Cindy

Twitter

Benny Bufano at Fisherman’s Wharf

Posted by Cindy on June 29, 2012

Jun 292012

Fisherman’s Wharf

Beach and Taylor Streets

St. Francis of Assisi by Benny Bufano

Born, Beniamino Bufano, in San Fele, Italy, in 1886, he was one of sixteen children. His family immigrated to New York when he was three, and at six he began contributing to the family income by shining shoes and peddling newspapers. He dropped out of school after the third grade, but entered art school as a teenager, working there as a janitor in lieu of tuition. Later he became apprenticed with the sculptor James Frasier, while he continued to work as a janitor.

In 1915, a fellow sculptor, who’d been selected to create works for the Panama Pacific International Exposition, offered Benny a job as his assistant. Once in San Francisco, Benny’s talents were recognized, and he began receiving regular and lucrative commissions. Saint Francis is the patron saint of San Francisco. Born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226, Saint Francis was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men’s Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history. The statue was brought to Fisherman’s wharf to stand a few yards from the Longshoremen’s Memorial Building honoring famed unionist Harry Bridges.

The statue stands 18 feet tall and weights 12.5 tons. In 1928, while the statue was being exhibited in Paris, where Bufano sculpted it, the late English art Critic Roger Fry wrote that is was “the most significant piece of sculpture done within 500 years.” The statue was brought to San Francisco in 1955 through the efforts of Bufano’s close friend Paul Verdier, owner of the City of Paris department store, mayor Elmer Robinson and the French government. San Francisco is lucky to have many of Bufano’s pieces scattered throughout the city, here are a few others.

Washington Square – Fireman’s Memorial

Posted by Cindy on June 28, 2012

Jun 282012

North Beach

Washington Square

Firemen Memorial by Haig Patigian

To Commemorate the

Volunteer Fire Department

of San Francisco

1819-1866

Erected 1933

By Bequest of

Lillie Hitchcock Coit.

This sculpture by Haig Patigian was erected with funds left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, an honorary member of Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Company No. 5, and was originally meant for Coit Tower. The geodetic survey marker, dating from 1869, was placed there by Dr. George Davidson, for whom Mount Davison was named. In 1937, the latitude and longitude of Washington Square were carved onto the monument.

Three firemen grouped on a circular base, are standing, dressed in uniform. Two have hats on. One firefighter carries a woman in his arms; another holds what appears to be a bullhorn, and the third (behind the other two) holds a firehouse.

This statue was paid for by a portion of the monies left behind by Lillie Hitchcock Coit.

Lands End – Kanrin Maru Monument

Posted by Cindy on June 27, 2012

Jun 272012

Land’s End

Legion of Honor

The plaque at this reads: This monument is erected to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese Naval Ship Kanrin Maru in San Francisco on 17 March, 1860. The Kanrin Maru crossed the Pacific at the same time as the U.S.S. Powhatan which brought the first Japanese Embassy to the United States. Presented to the City of San Francisco by its sister city Osaka as a token of sincere desire to further friendship and goodwill between the United States and Japan and as part of the program to mark the centennial celebration of the opening of their diplomatic relations. 17 May 1960

The monument was a gift from Osaka, Japan Mayor Nakai.

“Maru” means “circle,” the word is frequently added to names of Japanese ships “as a way of blessing the vessel, wishing it safe travels and a safe return to port, thus closing the circle.

There are two sculptors listed for this monument. Mitsui Nakai and Ishi Katsu.

I am sharing with Sundays in My City

Land’s End – Great Nature

Posted by Cindy on June 26, 2012

Jun 262012

Land’s End

Legion of Honor

The stone reads: We are grateful, as we stand facing this monument, for the infinite gifts of heaven and earth. We recognize once again the true fundamental of the human should that pursues the truth, implements the good, creates beauty, and renews his will to step forward. This way brings about peace in mind and on earth by mutual understanding, encouragement and help. It was in this spirit that this monument was built.

April 1, 1984

In recognition of the continued quest for world peace by all people.

