Category: All of SAN FRANCISCO
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Bret Harte at the Bohemian Club
624 Taylor Street Nob Hill The artist, Jo Mora, created and donated the sculpture to the Bohemian Club of which he and Bret Harte were members. In 1933, when the old Bohemian Club was torn down, the memorial was removed and reinstalled on the new club in 1934, Francis Bret Harte (August 25, 1836 – May 6, 1902) was an American…
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The Bridge between North Beach and Chinatown
Grant Avenue and Jack Kerouac Alley Chinatown/North Beach This community mural is on the corner of Jack Kerouac Alley and Grant Street. Titled The Bridge, the lead painter was Robert Minervini along with over a dozen local youth from Chinatown. It was sponsored by the Chinatown Community Development Center and the Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project…
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California Masonic Memorial Temple
1111 California Street Nob Hill Designed by Albert Roller (April 20, 1891 – July 12, 1981) the California Masonic Memorial Temple was dedicated on Sept. 29, 1958. An icon of mid-century modernist architecture, the structure is located at the top of Nob Hill across the street from Grace Cathedral. It is a testament to simple lines,…
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Association for the Blind Condo Conversion
1097 Howard Street South of Market In 1902, Mrs. Josephine Rowan, whose brother was blind, organized a group of women to establish The Reading Room for the Blind in the basement of the San Francisco Public Library, with the intent of helping blind and visually impaired individuals access printed material. And thus, the LightHouse was…
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U.S. Custom House Sculpture
555 Battery Street Financial District U.S. Customs House Most of the granite sculptures on the U.S. Custom house were done in-situ by unknown artists. The roof top sculpture, however, was done by Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper (April 8, 1875 – 1937) was an American sculptor. Born in Glenwood, Iowa, and based in Denver, Colorado, Cooper studied under Preston…
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The Hayward/Kohl Building
400 Montgomery Street Financial District The Hayward/Kohl Building was designed by Percy & Polk (George Percy and Willis Polk both of whom have been written about on this site many times before) for Alvinza Hayward. Hayward made his fortune from the Eureka Gold Mine in California and the Comstock Silver Mine in Nevada as well as investments in timber, coal,…
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Richard L. Perri and the Giant Pill
7th and Market Street SOMA/Mid Market The Odd Fellows Temple (you can read my post about the IOOF building here) is getting a CVS on the ground floor. Artist Richard L. Perri has brightened up the construction zone with a really fun mural. Richard L. Perri has a studio in the Odd Fellows Building. Born in Rockville…
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Historic Old Clock
400 Parnassus UCSF Medical Center Inner Sunset * Carried by ship around Cape Horn, this Seth Thomas Clock was installed on the medical school of the affiliated colleges in 1897. Surviving the 1906 earthquake, it served the university and community for 70 years. Members of the UCSF family have made possible its restoration as a campus landmark. February 20, 1982 Seth Thomas…
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Hippocrates
400 Parnassus UCSF Medical Center Inner Sunset Hippocrates by Costos Georgakas A sign on the base of the statue reads: Provided through the great generosity of Mr. and Mrs. John Nicholas Pappas. Mr Pappas, A Greek emigrant from Kiparisi, Lakonia, Greece, and his wife, Jennie Pappas, donate this statue in appreciation of San Francisco the home…
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Knights Templar Building
2135 Sutter Street Western Addition This steel reinforced building with brick exterior walls trimmed in lots of terra cotta was designed by Matthew O’Brien and Carl Werner in the architectural style known as the Jacobean Phase of Medieval Revival. It was built in 1905 and 1906-1907. The building has been home to two institutions, the Knights…
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William Tecumseh Sherman and the Bank of Lucas, Turner
800-804 Montgomery Street Jackson Square The Bank of Lucas, Turner and Company was designed in the Italianate style typical of early San Francisco. The classical façade faces Montgomery Street, the main business street at the time. The ground floor is built from well cut and fitted granite blocks. The granite is not from California,…
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Elegant Stag Poses at Lands End Lookout
Lands End Lookout GGNRA 680 Point Lobos This stag sits in a small seating area at the front entrance to the new Lands End Lookout building. This is a copy of a statue that originally sat in the park across the street, Sutro Heights Park. The two lions that grace the entry to the park,…
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Farm Girl by Aryz
Polk and Eddy The Tenderloin This five-story farm girl — and her bushel of apples looks over the corner of Eddy and Polk. Aryz deliberately used muted colors, especially flesh tones, to paint the lady onto this beige building. *** “I feel it’s really aggressive when you paint in a public space, so I don’t…
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Regardless of History
