα in Greek) is the California state motto. The original design of the seal was by U.S. Army Major Robert S. Garnett and engraved by Albert Kuner. However, because of the friction then in existence between the military and civil authorities, Garnett was unwilling to introduce the design to the constitutional convention, so convention clerk Caleb Lyon introduced it as his own design, with Garnett’s approval. Garnett later became the first general to be killed in the Civil War, where he served as a Confederate general.

 

 

Five Questions

 Posted by on June 13, 2013
Jun 132013
 

Mint Plaza
SOMA/Market Street Area/Union Square

What? in Mint Plaza

WHAT is on the Side of the San Francisco Chronicle Building at 5th and Minna

 

These two sculptures are part of a large project, within an even larger project.

The larger project is called the 5M project.

The 5M Project is a creative development in downtown San Francisco designed to catalyze the innovative ideas that build our economy and strengthen our communities. It is a place that utilizes a collective need for innovation to encourage shared resources and ideas across traditional boundaries. Where artists, makers, students, changemakers, entrepreneurs, local food, and technology are coming together day and night. A place designed for people to be creative.

In the last two years, 5M has assembled and connected more than 2,000 creative organizations linked together at 5M through their partners: TechShop, Hub, SoMa Central, SFMade, Intersection for the Arts, Off the Grid and SOCAP, among others. Together, they are transforming an underutilized property into a vibrant place for community and innovation.

Over the next ten years, the four-acre site (between 5th, Mission, and Howard Streets) will become a mix of low, mid, and high rise buildings for living, working, and playing.

These two sculptures are the first of five sculptures that ask Who, What, When, Where and Why and are put together by the Intersection for the Arts program.  Established in 1965, Intersection is a pioneering arts and community development organization that brings people together across boundaries to instigate break-through change. Intersection’s programs emphasize relationships, collaboration, and process. Intersection works with hundreds of artists through residencies, commissions, fellowships, fiscal sponsorship and incubation, performances, exhibitions, workshops and public art projects. Annually, Intersection works with more than 50 community partners across sector and field. Intersection is a lead collaborator on the 5M Project.

 

Who at Mint Plaza

The WHO sculpture is a 10 foot long, 300lb steel bench made of 7 gauge A-36 steel and sits in Mint Plaza on the 5th Street Side.

 

The artists for this project are of five illuminated sculptures to be installed around the area are artist  Ana Teresa Fernandez and designer & architect Johanna Grawunder.

Ana Teresa Fernandez is a visual artist, sculptor, and performance artist based in San Francisco, CA. Originally from Tampico, Mexico,  Fernandez explores the territories that encompass different boundaries and stereotypes: physical, emotional, and psychological.  She subverts the typical folkloric representations of Mexican women by changing the protagonist’s uniform to the quintessential little black dress, a symbol of American prosperity and femininity and of the Mexican tradition of wearing black for a year after a death. Her paintings portray actual performances where Fernandez takes on the Sisyphean task of cleaning the environment – sweeping sand on a beach, vacuuming a dirt road – to accentuate the idea of disposable labor resources. She received her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute

Johanna Grawunder  is a designer and architect based in Milan, Italy and San Francisco. Her work spans a broad range of projects and scales, from large-scale public installations, architecture and interiors, to limited edition furniture and lights and custom commissions.  She worked with Sottsass Associati from 1985-2001, becoming a partner in 1989. At the Sottsass Studio she was involved primarily with architecture and interiors, co-designing with Ettore Sottsass, many of the firm’s most prestigious projects. In 2001 she left Sottsass Associati and opened her own studio in San Francisco and Milan. Graduating in 1984 from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor of Architecture degree, she completed her final year of studies in Florence, Italy and in 1985 moved to Milan. She was born in 1961 in San Diego, California.

 

Jaques Schnier on Treasure Island

 Posted by on June 11, 2013
Jun 112013
 

Treasure Island
Building #1

Jacques Schneir on Treasure Island

These two cast stone sculpture represents India and were done by Jacques Schnier for the Golden Gate International Exposition.  They have been known by several names, including “The Tree of Life,” but the preferred name is “Spirit of India.”  These are just two of  twenty that were part of the Unity sculptures placed in the Court of the Pacifica.  Jacques Schnier designed at least seven pieces of sculpture displayed at the fair.

Jacques Schnier at Treasure Island

*DSC_0877

Jacques Schnier was born in Romania and came to the United States with his family in 1903.  He grew up in San Francisco.  He received an AB degree in engineering from Stanford n 1920 and an MA decree in Sociology from Berkeley in 1939.

An interest in city planning led to his abandoning a successful career in engineering and enrolling in the Department of Architecture at Berkeley.  This in turn gave him his first experience in art, since architecture students were required to take art courses. He eventually dropped out of architecture school to devote full time to his sculpture.

Schnier spent 30 years teaching at Berkeley, first as a lecturer in the Department of Architecture, he retired as Professor of Art, Emeritus, in 1966.

Following his retirement he expanded into many mediums, having previously favored such materials as stone, wood, bronze, marble and coper, he later focused on the medium of carved and polished clear acrylic resin (Plexiglas). His excitement with the material led him to exclaim in 1975 that “at last I’ve found my medium”  It’s as though I am sculpting pure light. At 76, I’m hitting my stride”.

Jacques Schnier died March 24, 1988 a the age of 89.

Adaline Kent sculptures on Treasure Island

 Posted by on June 10, 2013
Jun 102013
 

Treasure Island
Building #1

Adeline Kent on Treasure Island

These cast stone statues are part of Adaline Kent’s group of three Pacific Islander statues that were among the twenty Pacific Unity sculptures produced for the Court of the Pacifica at the 1939-1940 Golden Gate International Exposition.  The two  shown here are listening to a stringed instrument (most likely a ukelele) played by a young boy, the third statue, that is unfortunately lost.