Great Nature by

Bundo Shunkai

This piece is owned by the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department. According to a Japanese Encyclopedia, Bundo Shunkai (1878-1970) was a Calligrapher and Buddhist monk, Sojo (bishop) of the Tendai sect. He was a student of Nishikawa Shundo. His style was flexible yet firm.

SOMA – Mural at 870 Harrison

Posted by Cindy on June 25, 2012

Jun 252012

SOMA

870 Harrison Street

Zio Ziegler is a Mill Valley, California native and a graduate of both Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. He has a clothing line Arte Sempre.

Financial District- Fire Station #13

Posted by Cindy on June 23, 2012

Jun 232012

Fire Station #13

Financial District

530 Sansome Street

Untitled by Henri Marie-Rose 1969

Henri Marie-Rose (1922-2010) born in François, Martinique, the son of Appien Constance Raymonde and Quentin Joseph Marie-Rose Dite Cétoute, Henri Marie-Rose Dite Cétoute, who later simply went by Henri Marie-Rose, was a San Francisco resident for 58 years, living initially in North Beach before settling on Potrero Hill.

He attended the École des Arts et Métiers and the École des Arts Appliqués in Martinique. He had three one man shows in 1940, 1942 and 1943 and was appointed Attaché Culturel au Projet d’Urbanisme,

Shortly thereafter, he was awarded a scholarship by the French Government to study at the École National Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, but got only as far as North Africa when the Second World War broke out.

Eventually Henri studied at “Beaux Arts” for over eight years. During this period, he met an art student, Marjorie Raitt, who was attending the Sorbonne and the Académie Julian, having recently graduated from Stanford. The couple married in 1952 and traveled by freighter to San Francisco the following year. Within weeks of his arrival, he won the Emanuel Walter Purchase Prize, & later hosted an 18 week series on KQED entitled “Techniques in Sculpture”. In 1960, his work was exhibited in a one man show at the De Young Museum. He went on to exhibit across the country & in Brazil. He spent his final 12 years as a teacher & mentor for Recology’s Artists in Residence Program.

This piece is copper and is part of the San Francisco Civic Art Collection.

Western Addition – Athletics at Hamilton Rec Center

Posted by Cindy on June 22, 2012

Jun 222012

Western Addition

Steiner and Post Streets

Hamilton Rec Center

Athletics by Mary Erkenbrack – Ceramic Tile 1955

This glazed ceramic tile mural is of male figures engaged in athletic activities. This tile mural sits between two painted murals names Blues Evolution I and Blues Evolution II

This tile mural has been on the walls of the rec center since it opened.

Mary Erkenbrack was born in Seattle, Washington on Nov. 30, 1910, Erckenbrack was raised in Rio De Janeiro, London, and Paris as her father, a shipping commissioner, moved about. While in France she studied art in Le Havre at Pension Jeanne d’Arc.

During 1933-35 her married name was Hennessy. In 1935 she settled in San Francisco and became active in the North Beach art scene. She soon established Mary E’s Mud Shop and was kept busy fulfilling ceramic orders for Gump’s, Marshall Fields and others.

Western Addition – Northern Police Station

Posted by Cindy on June 21, 2012

Jun 212012

Western Addition

Turk and Fillmore Streets

Northern Police Station

This cast concrete panel by Horace Washington depicts the cultural diversity of the Western Addition and its architectural history. The panel also features the likeness of police officers of the past. The piece is part of the San Francisco Arts Commission collection and was produced in 1987. It is 3 feet high by 8 feet long.

Horace Washington (who has work on the 3rd Street Light Rail project) studied at Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio before moving to California to study sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute and then completed his graduate studies at Cal State University, Sacramento. He is a San Francisco sculptor and muralist whose works include numerous projects in a variety of materials for public facilities in northern California including the International Longshoremen’s & Warehousmen’s Union mural/ scultpure, the Northern Police Station sculpture, the Martin Luther King Swimming Pool Tile Murals, and the Plaza East ceramic tile and painted mural. He exhibits his work in San Francisco and has been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, Cal State Sacramento, and for the San Francisco Unified School District. He has also taught developmentally disabled adults at the Creativity Explored Art Center. He lives and works in San Francisco.

