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St. Josephs of San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on May 9, 2016

May 092016

1401 Howard at 10th
SOMA

St Joseph’s Church was founded, at 10th and Howard, in 1861, by Archbishop Joseph Alemany. The church, home to over 300 mostly Irish families, was destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

The church we see today was constructed in 1913. By that time, the Irish of the neighborhood had moved away and the church welcomed families from Latin America, the Philippines and the Pacific Islands. By 1980 St. Joseph’s was the largest Filipino parish in the US.

The two cupolas rise above the SOMA area, making St. Joseph’s one of the most prominent buildings in the area

The church building was designed by San Francisco architect John J. Foley in the Romanesque Revival style.

It is cruciform in shape, with an exterior constructed of brick, covered in stucco. The main entrance is through doors set inside three large Roman arches just below a large rose window.

Saint Joseph’s Church is a San Francisco Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. The goal is to fully rehabilitate the church structure into offices, for what is estimated to be $15million. The church, closed after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and has been vacant and neglected since then.

Interior of the church in 2008. Photo courtesy of SF Gate.

There is little known about John J. Foley. He studied at the Armour Institue in Chicago and worked as a draftsman for Peter J. Weber in Chicago in 1905 before coming to San Francisco. He designed many churches throughout California as well as public buildings and residences. He died April 20, 1946.

2019 Update:

The church was purchased by Ken Full and is not the Saint Joseph’s Art Society. Here are some photos of the newly remodeled interior.

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Moya del Pina at Acme Brewery

Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2016

Apr 252016

The Boardroom at the old Acme Brewing Company
762 Fulton
Western Addition

Cultivation of Hops and Production of Beer.

Moya del Pina is responsible for these murals at the Acme Brewery murals in He completed them inn November 1935 between commissions at Coit Tower for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in 1934, and a series of Bay Area Post Office murals completed for the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture from 1936-1941.

In “A Family Picnic” the model for the central figure is believed to be the artist’s wife.

The 1936, Volume 12, of the California Art Research said of these murals:

“The manner in which Moya del Pino has handled his frescoes gives a now dignity to the brewery Industry. The artist has lifted his subject to his height, has made of it something which is at once beautiful as an art work, informative and entertaining as a record of that industry. It is accurate in description; in most instances it is quite poetical in conception, and it is broad and vigorous in presentation.

On the wall facing the door is told the joyous, healthy story of the culture and gathering of the hops and of its crushing. The wall opposite is given to the scientific process of the boiling, laboratory testing, barreling and bottling. The small wall facing the window offers an attractive version of the enjoyment of beer after it has come from the brewery.

It is a family picnic In a familiar San Francisco scene, somewhere on the Marina. Across the bay as a background to the gay party, the Marin hills unroll their easy rhythmical forms against a clear sky.

These frescoes by Moya del Pino qualify as work of outstanding merit on every ground. They are interesting and lively in subject matter. Their color scheme is rich, varied and pleasing. In size they admirably fit in with the dimensions of the room. ”

The murals are protected by large sheets of glass, making photos difficult.

These murals are painted using the Spanish tradition. They are painted on dry plaster covered with caseine. Casein paint has been used by the ancients on wood panel paintings, wall murals and has also used successfully as a household/architectural paint. When applied properly on the right support it has proven itself to be an archive quality paint. The glue was developed by old master craftsmen for making furniture and musical instruments, the binder is actually a fast-drying water soluble glue produced from milk proteins.

José Moya del Pino studied art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. He moved to San Francisco during the 1930s and taught at the San Francisco Art Students League (a cooperative space featuring an art gallery, art classes, and art supply store founded by fellow artist Ray Strong),The California School of Fine Arts (now called the San Francisco Art Institute) and the College of Marin.

He was known for his portraiture but he also painted murals for post offices around the Bay Area (1936-1941). He also founded the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross, California.

The Acme Brewing Company in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2016

Apr 252016

762 Fulton
Western Addition

On March 12, 1917, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin reported:

“Six San Francisco breweries, facing financial loss, or insolvency, through proposed legislation regulating manufacture of maltuous drinks, have pooled their interests into one association for the manufacture and distribution of beers and malts. The body is to be known as the Acme-National Brewing Company. J.P. Rettenmayer, president of the Acme Brewing Company and head of the State Brewers’ Association, is president of the consolidated companies.

The breweries included in the merger are: National Brewing Company, Henry Weinhard Brewery, Claus Wreden Brewing Company, Union Brewing and Malting Company, Acme Brewing Company and Broadway Brewing Company.”

Only two of the breweries continued as plants of the (renamed) California Brewing Association: the Acme Brewery, and the National Brewery. All of the other breweries ceased production and closed, but their parent companies continued to operate until they were all were forced out of the beer business by Prohibition, January 16, 1920.

In 1935 the California Brewing Association built this art deco gem for their general office and sales department. The building also housed a hospitality tasting room. The architect is unknown.

The building was used by the Redevelopment Agency’s Western Addition Field Office during the scourge of the Western Addition.

The building now houses the African American Art and Culture Complex.

Moya del Pina was commissioned to paint three murals in the boardroom. You can read about them here.

John Park WPA Murals

Posted by Cindy on April 20, 2016

Apr 202016

John Muir Elementary
380 Webster
Hayes Valley

As you enter John Muir Elementary school you are greeted with three lunettes. In the lunettes are WPA murals by artist David Park. These murals were done in 1934, the same year that park joined the WPA. These three are painted in the Socialist Realism style.

The three murals are titled Man in Art, Man in Nature and Man in Industry. There are very few David Park murals left, making these in the school a San Francisco treasure.