Pacific Islander Statue part of the Unity Group for the GGIE

Adaline Kent was born in Kentfield, California in 1900. She attended Vassar College and upon graduation she returned to the Bay Area, where she studied for a year (1923-24) with Ralph Stackpole at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Stackpole was a leading proponent of the “direct-cut” sculpting method. She then traveled to Paris in 1924 to study at the Academy de la Grand Chaurniere with Emile Antoine Bourdelle, a disciple of and former assistant to Rodin.

Kent returned to San Francisco in 1929 and set up a studio in North Beach. She soon established a reputation as an innovative and original sculptor of great originality, developing an abstract style rooted in surrealism and becoming a prominent member of the San Francisco Art Association. Kent exhibited or juried in the prestigious Annual show nearly every year from 1930 until her death in 1957. She served on the Board of Directors from 1947-57, and taught at the California School of Fine Arts in 1955.

Following a trip in 1953 with her husband, sculptor Robert Howard to Egypt and Greece, her work evolved toward simplified columnar forms.

In 1957 Adaline Kent died in an automobile accident on the Pacific Coast Highway south of Stinson Beach.

Jun 082013
 

Treasure Island
Building #1

Flutist by Helen Phillips Treasure Island

This cast stone sculpture is by Helen Phillips.  Titled Flutist, it is from the Chinese Musicians Group produced for the Golden Gate International Exposition.  This was one of a group of 20 sculptures titled Unity that were produced for the Court of the Pacific.

This is from Helen Phillips obituary:

Phillips was born in 1913 in Fresno, California, and studied at the School of Fine Art in San Francisco. Ralph Stackpole taught her direct carving there, and introduced her to Diego Rivera, who was pointing [sic] murals in the city. She remembered with affection how the Mexican always kept a revolver on the scaffold, more out of showmanship than fear of Stalin’s henchmen. But she found social realism stifling, and was never willing to sacrifice the integrity of form for political content. She was more excited by San Francisco’s collections of American Indian, Chinese, Pre- Columbian and Oceanic art than its struggling factory workers.

In 1936 Phillips received a Phelan Travelling Fellowship to study in Paris, where she assimilated all the new styles, especially Surrealism. She entered Atelier 17, the intaglio print workshop of her future husband Stanley William Hayter, which was a hub of avant-garde experiment. She made some beautiful engravings, but her experience with gravure was even more crucial for her sculptural development, as it forced her to become conscious of negative space. She lost all her carvings of the pre-war years when she fled to New York in 1939.

Such mythic qualities identify Helen Phillips as a sculptural pioneer within the emerging New York School, and indeed she showed in Nicolas Calas’s landmark exhibition “Bloodflumes 1947”, alongside such peers as Arshile Gorky, Wilfredo Lam, Roberto Matta, David Hare and Isamu Noguchi. She published in the avant-garde journal Tiger’s Eye, and it is probable that had she not returned to Paris in 1950 she would have developed a considerable American reputation. Meanwhile, the primitive influence culminated in the 18-foot “Totem” (1955), made up of interrelated limbs and ambiguous suggestions of growth, carved from a discarded 17th-century walnut beam she found in the Ardche.

Phillips was by first inclination a carver: she only started using bronze by chance, when one of her wood carvings split and she wanted to save the image. She soon found herself absorbed by a more linear range of expression suggested by metals, however, and her figures in copper tubing are delightful Calder-like drawings in space. Her compositions in polished bronze exploit light with almost baroque intensity to give the maximum sensation of movement and gesture. “Amants Novices” (1954) is a masterpiece within this genre, its convoluted limbs and its voluptuous edges, corners and bends longingly caressed by light which gives the impression of sweaty exertion. The conflicting sense of precarious balance and vigorous abandon captures the magical clumsiness of sex. The seemingly inevitable ease of a sculpture like this belies the painstaking effort needed to achieve such effects. When a cast returned from the foundry, the work was only half done as far as Phillips was concerned, as she proceeded to file away for months, even years, to capture the “true” forms.

In a completely different vein, Phillips produced an extensive series of geometric constructions in wire which explored ideas of modular growth proposed by the American architectural theorist Buckminster Fuller, and also by Sir Wentworth D’Arcy Thompson, whose Growth and Form (1917, revised 1942) has been a bible for many modern artists. Phillips recalled how she worked out of one volume, her husband Bill Hayter from the other, so they would have interesting things to talk about. Hayter’s wave imagery of the 1960s partly derived from Thompson, while Phillips pursued a complicated set of cubic abstractions to express movement in space. ln these cerebral, aloof creations, as in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, the intriguing poetry has less to do with cold, abstract theory than intuitive, aesthetic decisions.

Until the mid-1960s Helen Phillips enjoyed a growing international reputation, starting with a prize she won in the French heat of the international “Unknown Political Prisoner” competition, in 1952. She collaborated with the architect Erno Goldfinger, who owned her “Suspended Figure” (1956), which was included in the Whitechapel Gallery’s “This is Tomorrow” exhibition of that year. She was cited in Herbert Read’s definitive survey Modern Sculpture (1964), and her works began to enter important collections, including those of Peggy Guggenheim, Roland Penrose, and various American museums.

But disaster struck in 1967, when she severely injured her back moving a heavy sculpture which had just been bought by the Albright Knox Museum in Bufallo (“Alabaster Column”, 1966). She was incapacitated for eight years at a crucial stage of her career, which never recovered. When she finally got back to work, the talent and determination were still there, but somehow the creative impetus could not be regained. She concentrated on seeing earlier ideas through the foundry, and become a familiar figure in Pietra Santa, the town of foundries and carving workshops in Tuscany, during the summer months. She did manage to produce some late intimate pieces in wire, plaster or wax.