SOMA – Few and Far

Posted by Cindy on June 20, 2012

Jun 202012

SOMA/The Mission

69 Duboce

Between Valencia and Mission

Few and Far – Part III

The last of this three part post from Few and Far is by Amanda Lynn.

Amandalynn, whos pieces are all over town, takes her expertise in art and painting into an array of applications. She studied at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and received a Bachelor’s of Fine Art with an Illustration major.

SOMA – Few and Far

Posted by Cindy on June 19, 2012

Jun 192012

SOMA/The Mission

69 Duboce

Between Valencia and Mission

Continuing with the Few N Far Crews work at 69 Duboce.

Meagan Spendlove – Meagan has murals all over town.

Agana is from Oakland. From Few and Far’s Website: Agana is not only a bad ass DJ but she is an art teacher, muralist, jewelry maker, loving/giving friend, always down to paint no matter what!! Agana also films and edits her own videos.. Oooh yes, don’t let me forget to mention… she always has her nails on point every time!

Tatiana Suarez is from Miami and New York. According to Tati’s website: Tatiana Suarez (b. 1983) is a Brooklyn-based Miami native. Her charming style is distinctive — first, the trademark eyes that draw the viewer into a beautiful and surreal world. Suarez takes full advantage of the oil paint’s ability to create creamy, soft images on canvas. Rich with symbols that stem from her Brazilian and El Salvadorian heritage, subjects appear as if they are under water, frozen in lovely stillness. The doe-eyed figures look childlike, but also exude sexual overtones, ornamented with plants, insects and other unsettling accompaniments. Beauty is presented concurrently with exotic — even creepy — creatures to create enchanted narratives.

SOMA – Few and Far

Posted by Cindy on June 18, 2012

Jun 182012

SOMA/The Mission
69 Duboce
Between Valencia and Mission

This is an empty lot that was taken over (with permission) by Few and Far. Few and Far is a woman’s street art group and this is what they say about themselves on their blog:

Few and Far is a movement that brings together talented women who are involved in graffiti, Skateboarding and street art from all over the world. Few and Far connects women by creating social and artistic exchange, by showcasing art on the streets, on walls and in other high profile venues. Few and Far fosters and celebrates the power and expression of female street artists. Importantly, Few and Far consists of a team of open minded, highly creative, cutting edge and dedicated every day females. We seek to expand this movement with the involvement more around the globe, and hope to highlight their commitment to their craft. Also Building life long friendships.

The group is made up of a quite a number of women.

Lady Mags is from Oakland.

Hops is from Seattle. (From Few and Far’s Blog) Few & Far’s Hops is such a dope person on many levels. She is very motived, fast and clean painting, often finished before any of us have our final outlines up. She paints anything she gets her hands on!

Dime is from Oakland.

Mission District – Carnaval

Posted by Cindy on June 17, 2012

Jun 172012

Mission District

18th and Harrison

P.G.& E. Service Yard

Carnaval by Joshua Sarantitis – 1995

33 X 100 feet

Joshua, a Minnesota resident, is a truly prolific muralist. Joshua Sarantitis has been creating monumental professional work in public spaces for over 20 years. His 40 commissioned works include glass installations and mosaic murals located regionally and abroad including San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Tucson. His ability to collaborate successfully with design professionals, arts administrators and community is rooted in a desire to find common language between our everyday lives and the arts. Joshua embraces using technology as a tool to aid in mastering media including slumped and fused glass, mosaic, plasma-cut steel, concrete, glass frit, ceramic toner on glass, ceramic tile and paint and fiber. He combines the desire for learning with the skilled execution of an accomplished technician.

This was one of Joshua’s first murals. It was done in conjunction with Precita Eyes. It was funded by P.G.&E., The Neighborhood Beautification Fund, and the Graffiti Clean Up Fund.