David Park (1911-1960) was a painter and a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative School of painting during the 1950s.

Park was part of the post-World War II alumni of the San Francisco Art Institute, called the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) at the time.

Park moved to Los Angeles in 1928 to attend the Otis Art Institute, his only formal education, but dropped out after less than a year. In 1944 he began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts and adopted the then-dominant mode of abstract expressionist painting. He never felt fully comfortable with this style, however, and in 1949 hauled all his abstract canvases to the Berkeley dump. “Art ought to be a troublesome thing,” he would later declare.

Park became the first of several Bay Area artists, followed by Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, to reconcile thick paint and vigorous brushstrokes with figurative subjects such as people engaged in contemporary, everyday life.

Park was producing some of his best work by the 1950s and was at the height of his national success, when he was diagnosed with cancer.

He switched to watercolors when he could no longer work in oil and passed away a few months after his diagnosis.

John Muir Elementary School

Posted by Cindy on April 20, 2016

Apr 202016

John Muir Elementary School
380 Webster
Hayes Valley

In the ten years between 1920 and 1930 San Francisco erected 49 new school buildings, with a 50^th approved in 1931.

This was all accomplished just 80 years after the birth of the San Francisco School System.

These 50 school buildings represented an investment, at that time, of $17,418,814.

The 1931 Report of the Superintendent showed that the forty-seven schools had an enrollment of 42,976 students, and an additional 4000 to be enrolled when the remaining three, still under construction at the time of the report, were to open.

At that time the school system of San Francisco had an enrollment of 82,438 children. Today that number is only 57,000.

This staggering growth rate most likely explains why there is so little information about John Muir Elementary School. It was the 32nd on the list, likely just another, of so many, schools on the drawing table of City Architect John Reid.

Tiles adorn the interior doors of the auditorium

John Muir Elementary was begun in 1926 and completed in 1927. Its stucco covered, reinforced concrete construction is minimal.

While there is lovely tile details in the entry and auditorium, the building is fairly unadorned.

Small little alcoves for teachers are by each classroom door.

There are delightful little details, such as kid high blackboards, and small little boxes to the side of each classroom where teachers can post notes, but few other adornments. Small wood peg closets and built in benches on the top floor hallway, are a sign of more personalized design and construction considerations, but the school is still minimal. This is all made up for in its warmth and stunning views from the East side windows.

Iron grates and decorative tiles, show an attention to craftsmanship.

Born in San Francisco in 1883, John Reid Jr. was born in San Francisco and attended Lowell High School. He then studied architecture at Berkeley under John Galen Howard, a significant mentor and important early Bay Area architect.

With Howard’s encouragement, Reid applied to the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris (the most important design school of the time). His studies in Paris placed him among a very elite class of California architects.

Reid returned to a post 1906 Earthquake and Fire San Francisco. Due to his connections he worked briefly for renowned architects Daniel Burnham and Willis Polk, then established his own practice around 1912.

That same year, Reid’s brother-in-law, Sunny Jim Rolph, was sworn in as mayor, and appointed Reid as a supervising architect to execute the design for San Francisco’s new City Hall, designed by John Bakewell and Arthur Brown Jr.

He became San Francisco City Architect in 1917 and remained in that position until 1927, with school design and construction a high priority, as the earthquake had totally destroyed or damaged most of the city’s schools.

There are three WPA murals in the school, done by David Park in 1934. You can read about those here.

The Art and Architecture of San Francisco’s Universalist Church

Posted by Cindy on April 18, 2016

Apr 182016

1187 Franklin

The modern portion the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco was built in the 1960s and designed by Charles Warren Callister of the architectural firm of Callister, Payne, and Rosse.

The church is a grand display of architectural beauty in its simplest form. The highlight of the Church is the elegant and historic Sanctuary, which features large, stained glass windows, dramatic chandeliers, and a stunning oak ceiling. A rear balcony with light cascading from another large stained glass window holds a rare, three-thousand pipe organ, designed by Robert Noehren, a renowned University of Michigan organist.

Outside in the courtyard is Interface by Demetrios Aristides. Aristides was born (1932) and raised in Massachusetts. His father, George Demetrios, was a classical sculptor, trained by Bourdelle, a student of Rodin. His mother, Virginia Lee Burton was the renowned author and illustrator of children’s books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and The Little House, for which she won the prestigious Caldecott prize. After graduating from Harvard College in 1953, Mr. Demetrios spent three years as an officer in the Navy and then studied at the George Demetrios School from 1956 to 1959. He studied at the University of California School of Architecture, in 1959.

The Thomas Starr King room, one of several stark but stunning spaces within the Universalist Center grounds.

Charles Warren Callister ( 1917– 2008) was an American architect based in Tiburon. He is known for the hand-crafted aesthetic and high-level design of his single-family homes and large community developments.

Hell Mouth on Golden Gate Avenue

Posted by Cindy on April 18, 2016

Apr 182016

The corner of Franklin and Golden Gate

This interpretation of the Pallazo Zuccari on the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy once graced the front entry to San Francisco Italian restaurant Vivande.

Vivande was the run by Chef Carlo Middione. Middione lost his sense of taste and smell in an auto accident in Spring of 2007 and sadly closed his two restaurants.

This piece was created by Michael H. Casey in 1995.

Michael H. Casey (1947-2013), received his BFA in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design. Moving to California in 1974 to work on the ornamental exterior of the Museum of Man in San Diego, he later became the Artist in Residence for the California State Capitol Restoration Project.

His work there includes Minerva in the Senate Chambers, the parget ceilings in the historical offices and much of the ornamentation throughout the building.