Some years ago she sent her friends an eccentric Christmas card, which consisted of a DIY model in balsa wood which, when constructed, showed a couple embracing. Man Ray was so delighted he sent her a photo of the assembled sculpture by return of post. Another endearing tale she used to tell was of a party attended by Calder and Giacometti. Giacometti made a sketch of Calder on a piece of old newsprint. The American demanded to see it, and proceeded to sketch Giacometti next to his own features. They were about to throw it away when Phillips protested, and got to keep these mutual portraits of her friends and idols.

Helen Phillips, artist: born Fresno, California 12 March 1913; married 1940 S.W. Hayter (died 1988; two sons; marriage dissolved 1971); died New York City 23 January 1995.

Horn by Helen Philips

 

Blowing a Horn, also from the Chinese Musicians Group

 

These pieces are part of the Treasure Island Development Organization and the Treasure Island Museum.

San Francisco’s First Airport

 Posted by on June 7, 2013
Jun 072013
 

Treasure Island
1 Avenue of the Palms
Administration Building

Treasure Island Airport

Treasure Island was built with imported fill  on the north side of Yerba Buena Island  The connected Yerba Buena Island sits in the middle of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge. Built by the federal government, Treasure Island was planned for and used as an airport for Pan American World Airways flying boats, of which the China Clipper is an example. The flying boats landed on the Port of Trade Winds Harbor / Clipper Cove which lies between Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

Ornamentatio  on The Administration Building on Treasure IslandThis relief, by Jacques Schnier, is found at the both ends of the building.  They are the only visible ornamentation on the exterior

Full construction of Pan Am’s headquarters was delayed and instead, Treasure Island’s first role was to host the 1939-40 World’s Fair, Golden Gate International Exposition. The Golden Gate International Exposition was held to celebrate the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, but was also designed to help bring the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s with a show of harmony between nations. Three permanent buildings were constructed to serve the functions of the Exposition and the airport. The Administration Building (seen above) would serve as the airport’s terminal building, the Hall of Transportation and Palace of Fine and Decorative Arts would serve as hangars.

As a result of World War II, the airport was never built. The US Navy wanted the island and so the Navy and the City and County of San Francisco swapped land and the airport was built at Mills Field*, the sight of todays SFO.  Treasure Island served as a Navy military base during the war and as an electronics and communications training school for the Navy. The Treasure Island military base closed in 1993 and the Navy ceased all operations in 1997. The city and county of San Francisco now owns the island.

Clipper Ship over the Bay BridgePan Am Clipper Ship flying over the San Francisco Bay

Pan Am Clipper being loaded at Treasure Island

These three building are the only extant buildings on Treasure Island that date to the Exposition period.

The Administration Building was to be the airport terminal. This Moderne style building was designed by  architects George W. Kelham and William Peyton Day.

The administration/terminal building is semicircular in plan, its court having a diameter of 86 feet. It is constructed entirely of reinforced concrete and was designed to resist earthquake shocks. It has 2 main floors and 2 mezzanine floors and was provided with a radio control room and an aerial beacon on top of the structure for eventual use in connection with the airfield

George William Kelham (1871 – 1936) was an American architect most active in the San Francisco area.  Born in Manchester, Massachusetts, Kelham was educated at Harvard and graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1896. As an employee of New York architects Trowbridge & Livingston, he was sent by the firm to San Francisco for the Palace Hotel in 1906 and remained. Kelham was responsible for the master plan for the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco and at least five major buildings in the city. He was also supervising architect for the University of California, Berkeley campus from 1927 to 1931.

William Peyton Day had been in partnership with pioneering San Francisco reinforced concrete engineer John B. Leonard. He later formed the firm Weeks and Day with Weeks as designer and Day as engineer, the firm specialized in theaters and cinemas.The firm was most active immediately before Weeks’ untimely death in 1928. Day continued the firm for 25 more years, closing the firm in 1953.

Jacques Schnier was an very important sculptor to the Golden Gate International Exposition, his contributions will be discussed with the Unity Sculpture Series.

*Darius Ogden Mills bought part of Rancho Buri Buri and built an estate named Millbrae, which gave its name to the present town that grew up around it. The 150 acres of the original estate bordering San Francisco Bay were leased by his grandson Ogden L. Mills to be used for Mills Field (the family estate).  Rancho Buri Buri was originally granted to a relative of  Tanforan, the owner of the Tanforan Cottages on Mission Street. 

Bliss Dance

 Posted by on June 6, 2013
Jun 062013
 

9th and Avenue of the Palms
Treasure Island

DSC_0867

This piece, by Marco Cochrane , was featured at Burning Man in 2010.  According to the supporting art group Black Rock :

The sculpture, of a dancing woman, stands 40 feet tall, weighs 7000 pounds and is ingeniously constructed of triangulated geodesic struts. By day, the dancer’s ‘skin’, made of stainless steal mesh, shimmers in the sun. By night, it alights brilliantly with a complex array of 1000 slowly changing l.e.d. colored lights. Viewers may interact with and manipulate the lighting effects with an iphone application. The dancer’s delicate, graceful form precariously balances on one foot, adding to the astonishing impression of imminent movement and lifelike presence.

Marco Cochrane was born to American artists in Venice, Italy in 1962. He was raised in California in the midst of the political and cultural movement. As a result, Marco learned respect for oneness, balance, the sacred, and the imperative to make the world a better place. In particular, he identified with the female struggle with oppression, and he saw feminine energy and power as critical to the world’s balance. Supporting this change quickly became Marco’s life’s mission, although, it never occurred to him that art would be the vehicle. On a dare, he explored sculpting people and found a talent he was unaware of…the ability to re-create a person’s essence in figurative form. When Marco started sculpting, he realized he was pursuing the mission he’d set out to do…to empower women.