The San Francisco Mission District has been hosting a Carnaval Festival since 1978. There is a very elaborate parade, afterwards streets are blocked off and food and entertainment can be enjoyed to ones hearts’ content.

P.G.&E. (Pacific Gas and Electric Company) supplies Gas and Electricity to most of Northern California. This would explain the workers in the last panels.

Marina Green – William C. Ralston Memorial

Posted by Cindy on June 16, 2012

Jun 162012

The Marina Green

Near the end of Fillmore Street

Memorial to William C. Ralston by Haig Patigian 1941

William C. Ralston made his fortune in Nevada’s Silver Comstock Lode. He was one of the richest and most powerful men in California, founding the Bank of California and building the Palace Hotel. In 1875, after a combination of the expense of building the Hotel, his attempt to buy and resell the Spring Valley Water Company and the effects of the Panic of 1873, which crashed the stock value of his Bank, his body was found in the Bay. Whether due to a stroke during his regular swim, or from suicide it will never be known. It is said nearly 50,000 people watched his funeral procession.

This statue to Ralston was commissioned and paid for by Edward Bowes(14 June 1874, San Francisco – 13 June 1946, Rumson, New Jersey) Bowes made his fortune in real estate in San Francisco. The 1906 earthquake made him reevaluate his life, he moved to New York and became involved in the entertainment industry. Major ( a rank he obtained in WWI, and insisted on being addressed this way for the rest of his life) Bowes’ Amateur Hour was the best-known amateur talent show in radio during its eighteen-year run (1934-1952) on NBC Radio and CBS Radio.

I have no idea what linked the two gentlemen’s lives.

The Woman is holding an eagle on one hand and a weapon in the other. On the east and west sides, were ornamental fish, they are no longer there. The sculptor, Haig Patigian has been in this site many times before.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 15, 2012

Jun 152012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This pair of canvas’ are also in the elevator alcove. The depict the farmlands of the Santa Clara Valley and the hills of the East Bay.

The artists was Rinaldo Cuneo. (1877-1939). Cuneo was a native San Franciscan from North Beach where he maintained a studio. He was educated at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute as well as in Paris and London. He taught at the California School of Fine Arts and was a prolific painter.

This is the last in a series of the murals of Coit Tower. There are more, unfortunately, they are not available to the public. If you are interested in seeing pictures of them, and learning more about Coit Tower and all of the murals, I highly suggest you search out Masha Zakheim’s Book Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 14, 2012

Jun 142012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This is the second of the murals in the elevator alcove, It is titled San Francisco Bay, North and is by Jose Moya Del Pino (1869-1969). The two young men represent Moya del Pino himself watching as fellow artist Otis Oldfield sketches what he sees below him. If one looks closely you can see the former prison on the island of Alcatraz. This too is oil on canvas.

Jose Moya del Pino was born in Priego, Spain. By 1907, Moya was studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, and associated with the Post-impressionists of Spain including Juan Gris and Diego Rivera. In the 1920’s he spent four years painting forty-one reproductions of Valasquez’s paintings in the El Prado in Madrid and Valencia. King Alfonso asked him to travel with the collection as a goodwill gesture when it went to the new world. The exhibit ended in San Francisco and Moya remained. Otis Oldfield was responsible for Moya being hired for the Coit Tower project. Later projects for Moya included a post office in Stockton as well as public art projects in Redwood City and San Rafael, California.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 13, 2012

Jun 132012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

In the alcove, where visitors wait for the elevator are four more murals. This one is titled San Francisco Bay. This is an oil on canvas, and was painted in the artists studio. The two little girls are the artists, Otis Oldfield’s, daughters, Rhoda and Jayne. as they look down on the waterfront from their father’s Telegraph Hill studio. The larger island they are peering at is Yerba Buena Island. That is the island that the present day San Francisco Bay Bridge goes through. Treasure Island, which would have been attached on the left hand side of Yerba Buena, had not yet been built. Treasure Island was built (from fill dredged from the bay) for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939-1940.