His other two commissions in San Francisco include St. Mathew and St Mark in Grace Cathedral.

He is responsible for sculptures on ACT Theater, The Adam Grant Building, The Emporium Dome at the Westfield Mall, and hundreds of other buildings throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Inflatable Bunnies Hop to San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on April 5, 2016

Apr 052016

Inflatable bunnies, an art installation by Australian artist Amanda Parer has stopped in San Francisco for a few days. The monumental rabbits, each sewn in nylon, inflated and internally lit. will be in San Francisco from April 4, 2016 to the 25th. The giant rabbits will travel throughout North America, making stops in Washington D.C., Toronto, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver and Memphis.

The project, made possible by a loan of $50,000 from the S.F. Cultural Affairs office to the San Francisco Arts Commission is also sponsored by the Recreation & Park Department and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development with additional support coming from MJM Management and Another Planet Entertainment.

According to the artists website: Rabbits in artist Amanda Parer’s native Australia are an out of control pest, leaving a trail of ecological destruction wherever they go and defying attempts at eradication. First introduced by white settlers in 1788 they have caused a great imbalance to the countries endemic species. The rabbit also is an animal of contradiction.

They represent the fairytale animals from our childhood – a furry innocence, frolicking through idyllic fields. Intrude deliberately evokes this cutesy image, and a strong visual humour, to lure you into the artwork only to reveal the more serious environmental messages in the work. They are huge, the size referencing “the elephant in the room”, the problem, like our environmental impact, big but easily ignored.

The bunnies light up. Photo courtesy of artists website

The Knot

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

Santiago de Cuba

El Nudo (The knot) by Luis Silva – 2013

In December of 2010, the city of Santiago de Cuba held its first Rene Valdes Cedeño Public Sculpture Symposium, an homage to an artist and teacher who authored works as important as the Cuba’s Abel Santamaria Monument.

Sponsored by the Caguayo Foundation and the Advisory Council for the Development of Public Sculptures and Monuments, the symposium seeks to promote sculpting in marble and metals.

The second Symposium was held in November of 2013, this sculpture is a result of the second Symposium.

Clouds in the Mountains

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

Santiago de Cuba

Nube en la Cordillera – Clouds in the Mountains by Rene Negrin – 2010

Sponsored by the Caguayo Foundation and the Advisory Council for the Development of Public Sculptures and Monuments, the symposium seeks to promote sculpting in marble and metals.

The second Symposium was held in November of 2013. This sculpture is a result of the first symposium. The same year Negrin also had the entry Lluvia en la Cordillera (Rain in Mountains)

Rene Negrin was born September 28, 1949. He is a consulting Professor of Artes Plasticas at the Superior Institute of Art in Cuba.

In this situation Artes Plasticas is not necessarily a literal translation to Plastic Art. The term has also been applied more broadly to all the visual (non-literary, non-musical) arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and photography).

Negrin studied at the National School of Art, the Superior Institute of Art and has a master of art with a specialty in sculpture.

He is a member of the Writers and Artists Guild of Cuba and the Association of Artes Plasticas.

Rain in the Mountains

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

Santiago de Cuba

Lluvia en la Cordellera – Rain in the Mountains by Rene Negrin 2010

Sponsored by the Caguayo Foundation and the Advisory Council for the Development of Public Sculptures and Monuments, the symposium seeks to promote sculpting in marble and metals.

The second Symposium was held in November of 2013. This sculpture is a result of the first symposium.

Rene Negrin was born September 28, 1949. He is a consulting Professor of Artes Plasticas at the Superior Institute of Art in Cuba.

Negrin studied at the National School of Art, the Superior Institute of Art and has a master of art with a specialty in sculpture.

He is a member of the Writers and Artists Guild of Cuba and the Association of Artes Plasticas.

S. T. by Mario Trenard

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

S. T. by Mario Trenard 2013

Sponsored by the Caguayo Foundation and the Advisory Council for the Development of Public Sculptures and Monuments, the symposium seeks to promote sculpting in marble and metals.

The second Symposium was held in November of 2013. This sculpture is a product of the second Symposium

Mario Trenard graduated as a sculptor from the Higher Art Institute (ISA, in Spanish). He is a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and won the Order for National Culture and the José María Heredia plaque.

Trenard is a member of the Instituto Superior de Arte de Cuba and lives in Santiago de Cuba.

Jose Maria Heredia – One of Cuba’s Great Poets

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

Traffic Circle at Avenue Manduley and Calle 11
Santiago de Cuba

According to Cuba Facts Jose Marie Heredia y Heredia was born in Santiago de Cuba on December 31 1803, and lived a short thirty-five years, spending most of his adult life in exile.

In 1818 he enrolled in the University of Havana as a law student, and it was about this time that he met Isabel Rueda, to whom he wrote and dedicated erotic poetry. His first dramatic effort (the play Eduardo IV o el usurpador clemente) was produced by a theatre group in Matanzas.

On October 31 1820, his father died in Mexico.

In November 1823 Heredia joined the secret society: LOS SOLES Y RAYOS DE BOLÍVAR (The Suns and Rays of Bolivar, named after the liberator of South America, Simon Bolivar), which sought independence from Spanish rule. The conspiracy was discovered, and Heredia, disguised as a sailor, escaped to Boston. He later spent time in Philadelphia and New York, where he earned a living as a language teacher.

Heredia’s first collection of poetry was published in 1825, and was dedicated to his uncle, Ignacio. Another collection was published in Toluca in 1832.

On September 1 1836, Heredia wrote to Captain-General (of Cuba) Tacón and requested permission to return to Cuba, claiming that his ideology had changed in the 12 years of his absence.