400 Parnassus UCSF Medical Center Inner Sunset Regardless of History by Bill Woodrow Bill Woodrow (1948) was one of a number of British sculptors to emerge in the late 1970s onto the international contemporary art scene. Woodrow’s early work was made from materials found in dumps, used car lots and scrap yards, partially embedded in…
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Huru by di Suvero
Crissy Field Huru 1984-1985 Steel “Huru”, at 55 feet, is the tallest sculpture in the exhibit. A simple tripod base supports a six-ton upper section made of two long pointing pieces, like open scissors that move in the wind. Some read them as welcoming arms; to me they looked like futuristic machine guns, or…
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Old Buddy #6 of 8
Crissy Field Old Buddy (For Rosko) 1993-1995 “Old Buddy (For Rosko)” (1993-95), a tribute to the artist’s dog, could be read as an abstract animal. A rear upright section on two legs (which might have a tail) is joined to a front upright section on three legs (which might have a circular face and upward-pointing…
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Mother Peace #5 of 8
Crissy Field Mother Peace – 42 feet tall, painted Steel 1969-1970 Mother Peace was originally installed near an entrance to the Alameda County courthouse in Oakland, but a judge, so offended by the peace sign that di Suvero had painted on one of the I-beams, transformed himself into an art judge and insisted on its…
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Figulo #4 of 8
Crissy Field Figulo (2005-11) 47′ × 55′ painted steel, steel buoys – collection of the artist From the Brooklyn Rail when this piece was exhibited at Governor’s Island: From afar, it looks to be a drafting compass fit for the gods. Its red extension beams ignite in the afternoon sunlight. At close range, the dimensions shift perceptually. The sculpture’s…
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Will by di Suvero #3 of 8
Crissy Field Will, 1994- steel- Doris and Donald Fisher Collection This exhibit on Crissy Field coincides with di Suvero’s 80th birthday, the exhibition holds particular significance for the artist, who immigrated to San Francisco from Shanghai at the age of seven. His passage beneath the Golden Gate Bridge—which opened a few years before his arrival—proved…
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Magma by Mark di Suvero #2 of 8
Crissy Field “Magma” (2008-12), steel sculpture by Mark di Suvero, measures 25 feet tall by 48 feet wide. Leant by the artist, this piece is on public view for the first time. Magma appears as a giant sawhorse in which a 48-foot I-beam is supported between two of the artist’s traditional, uneven tripods. It is…
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Tromp l’oeil by John Wullbrandt is gone
Turk and Hyde The Tenderloin This tromp l’oeil was done by John Wullbrandt in 1983. John is a Carpenteria, California – Hawaii based painter responsible for creating much of the artwork on the Island of Lana’i, Hawaii. He founded the Lana’i Art Program in 1989, where he engaged local talent to embellish the award-winning Lodge at…
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Fletcher Benton at Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Civic Center Titled, Balanced Unbalanced T, this Steel and Flat Black Enamel piece sits on the exterior second floor of Davies Symphony Hall, it is accessible at all times via a staircase that can be accessed off of Grove Street. The piece, done in 1981, is by Fletcher Benton, who has been…
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Leo Lentelli and his San Francisco Work
Hunter Dunlin Building 111 Sutter Street Financial District The Hunter Dunlin Building is one of San Francisco’s gems. Restored in the late 1990’s to its former glory, it has ornamentation throughout its lobby and everywhere you look on the exterior. There are six plaques on the Northern and Eastern facades called The Seasons. They are…
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The City in Bronze
275 Sacramento Street Financial District These three whimsical buildings, titled The City, are by Alexander MacLeitch. They are bronze and were installed in 2009 by the owners of the Patson Building at 275 Sacramento Street. This is part of the percent for Art Program in San Francisco. According to MacLeitch’s website: I create art using…
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Fort Gunnybags
Sacramento and Front Streets Financial District The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco. It was one of the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West. *** From Found SF May…
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Pennsylvania Comes to San Francisco
600 California Street Chinatown These two bronze plaques were originally the doors to a hand operated elevator. The doors, designed by Lee O. Lawrie in 1930-1931 were in the Education Building of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Capitol Park in Harrisburg. The sculpture was one of six sets of elevator doors that the artist originally fabricated.…
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Spring Valley Water Company
425 Mason Street Lower Nob Hill/Tenderloin This unassuming and yet intriguing little building has been sitting in my computer waiting to be written about since March of 2012. My late husband, the architectural sculptor Michael H. Casey had driven me by to show me the wonderful detailed sculpture that covered the first floor. I was…