Otis Oldfield was born in Sacramento in 1890. He came to San Francisco to enroll in Arthur Best’s private art school. In 1911, he went to Paris, where he stayed for sixteen years. In 1924, he began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts. He died in 1969.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 12, 2012

Jun 122012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

News Gathering by Suzanne Scheuer

Scheuer worked with assistant Heve Daum on news gathering for her panel in Coit Tower.

Suzanne Scheuer was born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898. She moved to San Francisco in 1918. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts and the California College of Arts and Crafts. She then taught for three years in the public schools of Los Banos and Salinas. In 1940 she joined the art faculty at the College of the Pacific in Stockton and taught there for ten years. She then moved to Santa Cruz, California where she designed and built six houses, doing much of the physical and artistic work herself while continuing to paint and sculpt. Scheuer died in Santa Cruz on December 20, 1984. Other work of hers can be found in the Berkeley, California Post Office as well as two Texas Post Offices.

Sheuer’s window ledge San Francisco Chronicle front page announced the end of the art project in April, though some artists continued to add finishing details until June.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 11, 2012

Jun 112012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The Library by Bernard B. Zakheim

The Coit Tower murals were painted during a particularly disruptive period in U.S. History. Depression related economic challenges led to much discussion about alternate forms of government. A four day general strike (Bloody Thursday) accompanied by widespread rioting in San Francisco triggered an eighty-three day 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike.

Coit Tower muralists protested and picketed at the tower when Rivera’s mural commissioned for Rockefeller Center in New York City was destroyed after he refused to change an image of Lenin in the painting.

The opening of Coit Tower and the display of its murals was delayed several months because of the controversial content of some of the paintings. Clifford Wight’s mural, which contained a hammer and sickle as one of a series of medallions illustrating the range of political philosophies existing in America, was removed before the opening.

This particular mural depicts the anger that the artists felt at the destruction of Rivera/Rockefeller mural and the general tenet of the time.

Ralph Stockpole is reading a headline concerning the destruction of the Diego mural. Col. Harold Mack (on the Washington appointed supervisory committee for the murals) looks on while artist John Langley Howard holds a crumpled newspaper while reaching for Marx’s Das Kapital. Joseph Danysh (later federal Art Project director) holds a paper about mortgage foreclosures. Above the window are three Hebrew letters that spell out the contents of the three books lying on their sides: Torah, Prophets and Wisdom Literature.

Bernard Baruch Zakheim (1896-1985) came to San Francisco in 1920 seeking political asylum from Poland. An upholsterer by trade he studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute. After his work at Coit Tower he worked for four years illustrating the history of medicine at the University of California Medical Center. He painted murals for a post office in Texas in 1938. Zakheim returned to Poland as an artist to paint the fresco The History of the Jews through Song.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Rockefeller/Rivera controversy, here is a synopsis.
By 1930, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera has gained international favor for his lush and passionate murals. Inspired by Communist ideals and an intense devotion to his cultural heritage, Rivera creates boldly hued masterpieces of public art that adorn the municipal buildings of Mexico City. His outgoing personality puts him at the center of a circle of left-wing painters and poets, and his talent attracts wealthy patrons, including Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. In 1932, she convinces her husband, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to commission a Rivera mural for the lobby of the soon-to-be-completed Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Flush from successes in San Francisco and Detroit, Rivera proposes a 63-foot-long portrait of workers facing symbolic crossroads of industry, science, socialism, and capitalism. The painter believes that his friendship with the Rockefeller family will allow him to insert an unapproved representation of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin into a section portraying a May Day parade. The real decision-making power lies with the Center’s building managers, who abhor Rivera’s propagandistic approach. Horrified by newspaper articles attacking the mural’s anti-capitalist ideology, they order Rivera to remove the offending image. When Rivera refuses, offering to balance the work with a portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the opposing side, the managers pay his full fee, bar him from the site, and hide the mural behind a massive drape. Despite negotiations to transfer the work to the Museum of Modern Art and demonstrations by Rivera supporters, near midnight, on February 10th, 1934, Rockefeller Center workmen, carrying axes, demolish the mural. Later, Rivera recreates the frescoes in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, adding a portrait of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in a nightclub. Rivera never works in the United States again, but continues to be active, both politically and artistically, until his death in 1957.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 10, 2012