After he returned to Cuba, he was not very popular with many who called him a “sell-out.” As a result, he returned to Mexico, where he died in May 7 1839.

A fragment of Ode to Niagra.

The sculptor on this piece is not known, however, the statue, erected some time before the Castro revolution, was funded by the Bacardi family.

Ode to Niagara was written n 1824, when Herdia was 20 years old. It is actually an ode to Niagara Falls. It has been said it is the greatest poem written about the falls.

There is a plaque at Table Rock, near the brink of Niagara Falls on the Canadian side.
It reads: “To the Niagara from the Cuban people, October 1989”. Heredia (1803-1839) was exiled in 1823 for penning his first Cuban revolutionary poem The Star of Cuba. Although banished officially to Spain for agitating for Cuban independence, Heredia continued to work for Cuban freedom. In 1831 he was sentenced to death in Havana for “criminal involvement” in a conspiracy for Cuban independence. He died in Mexico at the age of 35.
While in exile, he visited Niagara Falls and wrote his famous “Ode to Niagara”, which was first published 1825. In 1827 William Cullen Bryant was the first to translate it into English. Lines from the poem are inscribed on the plaque.

Photo from WikiCommons

Here is an English translation of the poem:

NIAGARA
My Iyre! give me my Iyre! My bosom feels
The glow of inspiration. O how long
Have I been left in darkness since this light
Last visited my brow, Niagara!
Thou with thy rushing waters dost restore
The heavenly gift that sorrow took away.
Tremendous torrent! for an instant hush
The terrors of thy voice and cast aside
Those wide involving shadows, that my eyes
May see the fearful beauty of thy face!
I am not all unworthy of thy sight,
For from my very boyhood have I loved,
Shunning the meaner track of common minds,
To look on nature in her loftier moods.

At the fierce rushing of the hurricane,
At the near bursting of the thunderbolt,
I have been touched with joy; and when the sea
Lashed by the wind, hath rocked my bark and showed
Its yawning caves beneath me, I have loved
Its dangers and the wrath of elements.
But never yet the madness of the sea
Hath moved me as thy grandeur moves me now.

Thou flowest on in quiet, till thy waves
Grow broken ‘midst the rocks; thy current then
Shoots onward lke the irresistable course
Of destiny. Ah, terribly they rage–
The hoarse and rapid whirIpools there!
My brain grows wild, my senses wander, as I gaze
Upon the hurrying waters, and my sight
Vainly would follow, as toward the verge
Sweeps the wide torrent–waves innumerable
Meet there and madden–waves innumerable
Urge on and overtake the waves before,
And disappear in thunder and foam

They reach–they leap the barrier–the abyss
Swallows insatiable the sinking waves.
A thousand rainbows arch them, and woods
Are deafened with the roar. The violent shock
Shatters to vapor the descending sheets
A cloudy whirlwind fills the gulf, and heaves
The mighty pyramid of circling mist
To heaven. The solitary hunter near
Pauses with terror in the forest shades.
What seeks thy restiess eye? Why are not bere,
About the jaws of this abys s the palms
Ah, the delicious palms-that on the plains
of my own native Cuba spring and spread
Their thickly foliaged summits to the sun,
And, in the breathings of the ocean air,
Wave soft beaneath the heaven’s unspotted blue?

But no, Niagara,–thy forest pines
Are fitter coronal for thee. The palm,
The effeminate myrtle and frail rose may grow
In gardens, arid give out their fragrance there,
Unmanning him who breathes it. Thine it is
To do a nobler office. Generous minds
Behold thee, and are moved, and learn to rise
Above earth’s frivolous pleasures; they partake
Thy grandeur, at the utterance of thy name.
God of all truth! in other lands I’ve seen
Lying philosophers, blaspheming Men,
Questioners of thy mysteries, that draw
Their fellows deep into impiety;
And therefore doth my spirit seek thy face
In earth’s majestic solitudes. Even here
My beart doth open all itself to thee.
In this immensity of loneliness
I feel thy hand upon me. To my ear
The eternal thunder of the cataract brings
They voice, and I am humbled as I hear.

Dread torrent! that with wonder and with fear
Dost overwhelm the soul of him that looks
Upon thee, and dost bear it from itself,
Whence hast though thy beginning? Who supplies,
Age after age, thy unexhausted springs?
What power hath ordered, that, when all thy weight
Descends into the deep, the swollen waves
Rise not, and roll to overwhelm the earth?
The Lord hath opened his omnipotent hand,
Covered thy face with clouds, and given his voice10.
To thy down-rushing waters; he hath girt
Thy terrible forehead with his radiant bow.
I see thy never-resting waters run
And I bethink me how the tide of time
Sweeps to eternity. So pass of man–
Pass, like a noon-day dream–tbe blossoming days,
And he awakes to sorrow. I, alas!
Feel that my youth is withered, and my brow
Plowed early with the lines of grief and care.

Never have I so deeply felt as now
The hopeless solitude, the abandonment,
The anguish of a loveless life. Alas!
How can the impassioned, the unfrozen heart
Be bappy without love? I would that one
Beautiful,–worthy to be loved and joined
In love with me,–now shared my lonely walk
On this tremendous brink. ‘Twere sweet to see
Her sweet face touched with paleness, and become
More beautiful from fear, and overspread
With a faint smile, while clinging to my side!
Dreams–dreams! I am an exile, and for me
There is no country and there is no love.

Hear, dread Niagara, my latest voice!
Yet a few years, and the cold earth shall close
Over the bones of him who sings thee now
Thus feelingly. Would that this, my humble verse,
Might be like thee, immortal! I, meanwhile,
Cheerfully passing to the appointed rest,
Might raise my radiant forehead in the clouds
To listen to the echocs of my fame.