Bliss Dance by Marco Cochrane

 

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Bliss Dance at Night

 

Photo by David Yu, you can view more photos of Bliss Dance at Night here:

Thomas Garriue Masaryk

 Posted by on June 5, 2013
Jun 052013
 

Rose Garden
Golden Gate Park

Thomas Garriqe Masaryk

Located at the entrance to the Rose Garden just off of JFK Boulevard is this bust of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk.  Masaryk was the first president of Czechoslovakia, a statesman, philosopher, liberator and humanitarian.  The bust was sculpted by Josef Mařatka in 1926 and was exhibited at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exhibition on Treasure Island.  It was given to the park in 1962 as a gift of the San Francisco Chapter of Sokol, a Czechoslovakian gymnastics association.

Josef Mařatka was a Czech visual artist who was born in 1874. Mařatka studied Applied arts at Celda Klouček and then under Josef Vaclav Myslberka at the Academy of Fine Arts.  In 1900 he worked briefly in the studio of August Rodin in Paris.

In the beginning he worked in the expressionism movement, but under the influence of Rodin he began to focus on Art Nouveau symbolism.  He was later influenced by the likes of Bourdelle.  After the war he tended to focus on socialist tendencies and neoclassical art.  The artist died in 1937.

According to the Smithsonian the piece was originally owned by Franta Anýž. Anýž was a fascinating businessman in Czechoslavakia and this is what I found about him while reading a retrospective of his work that took place at the Municipal House in Czechoslavakia.

The name of Franta Anýž, a talented visual artist, meticulous jeweller, sought-after chaser and medal designer, excellent craftsman highly acclaimed in the first half of the twentieth century, and, finally, responsible and modern entrepreneur in the applied art industry, is nowadays perhaps only known to a group of experts.

The charismatic František Anýž (1876 – 1934) excelled with his talent and industriousness already at the School of Applied Arts in Prague where he studied with professors Celda Klouček and Emanuel Novák. With his tireless drive and thanks to his no less effective organisational capacities, he worked himself up from running a small workshop, founded in Prague in 1902, to become the owner of an esteemed art metalworking factory in the course of a single decade.

A side note – the sculpture is credited in the Smithsonian to a J. Matatka.  This is incorrect and has led most everyone to continue to repeat the misspelling

Florence Nightingale

 Posted by on June 4, 2013
Jun 042013
 

Laguna Honda Hospital
Forest Hill / Twin Peaks

Florence Nightingale at Laguna Honda Hospital

This graceful painted cast stone statue of Florence Nightingale titled Lady of the Lamp is by David Edstrom and was done in 1937.  The project was part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Artists Program.

The statue sat in the Court of the Seven Seas during the Golden Gate International Exhibition.  The Lady of the Lamp refers to a Longfellow poem.

(Peter) David Edstrom (1873-1938) was an immigrant from Vetlanda, Jönköping County, Sweden. In 1880, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, John Peter Edstrom and Charlotte Gustavson Edstrom. Edstrom lived in Ottumwa, Iowa from 1882 to 1894, which he embraced as his hometown and where he became aware of his artistic skills. (Des Moines Register; May 20, 2007). He returned to Sweden after a hobo’s journey started in a freight train car on July 29, 1894 and ended (after a wage earner’s trip across the Atlantic) in Stockholm where he supported himself during his studies at the Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology and Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.

In 1900, Edstrom moved to Florence where he attended the Academia of Fine Arts. He returned to the United States in 1915.  Around 1920, he relocated in Los Angeles, where he was one of the organizers of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Laguna Honda Hospital has a very long history in San Francisco that can be read here.  The building that Florence Nightingale sits in front of  began construction in the 1920’s when Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph turned over the first spade of earth for the Spanish Revival-style buildings that would become Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center

Those buildings were opened in 1926 and continued to grow in the decades that followed with the addition of new “finger wings,” the long, Florence Nightingale-style open wards that were customary at the time.

Florence Nightingale by Edstrom

There is a plaque on the side of the sculpture pedestal that reads:

In memory of Florence Nightingale, “The Founder of Professional Nursing”
Designed and created by the late David Edstrom. Dedicated National Hospital Day, May 12, 1939. Golden Gate International Exposition under the auspices of Northern California Federal Artist Project, Works Progress Administartion. City and County of San Francisco. Association of Western Hospitals, Association of California Hospitals, Western Conference, Catholic Hospital Association, California State Nurses Association.

The Longfellow Poem:

SANTA FILOMENA
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
November 1857

Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,—

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened, and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone was spent.

On England’s annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

 

Owls and Spiders

 Posted by on June 3, 2013
Jun 032013
 

624 Taylor
Nob Hill

The Bohemian Club

Bohemian Club Owl

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As this post is about the art not the club, (a controversial group at best) I will simply copy what Wikipedia says about the Bohemian Club:

“The Bohemian Club is a private gentlemen’s club located at 624 Taylor Street, San Francisco, California. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journalists, artists and musicians, it soon began to accept businessmen and entrepreneurs as permanent members, as well as offering temporary membership to university presidents and military commanders who were serving in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A number of past membership lists are in public domain, but modern club membership lists are private. Some prominent figures have been given honorary membership, such as Richard Nixon and William Randolph Hearst. Members have included some U.S. presidents (every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge has been a member of the Bohemian Club), many cabinet officials, and CEOs of large corporations, including major financial institutions. Major military contractors, oil companies, banks (including the Federal Reserve), utilities, and national media have high-ranking officials as club members or guests.  The club’s bylaws require ten percent of the membership be accomplished artists of all types (composers, musicians, singers, actors, lighting artists, painters, authors, etc.). Artistic members are admitted after passing a stringent audition demonstrating their talent.”

Regarding the Owl:

The Bohemian Club’s symbol is an owl, which has been in use since the first year the Club started. The owl has come to symbolize the wisdom of life and companionship, that allows humans to struggle with and survive the cares and frustration of the world. The owl is found on all Bohemian materials from matchbook covers and doormats to the most elaborate Club publications.