Jun 102012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Stockbroker and Scientist by Mallete (Harold) Dean

Their are six figures that stand alone in the Tower. (You can review the first four here). The stockbroker/banker is thought to be A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy that later became Bank of America. The Scientist is Nobel Prize winner, Albert Abraham Michelson. He holds an interferometer and a scroll and stands near a picture of the James Lick Observatory which is on Mount Hamilton in San Jose, California. Notice how the door of the observatory is a light switch.

Mallete Dean was one of the more prolific painters of government sponsored murals in Northern California. Born in Washington in 1907, he studied at the California School of Fine Arts. He was a furniture designer, decorator of books and graphic artist, for many years he created labels for the California wine industry. Other works include the orchard scene in the Sebastapol, California Post Office. He died in San Francisco in 1975.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 9, 2012

Jun 092012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The Meat Industry by Raymond Bertrand

Notice the clever use of the window

Raymond Bertrand (1901-1986) was a native San Franciscan. He studied at the California School of Fine Arts where he later taught Lithography. Bertrand was primarily a landscape panter, a critic once commented that Bertrand used “freezing blues, whites and greys” in his oil in a “small but icy collection of arctic landscapes”. His name is used as the “author” of the book titled Rape, Mayhem and Vagrancy in the law library scene at Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 8, 2012

Jun 082012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

(

Industries of California by Ralph Stackpole

This is a vast expression of the industries of California at the time. Stackpole painted several fellow artists in this mural as well. Tom Lehman, a local artist, pours chemicals into a container while William Hesthal bends over a table, notebook in hand. Helen Clement Mills is one of the women working on an assembly line.

Ralph Ward Stackpole (1885-1973) Stackpole grew up in Oregon. He worked with scepter Arthur Putnam and painter Gottardo Piazzoni and the went to Paris to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts. Some of Stackpoles work in San Francisco include a few bronze heads in City Hall, to large granite sculptures outside of the Stock Exchange, frescoes at George Washington High School and The Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 7, 2012

Jun 072012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Department Store by Frede Vidar

This mural depicts the interior of a typical 1930’s department store with soda fountain and wine shop. Some items of interest are the fact that the waitress wears a cap with a Star of Dave, (which is surprising as Frede Vidar frequently expressed pro-Nazi sympathies and even scratched a swastika on a windowpane when he worked on the project) and the fact that one of the clerks is holding a box with the SS logo on it. Notice the Bing Crosby music in the background as well as Roman Scandals by Irving Berlin. And yes, all of the bottles of wine are of local California vintages.

Frede Vidar (1911-1967) was born in Denmark and moved with his parents to San Francisco while in High School. He graduated from the High School of Commerce and later attended the School of Fine Arts. He studied with Matisse in Paris in the 1930s. From 1950 until his death in 1967 he was Professor of Art at the University of Michigan.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 6, 2012

Jun 062012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Cowboy and Farmer by Clifford Wight

These are four of six single standing figures in the collection. They represent the very essence of California. The Will Rogers Style cowboy (that many friends of Wight said was a self portrait) and the farmer, that looks an awful lot like artist Ralph Stackpole.

These two are Surveyor and Ironworker. There are three windows between these two figures. Over the central window Wight painted a bridge, which had the NRA Eagle in the center. Over the right hand window he stretched a segment of chain, and in the circle appeared the words In God We Trust, then over the last window he placed a section of woven cable and a circle framing a hammer and sickle, and the words United Workers of the World. This all proved to be entirely too controversial and it was removed before the tower opened in 1934.