Jose Marti by Alberto Lescay

Posted by Cindy on March 10, 2016

Mar 102016

Santiago de Cuba

Jose Marti by Alberto Lescay

José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) is a Cuban national hero. Martí is considered one of the great turn-of-the-century Latin American intellectuals. His written works consist of a series of poems, essays, letters, lectures, a novel, and even a children’s magazine. He wrote for numerous Latin American and American newspapers; he also founded a number of newspapers himself. His newspaper Patria was a key instrument in his campaign for Cuban independence. After his death, one of his poems from the book, “Versos Sencillos” (Simple Verses) was adapted to the song “Guantanamera”, which has become the definitive patriotic song of Cuba.

Alberto Lescay is one of Cuba’s most prolific and well known sculptors. He has been on this site many time before.

Alberto Lescay Merencio graduated with a degree in Painting in 1968 from the “José Joaquín Tejada” Fine Arts Workshop; In 1973 he added a degree in Sculpture from the “Cubanacán” National Art School. He became an Art Professor in 1979 at “Repin” Academy of Sculpture, Architecture, Painting and Graphic, in San Petersburg, Russia. Lescay now keeps a studio and his foundation, Caguayo Foundation for Monumental and Applied Arts, in Santiago de Cuba.

Murals of the Merchant Exchange Building

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2016

Jan 252016

465 California Street
Financial District

Julia Morgan was responsible for the artistic elements, under architect Willis Polk, in the Merchant Exchange Building.

Miss Morgan chose William A. Coulter, the leading marine artist of his time to fill the bays between the marble and bronze columns in what is now a bank lobby.

Arrived All Well was chosen by the U.S. Post Office for the 23 cent stamp in 1923

William Alexander Coulter, (March 7, 1849 – March 13, 1936) was a native of Glenariff, County Antrim, in what is today Northern Ireland. He became an apprentice seaman at the age of 13, and after seven years at sea, came to settle in San Francisco in 1869. A marine illustrator for the San Francisco Call, Coulter has been credited with virtually recording the entire history of maritime shipping in Northern California in his over 5000 paintings.

The five murals in the bank represent Port Costa, Honolulu Harbor and the San Francisco Bay, including the Golden Gate prior to the bridge being built.

Art at the Merchant Exchange Building

Posted by Cindy on January 20, 2016

Jan 202016

465 California Street
Financial District

As you enter the lobby from the California Street side of the Merchant’s Exchange Building you will be greeted by many of San Francisco’s founders.

These ceramic/clay sculptures are each about 36″ x 24″ and were sculpted by Mark Jaeger of Marin County.

Mark was born in San Francisco and received a BA in Art Studio from UC Davis where he was influenced by Robert Arneson and Wayne Thiebaud.

Mark currently lives in Marin where he teaches full time and operates his own studio in San Anselmo.

William Heath Davis was born in 1822, in Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaii to Captain William Heath Davis, Sr., a Boston ship captain and pioneer of the Hawaii sandalwood trade. Davis first visited California as a boy in 1831, then again in 1833 and 1838. The last time he joined his uncle as a store clerk in Monterey and Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). He started a business in San Francisco and became a prominent merchant and ship owner.
Samuel Brannan (March 2, 1819 – May 5, 1889) was an American settler, businessman, journalist, and prominent Mormon who founded the California Star newspaper in San Francisco. He is considered the first publicist of the California Gold Rush and was its first millionaire.
Pioneer physician in California, Dr. John Townsend and his wife came overland from Missouri in 1844 as part of the first immigrant party to cross the Sierra by way of Truckee. A founding member of the school board in San Francisco in 1847, he was elected town Alcalde (traditional Spanish municipal magistrate) in 1848. He abandoned his office at the first news of the discovery of gold, but later returned to practice medicine at a time when the new city was being swept by epidemics of dysentery and cholera. Moving to a farm near San Jose, Townsend and his wife died of cholera there at the end of 1851.

Thomas Oliver Larkin (September 16, 1802 – October 27, 1858) was an early American businessman in Alta California, and was appointed to be the United States’ first and only consul to Mexican Alta California. After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, Larkin moved to San Francisco, and was a signer of the original California Constitution.

Others include:

John Berrien Montgomery (1794 – 25 March 1872) an officer in the United States Navy who served during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. On July 9, 1846, Montgomery and his detachment from the Portsmouth raised the American flag over the plaza in the town of Yerba Buena (today’s San Francisco). The name of the plaza was later changed to Portsmouth Square, commemorating Montgomery’s ship.

Jasper O’Farrell (1817–1875) was the first surveyor for San Francisco. He designed the “grand promenade” that became today’s Market Street. O’Farrell Street in San Francisco is named after him.

William Davis Merry Howard (1818–1856) was a native of Boston, Massachusetts who came to California in 1839 as a cabin boy on a sailing ship. For several years he worked on ships trading hides and tallow along the Pacific coast. In 1845 he formed the San Francisco merchant business of Mellus & Howard. Howard was one of San Francisco’s most public spirited and prosperous men at the time of the California Gold Rush.

John White Geary (December 30, 1819 – February 8, 1873) Geary was appointed postmaster of San Francisco by President James K. Polk on January 22, 1849, and on January 8 1850, he was elected the city’s alcalde, before California became a state, and then the first mayor of the city. He holds the record as the youngest mayor in San Francisco history. He was also a judge at the same time he was alcalde.