The club motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here”, a line taken from Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The club motto implies that outside concerns and business deals are to be left outside. When gathered in groups, Bohemians usually adhere to the injunction, though discussion of business often occurs between pairs of members.

The bronze sculpture, done by  Haig Patigian, (who has been in this website many, many times)  was dedicated n 1933, the other dates in the inscription refer to the Club’s previous buildings, which were built or dedicated in 1872 and 1909.

Bohemian Owl in Terra Cotta

I have been unable to find the sculptor of this owl that sits above the entry door.

 

 

Trader Vic the Sculptor

 Posted by on June 1, 2013
Jun 012013
 

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

Seals at the Academy of Sciences

These two seals once resided outside the California Academy of Sciences.  They are now inside near the restaurant.  This view is through the fence.  Entry to the Academy is $30 for adults.

These two seals were sculpted by Victor Jules Bergeron.  Known locally as Trader Vic, Bergeron is far better known for his chain of Polynesian Restaurants name Trader Vic’s, and his claim of having invented the Mai Tai.  In 1940 the first franchised Trader Vic’s opened in Seattle, Washington.  In 1950, Bergeron opened a Trader Vic’s location in Hawaii and in 1951 at 20 Cosmo Place in San Francisco.  The chain of restaurants grew and is credited as one of the first successful themed chains, a marketing model that many other restaurants followed.

Bergeron (December 10, 1902, San Francisco, California – October 11, 1984, Hillsborough, California) attended Heald College in San Francisco, California.

His life was an epic rags-to-riches story of the self-made American man.

The seals were created in 1970 and according to the Smithsonian are carved from black stone.

What is Missing?

 Posted by on May 31, 2013
May 312013
 

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

Maya Lin at the Academy of Sciences
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This piece, titled What’s Missing is by Maya Lin. The photo above was taken from outside the fence that rings the Academy of Sciences. Entry to the Academy is $30 for adults.

The permanent site-specific sculpture is the first component of an international multi-sited, multimedia art work dedicated to raising awareness about the current crisis surrounding biodiversity and habitat loss. The dedication of the sculpture, which was commissioned by the SFAC, coincided with the Academy’s one-year anniversary in its new location. The Academy is the only institution in the world to house two permanent sculptures by Maya Lin.

The conical bronze and wood sculpture is located on the East Terrace of the building and is Lin’s multi media art work containing sounds of endangered and extinct species, as well as images created from still photos and video footage from a wide variety of scientific sources.

You can read an in-depth interview with Lin about this piece and her What is Missing Project here.

What's missing by Maya lin
Photo credit: SFAC

Where the Land Meets the Sea

 Posted by on May 30, 2013
May 302013
 

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

Maya Lin Where the Land Meets the Sea

This Marine Grade Stainless Steel wire sculpture (difficult to photograph) is titled Where the Land Meets the Sea, and is by Maya Lin.

This is the first permanent artwork by Maya Lin in San Francisco. The artist was selected through the Arts Commission’s competitive application process in 2005. Although Lin does not usually participate in competitions, she responded to the Arts Commission’s invitation to apply because of her keen interest in the California Academy of Sciences and the opportunity the project would provide to engage with the institution’s scientists. As an ardent environmentalist, Lin wished to develop a project that would make people more aware of their environment and the natural world.

The 36’ x 60’ x 15’ sculpture is fabricated from 5/8 inch marine grade stainless steel tubing. Like a line drawing in space, the sculpture depicts the topography between Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. To make the hills and valleys of the terrain more visible, the actual scale of the landscape is exaggerated by five times above sea level and by ten times below. “This piece was the culmination of a quest to reveal San Francisco Bay—to get people to think about what’s beneath the water line in a new way,” says Lin. “It took almost eight months for us to mesh the land and water data sets because the two sets of data were completely segregated—and this is the whole point! We think of these things as two separate systems even though they are literally connected to each other.” In order to build the sculpture, Lin’s fabricator, the Walla Walla Foundry, recreated the exterior West Terrace of the Academy in their warehouse to ensure precision in the attachment of the sculpture to the terrace’s six columns.

The sculpture is installed outdoors on the Academy’s West Terrace, where it is seamlessly attached to six columns and suspended by nine thread-like steel cables from the overhead solar canopy. It seems to float like a cloud in a Chinese landscape painting against the backdrop of greenery in Golden Gate Park, a dynamic counterpoint to the formal and orderly geometry of the building’s architecture by Renzo Piano.  (from the SFAC press release).

Maya Lin in Golden Gate Park

You can view this piece from outside the gates of the Academy of Sciences.  Entry is $30 for adults.

GGP’s Sea Serpent

 Posted by on May 29, 2013
May 292013
 

Koret Childrens Quarters
Golden Gate Park

Phoebe Palmer GGP Mosaic Sea Serpent

This divine sea creature is by Phoebe Palmer.

On an architectural scale, Phoebe is building densely textured, sculptural ferro-cement walls and working in mosaics and metal sculpture as well as her “normal” mediums of paint and pastels. Phoebe has taken the characters formerly inhabiting her paintings and pastels and cast them in the round as she breaks into the classical realm of ceramic sculpture.

This is Palmer’s first piece of public art.

The ferro-cement-and-tile creature weighs nearly a ton and cost about $10,000.

Phoebe Palmer at GGP Sea Serpent

According to San Luis Obispo.com:

From the start, the sea creature was a ‘her,’ Palmer said, “After a while, I just started calling her ‘the beast.’ ”

Palmer did 15 to 20 “little clay models” of the head, each with a different expression. She and Peterson agreed on one that “was somewhat sweeter than what he initially had in mind, I think.”

As always, making art is learning by doing, and “Phoebe always dives right in,” said her husband, Peter Fels.

Palmer made a rebar metal frame for the head and covered it with aviary wire — like chicken wire, only smaller — and metal lath similar to what would be used for plastering.