Clifford Wight was born in England in 1900. He and Ralph Stackpole worked with Diego Rivera in the 1920’s. Wight came to San Francisco with Rivera to work as an assistant on Rivera’s murals at the San Francisco Art Institute. He also worked with Rivera on his Detroit mural. Diego Rivera painted a portrait of Wight into one of the frescos in the Secretariat of Education in Mexico City. He returned to England and died in 1966.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 5, 2012

Jun 052012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

City Life by Victor Arnautoff is one of the largest murals in Coit Tower. It is a wonderfully vibrant street scene taking artistic license with the various city landmarks and their geographic positions.

Some things of note, the fire engine is Number 5, which was Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s beloved Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Department. Newspapers that include New Masses, Daily Worker, Time, Argonaut and Screenplay, with Mae West on the front. The San Francisco Chronicle is noticeably absent, causing quite a stir at the time in the local press. The artist is in the mural, near the newspaper stand wearing a fur-collared coat. Charlie Chaplin sits in the center of a sign announcing his new movie City Lights. The “Auto Ferry to Oakland” is interesting in that the Bay Bridge would be built just a few years later in 1936.

Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (1896-1979) came to San Francisco via Mexico where he too worked as an assistant to Diego Rivera. He attended the California School of Fine Arts, studying with Ralph Stackpole, fellow artist. He returned to his native Russia in the 1960s. Other works of his include frescoes in the Military Chapel at the Presidio and three lunettes in the Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute. He taught in the art department of Stanford University.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 4, 2012

Jun 042012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

California Industrial Scenes by John Langley Howard

This mural gives us several juxtaposed scenes indicative of any society, but especially poignant during such difficult times.

There are the solemn workers of the May Day demonstration, a woman doing laundry on the rocks, and an elderly woman sawing logs by hand, while the great symbols of hydroelectric power are there in her sight. There is a migrant family with their broken down Model-T next to a group of observers with chauffeur and furs. Notice the hobo on the train trestle, and the worker leaning on the culvert with newspapers around him that read “Relief Rolls Reach New All Time Peak” “I’m A Tough Guy, Franklin Roosevelt warns Congress” and “I learned a lot from the barracudas and the sharks, Roosevelt tells crowd at Station”.

John Langley Howard (1902-1999) was the son of John Galen Howard, prominent architect, and brother Robert Howard, sculptor. He attended the University of California and the California School of Arts and Crafts as well as the Art Student’s League of New York. This is his only mural although he continued to paint, especially for sports magazines, depicting tools and machines in meticulous detail.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 3, 2012

Jun 032012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The California Agriculture Industry by Gordon Langdon

The dairy business is represented in this mural as well as several of the artists friends. Gordon Langdon was assisted by Helen Clement Mills on this mural.

Fellow artist Fred Olmsted and his assistant Tom Hayes

Fellow artist John Langley Howard holding a pitchfork

Fellow artist Lucien Labaudt showering a cow

Gordon Langdon did not stay long on the Coit Tower project. His friends remembered him as a “handsome young man”. His other murals in San Francisco include Modern and Ancient Science over the main entrance to the library at George Washington High School and The Arts of Man in the Anne Bremer Memorial Library at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

Posted by Cindy on June 2, 2012

Jun 022012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This mural is titled California and is by Maxine Albro. A wonderful depiction of the bounty of the California agricultural industry from Mt. Shasta Almond Orchards to Napa Valley grapes.

The “gentlemen farmers” are actually the artists friends. Ralph Stackpole is in the checkered shirt and Albro’s husband, and fellow artist Parker Hall is by the tray of apricots. The NRA (National Recovery Act) eagle is found on the ends of the lugs of oranges. The NRA was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate “cut-throat competition” by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of “fair practices” and set prices.