Chinatown Public Library

Posted by Cindy on December 21, 2015

Dec 212015

1135 Powell Street
Chinatown

The Chinatown Branch of the San Francisco Public Library started its life as the North Beach Branch. It was changed in 1958.

Andrew Carnegie left the City of San Francisco, then under Mayor James Phelan, $750,000 for a main library and branches. One half was for the main library and the rest to be distributed amongst seven branch libraries. The city paid the difference of $1,152,000.

Most of these seven branches have been enlarged very slightly, all have been retrofitted to modern earthquake standards and all are included in San Francisco’s “List of Architecturally Significant Buildings.” All of the branches still serve as libraries.

The old North Beach Carnegie branch was the sixth of the branches built with the Carnegie donation and occupies almost all of the 70’x137′ lot it sits on.

The site was formerly occupied by a school and cost $68, 186.

The building was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in the Italian Renaissance style.

Gustave Albert Lansburgh (1876 1969) was largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theatres. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 – 1930.

Lansburgh was born in Panama and raised largely in San Francisco. After graduating from Boys High School, he enrolled in UC, Berkeley. While a student there, he worked part-time in the offices of architect Bernard Maybeck. Upon graduation from Berkeley, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, and graduated in 1906.

Lansburgh returned to the Bay Area in May, 1906, just in time for the building boom that would take place after the earthquake and fire.

First in partnership with Bernard Julius Joseph for two years, then in his own practice, Lansburgh designed numerous buildings in the recovering city. Among these was his first theater, for the San Francisco-based Orpheum Theater company.

The Lone Sailor

Posted by Cindy on December 7, 2015

Dec 072015

Golden Gate Bridge
Vista Point
Marine County Side

This statue, in the center of Vista Point on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge, is a replica of the U.S. Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. by Stanley Bleifield

The Lone Sailor, represents a sailor’s last view of the West Coast as he sails out for duty at sea.

The attending plaque reads:

The Lone Sailor
This is a memorial to everyone who ever sailed out the Golden Gate in the service of their Country – in the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine.

There is also a quote by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carl Nolte. “Here the sailor feels the first long roll of the sea, the beginning of the endless horizon that leads to the far Pacific,”

The Lone Sailor, along with his seabag was modeled on then Petty Officer 1st class Dan Maloney and was done in 1987.

Stanley Bleifeld (August 28, 1924 – March 26, 2011) was an American figurative sculptor.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bleifeld’s best-known works include “The Lone Sailor” and “The Homecoming,” at the Navy Memorial, also baseball legends Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

There is a circular deck surrounding the Lone Sailor designed by San Francisco landscape architect Fred Warnecke. The perimeter is marked by Sonoma fieldstone and four large ship’s lanterns. Below the Lone Sailor’s feet is a compass rose, its quadrants marked in different shades of granite cut at an Italian quarry.

The four sea services are also recognized with separate bronze relief sculptures, surrounding the sailor. *

The $2million project was funded entirely by private donations. The area is maintained by Cal Trans but is also part of the National Park Service.

Hatuey

Posted by Cindy on November 30, 2015

Nov 302015

Baracoa, Cuba

Hatuey is one of the most important people in Cuban history, originally from Hispaniola, he fled with many other natives to warn the people of Caobana of the treachery of the oncoming onslaught of the Spanish. Sadly the Caobanans did not believe him and few joined him in his fight against the Spanish. He was captured in February of 1512 and burned alive at the stake.

The story that every Cuban child learns is that before Hatuey was burned, a priest asked him if he would accept Jesus and go to heaven. Spanish historian Bartolomé Las Casas wrote of the reaction of the chief:

(Hatuey), thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes… The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people.

This 1953 sculpture is by Havana born Rita Longa (Aróstegui) (1912-2000). Longa is one of Cuba’s most important sculptors, with over 400 sculptures to her name, her work can be found throughout Cuba.

Hatuey is one of her most iconic sculptures and was used as the image for Hatuey Beer.

Among her many awards, was a Gold Medal at the Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York (1951).

Rita Longa is the creator of pieces that have become symbols of the environment to which they belong, such as the deer of the Grupo Familiar (Family Group, 1947), located at the entrance to the Parque Zoológico de La Habana (Havana Zoo); the image of the so-called Virgen del Camino (Virgin of the Road, 1948), which is today the symbol of the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón; the Ballerina (1950), which was placed at the entrance of Cabaret Tropicana; the work Forma, Espacio y Luz (Form, Space and Light) which since 1953 presides over the main facade of the Cuban Art Building of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, or the Aldea Taína (Taíno Village) of Guamá (1964), located in Ciénaga de Zapata in the south of Matanzas province.

Rosa La Bayamesa

Posted by Cindy on November 23, 2015

Nov 232015

Holquín, Cuba

This statue is of Rosa Maria Castellanos,(1834-1907) created by Santiago de Cuba sculptor Antonio Lescay.

Rosa La Bayamesa was a 36 year old daughter of slaves, a nurse and organizer of field hospitals during the Ten Years’ War, which was the beginning of the attempt for Cuba to escape Spanish rule.

Bayamesa refers to the Cuban town Bayamo, the insurgent stronghold during the 10 Years War.

Studio Lescay
Avenue Manfully No. 453 Entre 17 y 19
Reparto Vista Alegre

Alberto Lescay Merencio

Lescay was the founder and creator of the Caguayo Foundation for Monumental and Applied Arts. The institution represents over 300 Cuban artists.

Aplique da Parete

Posted by Cindy on November 16, 2015

Nov 162015

535 Mission

Aplique da Parete – Gordon Huether – 2014

This piece is a pattern of dichroic and mirrored glass mounted to a stone backing. The piece extends through the lobby to the exterior.