“Of course, it was harder to get the nice expression in wire than in clay,” she said.

Palmer fashioned the tail and midsection, and cemented the entire sculpture.

She made about 10,000 “little tile scales” out of medium-fire porcelain, roughly 1-inch triangles with a curved bottom. They were fired once, glazed and then fired again.

Other tiles as small as a quarter-inch were needed for the head, “so I would be able to keep her nice expression … It was a pain painting stripes on a quarter-inch tile,” Palmer said with a laugh. “As I kept having to make yet another batch … I muttered about the beast’s voracious appetite for tile.”

She recalled that “trial-and-error was the name of the game.”

It took many glaze experiments and test arrangements of more than 15 types of tiles. Some have a little yellow tip, she said, “and then two or three other glazes applied in stripes or speckles.”

The beast’s “eyes and lips were made out of bigger pieces of ceramic,” clay that shrinks 12 percent in the firing, “so getting the eyes to fit in the eye socket was a challenge.” In fact, she made “about 15 pairs before I got it right, plus tons of 3D glaze samples — the glazes act differently on the curved sample than on a flat one.

“Next time,” she said, “I’d make the eyes first and make the cement to fit them.”

She also made four sets of lips before getting the right color and texture.

In retrospect, Palmer said, everything concerned with such a complex creature took longer than expected. In fact, “even the installation is going slowly, and won’t be completed until the end of March. They are plumbing it to emit mist out of the nostrils.”

 

GGP Sea Serpent

Puttin on the Ritz

 Posted by on May 28, 2013
May 282013
 

Ritz Carlton
600 Stockton Street
Chinatown

Ritz Carlton San Francisco

Heralded as a “Temple of Commerce” when it opened in September 1909, the massive, 17-columned building spanning Stockton Street between California and Pine Streets, has been expanded five times and is now one of San Francisco’s best examples of neo-classical architecture.

The original structure, an 80′ x 80′ white cube with four giant engaged Ionic columns and rich filigree, revived the neo-classical architectural style popular with early 20th-Century financial institutions. It was designed by Napoleon Le Brun and Sons of New York to be Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s Pacific Coast headquarters.

Metropolitan Life commissioned the building after the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the company’s offices and records in the Wells Fargo Building at Second and Mission Streets.

The original building was built to house the life insurer for a decade, but had to be expanded only five years after it opened. Miller and Colmesnil, a San Francisco architectural firm, bid $127,000 and won the contract to design two symmetrical wings with balconies. The wings were constructed in conjunction with the Stockton Tunnel, which links Union Square to Chinatown. Concrete piers were sunk beneath the tunnel floor to prevent the building’s foundations from shifting. The 28-foot wide wings, opened in 1914, more than doubled Metropolitan Life’s office space.

In 1916, Metropolitan Life purchased the lot north of the expanded building on California and Stockton Streets from the Episcopal Diocese of California. The second expansion, designed this time by prominent San Francisco architects J.R. Miller and Timothy Pflueger, (who has appeared many times in this website) duplicated the original Le Brun “temple.” Seventeen Ionic columns support an entablature of winged hourglasses and lion’s heads.

Haig Patigian

A triangular pediment with a dramatic tableau of nine larger-than-life figures crowns the portico over the building’s entrance. Sculpted in 1920 by Haig Patigian, the terra cotta figures symbolize the American Family “protected” by a winged allegorical figure representing “Insurance.” Patigian, can be found many times throughout this website.

Haig Patigian

The economic boom of the 1920s escalated the company’s business, triggering the building’s third expansion.

This wing continued the building’s neo-classical style using glazed terra cotta tiles, decorative winged hourglasses and lion’s heads. Because of Pine Street’s steep grade, the wing is seven floors on the downhill end and meets the original building’s main floor at the Pine Street wing’s fourth floor. Dedicated in 1930, the wing gave the building an “L” shape.

The building’s fourth addition in 1954 included the California Street wing and central garden courtyard. Designed by Thomsen and Wilson of San Francisco, this steel-frame, terra cotta clad addition is identical to the Pine Street wing and gave the building its “U” shape. Thomas Church, a renowned local landscape architect, designed the ornamental garden courtyard. Each enlargement maintained the original structure’s detailing and materials, making its elegant facades virtually seamless.

In 1973, Metropolitan Life relocated its Pacific Coast headquarters and Cogswell College acquired the building for its campus.

In 1985 Cogswell College again relocated. For the next three years, the building’s offices housed several small businesses on monthly and yearly leases. The nearly vacant building deteriorated. Its extensive renovation restored this landmark to its original beauty. It opened in April 1991 as the Ritz Carlton.

The building was named a San Francisco city landmark in 1984 and listed as Architecturally Significant.

Ritz Carlton Details

Mona Caron in Noe Valley

 Posted by on May 27, 2013
May 272013
 

3871 24th Street
Noe Valley

Mona Caron in Noe Valley

These two murals sit on the two sides of a parking lot on 24th Street

Vegetable mural on 24th street

They are by Mona Caron who has been in this website many, many times.

According to Caron’s website:
The mural comprises two paintings that face each other over a small park and parking lot in the Noe Valley neighborhood. As a tie-in to the weekly farmer’s market that is held there, both murals feature giant botanical illustrations of vegetables and their leaves and blossoms. A scroll-like ribbon weaves around the vegetables. Wherever the ribbon is larger and appears closer, there are views of the neighborhood depicted within it. On the Eastern wall, these views show scenes from Noe Valley’s past (late 1930’s) and a positive future vision. On the western wall, there are two views of the present: one of the upper, Western part of 24th Street (Noe Valley), and one of the adjacent Mission District part of the same street.

mural at the 24th street farmers market*

vegetable mural in the 24th street parking lot*

Mural on 24th street*

Mona Caron Mural on 24th Street in Noe Valley

Spreckles Temple of Music

 Posted by on May 25, 2013
May 252013
 

Music Concourse
Golden Gate Park
Spreckels Temple of Music

Spreckels Temple of Music

This is the third bandstand to grace Golden Gate Park.  Claus Spreckels (The Sugar King) gave $75,000 towards the $78,810 cost of the building.  The shell is an Italian Renaissance style with an acoustically reflective coffered shell standing 70 feet high and covered in Colusa Sandstone.