Maxine Albro was an Iowan who studied at the California School of Fine Arts. During the 1920s she studied in Paris and then in Mexico with Diego Rivera. Like Rivera, Albro was no stranger to controversy. A work of four nudes that she painted at the Ebell Women’s Club in Los Angeles, titled “Portly Roman Sybils,” offended some of the organization’s members. The club rescinded approval of her frescoes, and destroyed the wall on which it was painted in 1935. Also destroyed (due to remodeling) was her mosaic of animals over the entrance to Anderson Hall at the University of California Extension in San Francisco. In 1938, after getting married, Albro and Hall moved to Carmel, California. During the 1940s they traveled throughout Mexico. As a result, most of her work consisted of Mexican subject matter, which she was best known for. She died on July 19, 1966 in Los Angeles.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

Posted by Cindy on June 1, 2012

Jun 012012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The little seated boy looks at a book whose page shows the date of Coit Tower (1933) and the date of the WPA projects at Coit Tower (1934).

Animal Force by Ray Boynton

These are the first frescoes that one sees when entering Coit Tower. Boynton chose to portray animal power in Agriculture. As often occurred he included fellow artist Gordon Langdon leaning on a horse.

Ray Boynton was an Iowan, after studying art in Chicago he came to California to become the first California Fresco artist. His first project appeared in a Los Altos home in 1917. While teaching fresco at the California School of Fine Arts he completed the first large scale mural in the auditorium of Mills College in Oakland. He went on to become a teacher at UC Berkeley. He was called the “Dean of Frescoes” at Coit Tower. After Coit Tower he completed 15 lunette murals in the Modesto Post Office.

These further symbols of machine force include a man at the controls of a hydroelectric plant, a surveyor, steam shovel, and oil derricks. Notice that he had to work around not only a door, but a delightful art deco light fixture

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on May 31, 2012

May 312012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This law library has some interesting book titles when one looks closely. There are the usual Civil, Penal and Moral Codes, but also the Law of Fresco Painting, Counterfeiting, and Laws on Seduction. A fun one is Martial Law by Brady, he was the VFW caretaker who watched over the project and lived in the Tower’s apartment. The man on the left with the pipe is thought to be, patron of the arts, William Gerstle.

The Stock Exchange. Notice the downward movements of the market.

Federal Reserve Bank. It is thought that the curly haired blond is Fred Olmsted, assistant to Coit Tower artist John Langley Howard and later an artist in the program himself.

The artist on this panel was George Albert Harris (1913-1991). Harris was one of the youngest artist to work on Coit Tower. He was a student at the California School of Fine Art and later painted a mural in San Francisco’s Chamber of Commerce building. He was a professor in the art department of Stanford University.

Telegraph Hill -Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on May 30, 2012

May 302012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This is the beginning of a series on the WPA murals of Coit Tower. When the Great Depression hit, like everyone, artists were not finding work. George Biddle, a prominent lawyer turned successful artist, a member of a socially prominent family from Philadelphia, and most importantly, a Groton and Harvard classmate of Franklin Roosevelt, went to the President with an idea.
He suggested that America hire American artists to paint murals depicting the social ideals of the new administration as well as the American way of life, on the walls of public buildings.

The WPA, created by an order from the President, was funded by Congress with passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 on April 8, 1935.

San Francisco became District 15 of the National Plan. Coit Tower was one of three large WPA mural projects in San Francisco the others are at Rincon Annex Post Office and The Beach Chalet.

Dr. William Heil, a new immigrant from Germany and the director of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park was chosen to select and supervise “worthy artists”. It was also Dr. Heil who suggested the medium of frescoes for the project.

According to Masha Zakheims book Coit Tower. there were few interpersonal problems; the “purists” created their preliminary sketches and layouts in their own studio. The artists put in their thirty hours a week as they chose, often working into the small hours to meet the demands of the rapidly drying plaster. Surprised at their diligence it was reported to Washington D.C. that the artists at Coit Tower were very moral and conscientious, not drunken, promiscuous, and orgiastic as some had predicted a group of Bohemians would be.

Fresco (plural either frescos or frescoes) is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls, ceilings or any other type of flat surface. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the Latin word for “fresh”.

Older Entries Newer Entries