This and The Band are intended to enliven Shaw Alley. Shaw Alley is a public right-of-way that has been closed to cars and is expected to function as a pedestrian linkage to SF’s Trans Bay Terminal when it is completed.

This is what the piece looks like in reality during the daytime, the first picture is the architects rendering.

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

El Pelu

Posted by Cindy on November 11, 2015

Nov 112015

Baracoa, Cuba

This is El Pelú sculpted by Ramon Dominque Gainza.

El Pelú was a native of Coruña, Spain named Francisco Rodríguez. There is very little known about him other than at some point in his life he ended up in Baracoa, Cuba. He apparently wandered the streets preaching until sometime around 1896 when his sermons became offensive and the town council expelled him.

Legend has it that while standing on the wharf, waiting for the boat that would send him into exile, he said “In Baracoa many good plans will be made, many good ideas will be generated, but all of them will wear away, nothing will be achieved”, this became the famous Curse of the Pelú.

The sculpture was done by Ramon Dominquez Gainza, a Baracoa native, born in 1943. Gainza is considered the grandfather of Baracoan sculpture. His work normally focuses on the native Taíno peoples.

He has exhibited throughout Cuba and Europe.

The Shipyard

Posted by Cindy on November 10, 2015

Nov 102015

Hunter’s Point has a wonderful naval history in the City of San Francisco. The Shipyard is a housing development by Lennar Corporation that has overtaken the entire site, building housing where the Army once resided.

450 Ton Gantry Crane that has dominated the skyline for years.

Originally, Hunters Point was a commercial shipyard established in 1870, by the Union Iron Works company, later owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company and named Hunters Point Drydocks.

The original docks were built on solid rock. In 1916 the drydocks were thought to be the largest in the world. At over 1000 feet in length, they were said to be big enough to accommodate the world’s largest warships and passenger steamers.

Between World War I and the beginning of World War II the Navy contracted from the private owners for the use of the docks.

Hunter’s Point Shipyard 1948

At the start of World War II the Navy recognized the need for greatly increased naval shipbuilding and repair facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in 1940 acquired the property from the private owners, naming it Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. During the 1940s, many workers moved into the area to work at this shipyard and other wartime related industries.

The key fissile components of the first atomic bomb were loaded onto the USS Indianapolis in July 1945 at Hunters Point. After World War II and until 1969, the Hunters Point shipyard was the site of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, the US military’s largest facility for applied nuclear research. The yard was used after the war to decontaminate ships from Operation Crossroads. Because of all the testing, there is widespread radiological contamination on the site.

In 1983 the area became the home of the Hunters Point Shipyard Artists (HPSA), who rented studios in the former U.S. naval shipyard buildings. The older studios were demolished as part of the new Lennar construction and a new building replaced them with room for about 150 artists.

The Navy closed the shipyard and Naval base in 1994 as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. It was sold to Lennar with a vision of a $7 billion, 750-acre project aimed at transforming an abandoned Navy complex into a neighborhood with 12,000 homes and millions of square feet of office and retail space. Homes began selling in May 2014.

This is Gigantry, a children’s climbing piece in the very, very tiny park at the top of the hill. The piece was produced by Matthew Passmore at a cost of $64,500 paid for with Federal Grant money through the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission.

Matthew Passmore is an artist, urban explorer and public space advocate who brings a multidisciplinary approach to creating innovative cultural projects all over the world. Matthew was the original creative force that initiated Rebar and its first project, the Cabinet National Library, in 2004. He currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Bayview Horn

Posted by Cindy on October 13, 2015

Oct 132015

Bayview/Hunters Point at the Shipyards
11 Innes Court

The Shipyards at Hunters Point is a new Lennar Development. Part of the project is $1million in art provided by a Federal Grant to the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission.

This piece titled Bayview Horn is by Jerry Barish and was purchased for $125,ooo.

Jerry Ross Barrish is a sculptor and fourth generation San Franciscan who works in Dog Patch. Barrish is a figurative artist whose early assemblages are made of found objects, actual plastic refuse and debris collected from his long walks along the southeastern shoreline.

Barrish received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and Master of Fine Arts Degree from the San Francisco Art Institute.

His connection with the Bayview Hunters Point Shipyard is a personal one: during World War II his mother was a civilian working for the Marine Corps while his father served in the U.S. Navy and stationed in the South Pacific arena.

This is Barrish’s first permanent public art commission.

The Band

Posted by Cindy on October 3, 2015

Oct 032015

535 Mission Street

The Band by Anton Standteiner -2014

This piece is part of the City’s art requirement for new construction.

The artwork is a sculptural composition by Anton Josef Standteiner entitled “The Band”, constructed of bronze, copper, and steel, situated at the corner of Minna Street and Shaw Alley. The piece consists of four separate sculptures representing members of a music group, with each sculpture measuring approximately 10 feet in height.

Standteiner, along with his brother and father make up Mountain Forge, a metal working shop in Tahoe, California since the 1960s.

Jaques Overhoff and Margaret Mead

Posted by Cindy on September 14, 2015

Sep 142015

150 Otis Street
Mission/South of Market

This sculpture, by Jaques Overhoff, has sat on the side of 170 Otis Street, The Social Services Building, since 1977.

The abstract sculpture is accompanied by a poem by Margaret Mead. At this time I am unable to determine whether or not this is part of Overhoff’s intent or a separate art piece all together.

Jaques Overhoff, who has been in this site many times before was born in the Netherlands. He attended the Graphics School of Design at the School of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, and the University of Oregon. He moved to San Francisco in the late 1950s and was well known for his civic sculptures in a variety of styles.