 The Temple, dedicated on September 9, 1900, suffered damage in the 1906 earthquake (much of its Colusa sandstone cornices, balustrades and corners collapsed). It was further rattled by the region’s 1989 earthquake. This time the restoration was over seen by restoration architects Cary and Company.  Performers under the dome have ranged from John Philip Sousa to Pavarotti and the Grateful Dead.

The band shell is home the the Golden Gate Park Band, an institution since 1882.  They provide free concerts 25 Sundays each year.

Designed by Reid Brothers architects, it is similar to another structure designed by the Reid Brothers in Bellingham, Washington. There is an excellent history of the Reid Brothers by the San Francisco Examiner here.

Robert Aitken sculpture at Temple of Music

The two relief sculptures are by Robert Aitken.  The one on the left holds a lyre and the one on the right a trumpet.

Born in San Francisco, California, Robert Aitken became a noted sculptor who spent most of his career teaching at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He did numerous portraits, full size and bust, of well known figures.

For his early study he was a painting pupil of Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, and by the time he was age 18 he had his own studio. In 1897, he studied briefly in Paris, where influences turned him to sculpture.

He taught at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, University of California, from 1901 though 1904, and was awarded some of the premier sculpture commissions including monuments to the Navy and to President McKinley in Golden Gate Park. In 1904, he returned to Paris for three more years, and then settled in New York City where he was an instructor at the National Academy of Schools Sculpture Class, and at the Art Students League.

Robert Ingersoll Aitken Golden Gate Park

 

 

Lions and Bears in the Park

 Posted by on May 23, 2013
May 232013
 

The Brown Gate
8th and Fulton Street

Bear on the pillar at 9th and Fulton

This bear and lion that grace the pillars when you enter the park at 8th and Fulton are by M. Earl Cummings.  Cummings has been in this website many, many times, he also has quite a few sculptures within Golden Gate Park.

Lion at 9th and Fulton

These sculptures were a gift of Susanna Brown, a one time resident of San Francisco.  Ms. Brown gave $5000 to create the animals which were installed in 1908 to honor her late husband.

Gustave Albert Lansburgh of Lansburgh and Joseph, a firm noted for its movie theater design, is responsible for the stonework.

Bear at 8th and Fulton in San Francisco

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Lion at 8th and Fulton in San Francisco

The Bard and The Park

 Posted by on May 22, 2013
May 222013
 

Shakespeare Garden
Golden Gate Park

Shakespeare Garden

This is the Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park, a favorite spot for weddings. Behind that iron door is a bronze bust of Shakespeare.  On either sides are plaques engraved with excerpts from some of the Bard’s works that mention plants.

The purpose of the garden was to showcase plants and trees mentioned in William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Some of the original plantings in the garden were from seeds from Shakespeare’s garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, supplied by plant purveyor Sutton and Sons.  The garden was established by the California Blossom and Wild Flower Association in July 1928.

The bust is one of two copies made from an original in stone carved sometime before 1623 by Garrett Jansen.  George Bullock created the bronze copies in 1814. The second copy resides in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.  The bust is usually shuttered  except for special occasions.

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*Shakespeare

Horseshoe Courts of Golden Gate Park

 Posted by on May 21, 2013
May 212013
 

Horseshoe Pits
Golden Gate Park

Horseshoe Courts Golden Gate Park

There are sixteen courts in a very out of the way spot of the park, not far from McClaren Lodge.  The site was developed out of a rock quarry during 1934 as a WPA project.

There are two concrete bas-reliefs created on the face of the rocks.  The artist was Jesse S. “Vet” Anderson (born 1875) who was a cartoonist and caricaturist for the Detroit Free Press and later for the New York Herald Tribune.  Anderson was a member of the horseshoe club, he died in 1966.

The sculptures, overgrown and forgotten were revealed in 1968 by a Youth Corps volunteer.

Horse Sculpture at Horseshoe Pits in GGP

The Horse has seen better days.  This was shot in May of 2013.

Horse at GGP Horseshoe Pit 2009

This was shot in 2009 during its restoration.

Horse Shoe Pitcher in GGPThe Horseshoe Pitcher remains in fairly decent shape.

A Peacock Awes the Tenderloin

 Posted by on May 20, 2013
May 202013
 

Geary and Leavenworth
The Tenderloin

Peacock on Leavenworth

This phenomenal peacock is by Satyr-1, who has been in this website many times. Satyr-1 is a professional artist who has long since left the ideas of “tagging” behind for commissioned projects in defined spaces with the support of building owners.  His work made a difficult transition, but it mirrors the challenges faced by many other artists in todays street art culture.

Peacock by Satyr on Leavenworth

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Peacock mural on Leavenworth

May 182013
 

Golden Gate Park
Near the Sharon Art Center

Young Girl by Jack Moxom

This memorial to Sarah B. Cooper was placed in the park by the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association in 1923. This area sits on the other side of the carousel from the Koret Childrens Playground.

Sarah Cooper was instrumental in the Kindergarten Movement of San Francisco.  Here, from John Sweet in Public Education In California, Its Origin and Development, With Personal Reminiscences of Half a Century. American Book Company: 1911. Excerpts, Chapter XIII, pages 224-226.