Our Silences

Posted by Cindy on September 8, 2015

Sep 082015

Harry Bridges Plaza Until October 15, 2015

The Consulate of Mexico and Rivelino are touring Nuestros Silencios (Our Silences) sculptures, to deliver a message about freedom of expression. Each sculpture has a metal plate covering its mouth as an allusion to censorship.

The artist hopes the installation will prompt reflection about the importance of speaking out. This installation toured Europe (Russia, Germany, London, Rome and Portugal) in 2009-2011. The most recent installation was in Ruocco Park at the Port of San Diego in January 2015.

“Our Silences” is made up of 10 monumental anthropomorphic sculptures, in white and ochre cast bronze weighing almost one ton each. The busts have both haut-and bas-reliefs, seeds, plants, and artists interpretation of collective expression.

The 11th piece of the installation is a cubic sculpture referred to as “Tactile Box” made of iron that explains the installation. It contains four small format pieces based upon the human figures that can be touched and were created specifically for persons with visual disabilities. (however, at the time of my visit, these pieces were missing)

Rivelino, 41, whose full name is José Rivelino Moreno Valle, is from Mexico City. He is described by the World Economic Forum as an autodidact sculptor based in Mexico City, interested in the relationship between the spectator and an artistic object in a specific social and historical context. Inspired by passion for architecture, engineering, psychology, sociology, archaeology and history. Rivilino experiments constantly with diverse materials, such as cotton, clay, steel and bronze, to correlate the unique relationship between them.

Trader’s of the Adriatic

Posted by Cindy on August 31, 2015

Aug 312015

The banking lobby at the Sansome Street entrance to the Bentley Federal Reserve contains a mural by Jules Guerin. “Traders of the Adriatic” features prominently in the entrance to the main lobby. It pays homage to the world of banking with its depiction of Venetian shipping merchants accepting receipts for goods on deposit and slaves attending to the masters of galleons while the masters give the Venetians rugs, gold, silver, and incense for safekeeping. In the background there is the Venetian coat of arms. The mural is oil on canvas and is dated 1922.

As part of a building restoration in 2004 the mural by was cleaned and preserved.

Jules Vallée Guérin was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 18, 1866 and moved to Chicago to study art in 1880. In 1900 he established a studio in New York, where he made his name as an architectural delineator and illustrator. His first major break occurred when he was hired by Charles McKim to create some illustrations for the McMillan Plan for Washington D.C. These were exhibited and published in 1902. Architects began hiring Guérin to make similar renderings of their buildings. In 1912, when the architect Henry Bacon was competing with John Russell Pope to win the commission for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., he hired Guérin to create renderings of alternative designs. The paintings, still in the National Archives, were likely influential in Bacon’s winning the commission.

Despite his wish to be regarded as a major serious artist, Jules Guérin is most highly regarded as an illustrator and architectural delineator.

Fillmore Car Barn and Powerhouse

Posted by Cindy on August 24, 2015

Aug 242015

Corner of Turk and Fillmore

This was one of the first and one of the largest substations built at the turn of the century when street cars were first converted to electric power. The construction date has been documented as both 1902 and 1907.

United Railroads owner, the owner of the line when the building was built, was Patrick Calhoun. Calhoun was a boxing fan and often hired professional fighters as motormen and conductors. There was a gym to the right of the building, explaining why there are no windows on that side of the building. That lot is now the Fillmore-Turk mini park.

The Fillmore-Turk Mini Park

United Railroads was the third iteration of the company. The first franchise, what would become the Market Street Railway, and the first street-railway on the Pacific coast, was granted in 1857 to Thomas Hayes. The line was the first horsecar line to open in San Francisco and it opened on July 4, 1860. A few years later, the line was converted to steam power utilizing a steam engine that was part locomotive and part passenger car.

After the 1906 Quake

By the 1906 earthquake it was the United Railroads of San Francisco. After the quake the Fillmore Street line was the first to go back into service.

Inside the substation, photo courtesy of SFMTA

In 1944 all the street lines were absorbed into the Municipal Railway. The Fillmore substation fed power to streetcars in the western half of the city until 1978, when a new substation was built at Sutter and Fillmore and the old one was declared surplus, it was then declared a landmark.

August 4, 1921 Photo courtesy of SF Public Library

The building has been sitting vacant and in bad shape – the ventilation tower collapsed and for a while the back wall was held up with posts. The Redevelopment Agency bought it with plans to convert it into a community center. The plan never got off the drawing table, so the building was sold back to the city. At this point, it continues to sit empty with no foreseeable future.

Handsignals

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2015

Aug 172015

McCoppin Plaza
Market Street and Valencia

Titled Handsignals, this piece sits in a small park made available after the tearing down of the Central Freeway that once bi-sected the area. The McCoppin Hub Project was a joint project between SFMTA, SFAC and SFDPW. For this reason it was impossible for me to garner from the hundreds of meeting minutes that I read, exactly what this piece cost the taxpayers of San Francisco.

Originally proposed by Rebar the final product was created by MoreLab. Handsignals refers to the formal qualities of the numerous theater signs prevalent in the Mission District, and repurposes that vocabulary to “advertise” a new public space.

According to their website: “Handsignals repositions the meaning of the common pedestrian traffic signal by replacing the familiar “red hand” and “walking figure” with custom symbols designed to represent themes deeply imbedded in Mission District culture. The piece playfully explores the relationship between a community and its emblems, identity and its abstractions, the sign and its signifier. Lit both during the day and at night, the modules blink on and off in a slow, irregular pattern, creating new combinations of symbols whose meaning and relationship to the neighborhood will change as the neighborhood continues to evolve”.

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