Mrs. Cooper entered on the free kindergarten work with her whole soul. She was a woman of marked literary ability. For many years she earned enough with her pen to aid in the support of her family and in the education of her sister’s children in Memphis, Tennessee. She had no money to contribute to the kindergarten cause, but she gave what was needed more than money, —the wealth of her clear intellect, her winning manner, and her devoted Christian philanthropy. It was through her influence that  Mrs. Leland Stanford became interested in the work and finally endowed three kindergarten schools with one hundred thousand dollars for their support. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was induced by Mrs. Cooper’s persuasive power to endow another kindergarten school. A large number of citizens subscribed five dollars a month, each, for the support of other classes. The Golden Gate Kindergarten Association was organized, and in ten years there were forty-six kindergarten classes supported entirely by endowments and subscriptions. Mrs. Cooper’s annual reports were distributed and read wherever the English language is spoken.

After the death of Mrs. Cooper’s husband, she still continued her management of the kindergarten schools, her daughter Hattie meanwhile supporting the family by giving music lessons. Mrs. Cooper steadily refused to receive a dollar for services, though persistently urged by the officers of the association to accept a salary. Once when I urged her to yield to the wishes of the association, she replied, “This is the Lord’s work, and I feel it would not be blessed if I received pay for it.” She held frequent consultations with me about any new undertakings, and is no person living who knows more fully than myself the extent of her labors, and the wealth of philanthropic devotion and Christian self-sacrifice that she brought to the work of training, reforming, and educating the children of the poor in San Francisco. Her sad and sudden death cast a gloom over the city in which her great work was accomplished.

This sculpture is of a small child with a squirrel and cat at her feet.  It was carved by Jack Moxom.  According to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park by Christopher Pollock:

“A rainy spring day in 1923 witnessed the dedication of a cast-concrete pool with inlaid bronze lettering dedicated to Sarah B. Cooper, creator of the first kindergarten of the West and one of the most influential women of her time.  Retailer Raphael Weill, owner of the White House department store, had spearheaded a memorial effort in 1912 when he met Cooper’s cousin by chance on a steamer trip, but the project lay dormant for several years until the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association accomplished the good deed.

THE CHILD By MoxomThe subject of the original statue, by native San Franciscan Enid Foster, was a child standing by a pool.  A newer figure (shown here) was carved of red sandstone. Proposed in 1934, the replacement figure was sculpted in 1939 by WPA sponsored artist Jack Moxom,  a Canadian by birth who was an architect and a painter.

“Moxom’s life-size sculpture of a naked girl with a cat and a squirrel at her ankles was modeled after Moxom’s younger sister. Moxom had no sculpting experience and in an interview for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts project Moxom recalls the challenge of creating his first sculpture. “But one of the errors, beside the kindness of hiring me, was that I bought a type of sandstone that darkened to a bloody red when the water hit it and while it was beautifully flesh colored in the studio or in the shed, it wasn’t the moment the water hit it. I kind of pretend it wasn’t that bad, you know, but this little girl of six looked kind of pregnant too. And it had the typical square noses, remember in those days every nose was square. I thought there was a law about noses. Noses just came down with a good flat bridge on them. Now who did we get that from or was it my own … ?” (SF Uncovered)

Now neglected, the pool is filled in with dirt.  One can still read around the rim, In Memory of Sarah B. Cooper.

This badly neglected sculpture is administered by the San Francisco Art Commission.

Animals in the Park

 Posted by on May 17, 2013
May 172013
 

Koret Playground
Golden Gate Park

Koret Childrens Center

There are five of these cast stone creatures in the new Koret Childrens Area of Golden Gate Park.  They are the second public art project that Vicki Saulls did in San Francisco.  The first you can view here.

The playground underwent a major renovation with generous funding from the Koret Foundation and reopened in 2007 as the Koret Children’s Quarter. New features include a climbing wall shaped like waves and a rope climbing structure; the historic concrete slide was retained.  The landscape Architect on the project was MIG.

Turtle at the Koret Playground

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These pieces were commissioned by the SFAC for $54,000 in the 2007 budget year.

Henri Crenier’s Telamones

 Posted by on May 16, 2013
May 162013
 

Civic Center
San Francisco City Hall

Henri Crenier sculptures

These telamones by Henri Crenier have always taken my breath away.  They sit on the Van Ness side of City Hall.

Telamones (plural) or Telamon are sculptured male human figures used in place of columns to support an entablature.  They are also called Atlantes (plural) or Atlas.  They are called Caryatids if they are female figures.

Henri Crenier Atlas*

Henri Crenier Atlantes

Henri Crenier was responsible for much of the art work on City Hall.

May 152013
 

City Hall
San Francisco Civic Center

San Francisco City Hall

San Francisco’s City Hall has an art collection of its own within its walls.  This is about the art work that graces the building.  City Hall was the cornerstone to the City Beautiful Movement in San Francisco.

On City Hall there are two tympanums each holding a sculpture by Henri Crenier.  A tympanum is the triangular space enclosed by a pediment or arch.

City Hall Tympanum by Henri Crenier

The tympanum that faces the War Memorial Building on Van Ness features a figure representing Wisdom.  Wisdom stands between the figures of Arts, Learning and Truth on the left and Industry and Labor on the right.

San Francisco City Hall Tympanum by Henri Crenier

The figures in the tympanum that faces the Civic Center represent California’s agriculture and riches (on the left) and navigational skills (right).  They also symbolize San Francisco’s role in the link between the riches of California and the mercantile needs of the rest of the world.

Henri Crenier (1873–1948) was an American sculptor born in France.

Crenier was born in Paris, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Alexandre Falguière, worked in Asnières-sur-Seine, and exhibited at the Paris Salon. In 1902 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen in 1911, and became active in New York City, serving as master sculptor in the atelier of Hermon Atkins MacNeil.

His solo work includes the James Fennimore Cooper Memorial in Scarsdale, New York, as well as his single largest commission, the two pediment sculptures in granite for the 1915 San Francisco City Hall. He also contributed to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) and designed the freestanding figure of Achievement that stands at theNemours Mansion and Gardens in Wilmington, Delaware.

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