Category: All of SAN FRANCISCO
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Go Bears
817 Terry Francois Way Mission Rock Resort Dogpatch Old Cal Memorial Stadium Wood * Paul Olson is a versatile and very adaptable artist working in a variety of mediums. Paul has worked as a freelance illustrator for twelve years creating unique artwork as well as adapting styles to work with illustration teams. He has created designs…
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Tile and Bronze Column
580 Bush Street Financial District/Union Square/Chinatown This little hidden gem, done in 1992, is a collaboation of Ruth Asawa, her son Paul Lanier and artist Nancy Thompson. Ruth Asawa has been on this website many times before. I recently found this article by Milton Chen and Ruth Cox at Edutopia that gives a few new details…
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Mid Market Sees Black and White
1125 Market Street Mid Market Area This piece is a collaboration of Cannon Dill and Feral Child. Cannon Dill is from Mill Valley and presently lives in Oakland. Feral Child is a California based artist who has been working in the streets for the past five years. Influenced by folk art, activism, and the geometry within…
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Sumer #24 by Larry Bell
101 Second Street SOMA Financial District Sumer #24 by Larry Bell – Bronze Sumer #24 is a result of the POPOS program and the 1% for Art program of San Francisco. While it is viewable through the windows of the building it is available for viewing up close from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm M-F.…
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Tile Art at Jackson Playground
Jackson Playground 17th and Arkansas Potrero One of three park reservations made by the Van Ness Ordinances of 1855 in working class Potrero Nuevo, the site was originally known as Jackson Square. Undeveloped and virtually ignored for more than 75 years, Jackson Square was made into a playground in the twentieth century. A 1930 map…
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The Bell Telephone Building
140 New Montgomery SOMA South of 5th The building that stands at 140 New Montgomery was built in 1925 for the Pacific Telephone Company, part of the Bell System. It was, at the time, the first significant skyscraper in San Francisco, as well as the city’s first skyscraper in the Moderne style. According to the…
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The Fire Next Time II
Joseph P. Lee Rec Center 1395 Mendell Backside Bayview Fire Next Time II Excerpt from San Francisco Bay Area Murals by Timothy W. Drescher regarding the original mural: Crumpler depicted three aspects of black people’s lives in the United States: education, religion, and culture. The contemporary figures, a teacher and student, athletes and dancers, are…
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The Sentinel a Flat Iron Building that Makes its Mark
916 Geary North Beach The Sentinel Building, also known as Columbus Tower, sits at the corners of Columbus Avenue, Kearny Street and Jackson Street. The building is a classic Beaux-Arts flatiron. Flatiron buildings were structures built primarily between 1880 and 1926. Most flatirons were built in either the Beaux-Arts or Renaissance Revival architectural style that…
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Solar Plumes on a Painted Steel Fence
Sunnyside Playground 200 Melrose Twin Peaks These painted steel panels were commissioned in 2008 for $23,600 by the San Francisco Art Commission to Deborah Kennedy. According to Kennedy’s website the curvilinear patterns cut into water-jet cut stainless steel were abstracted from patterns found in NASA’s TRACE close-up satellite photos of the solar surface. These photos…
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SFGH Healing Garden
1001 Potrero San Francisco General Hospital The artist designed this small garden, in 1993, as an extension to an existing hospital memorial garden and as a place to provide seating sheltered from the wind. A red gravel walkway, edged in white granite city-surplus curbstones, forms a double helix, which is symbolic of life. The seating…
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Open Book at the Library
960 4th Street Mission Bay This piece, by Vince Koloski, is in the Mission Bay Branch Library. The artwork is an illuminated book sculpture with quotes about reading and text from a variety of ancient and contemporary cultures. Vince Koloski was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1953. In 1977 he attended New College in Sarasota, Florida…
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Precita Eyes covers McDonald’s in Paint
2801 Mission Street Mission District This mural, titled Culture of the Crossroads, was done in 1998 by Precita Eyes. It covers the 24th Street side of the McDonalds Restaurant. * * * * * Precita Eyes is a multipurpose community based arts organization that has played an integral role in the city’s cultural heritage and arts education.…
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Globe by Topher Delaney
299 2nd Street Courtyard Marriott Hotel – 1st Floor SOMA – Financial District Globe by Topher Delaney – Bronze This piece is a result of the 1% for Art and POPOS programs in San Francisco. It is available for viewing from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. – However, if you step into the Lobby you…
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The Tanforan Cottages
214-220 Dolores Mission District Not far from Mission Dolores are a pair of homes considered to be the oldest in the Mission District and among some of the oldest in San Francisco: 214 and 220 Dolores Street. The Mission District, originally Mission San Francisco de Asis, was the sixteenth in a chain of twenty missions stretching from San…
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Time to Dream
Joseph P. Lee Rec Center 1395 Mendell Bayview Time to Dream by Amana Johnson The Joseph P. Lee Rec Center, like many in San Francisco is behind a locked gate and only open during very limited hours. I have relied on the artists website for a description of the piece and the photo of the…
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Sutro Heights Park
Point Lobos Avenue Land’s End Copy of the original lion that stood at the Sutro Heights entry gate. (Photo credit: UC Bancroft Library) Adolph Sutro (1830-1898) was one of San Francisco’s most beloved mayors and esteemed citizens. Originally from Prussia, he amassed millions in the Comstock Lode (Nevada Silver Rush of 1859) by designing and…
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Journey through Books and Music
1946 Market Street Castro/Mission The Mural is on the side of 43 Buchannan Titled Joyous Discoveries: A Journey Through Books and Music, this mural, by Keith Hollander won the Public Mural Award of 2001 for the Finest Mural in the SF Bay Area. The mural is now being lost due to construction on this corner.…
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Dos Leones at SFGH
1001 Potrero San Francisco General Hospital So much of the collection paid for by the San Francisco Art Commission is not readily available to the general public. This piece is no exception. On the patio of the 3rd floor of SFGH, the doors were locked, however, you can see the sculpture through the window. Titled…
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The Sunnyside Conservatory
236 Monterey Blvd Sunnyside This octagonal building is called Sunnyside Conservatory. It is named after the San Francisco district in which it is located-an area that began to develop in 1898 when Behrand Joost subdivided his property. Joost’s Sunnyside Land Company even installed a streetcar line so that owners would have access to downtown. During…
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American Bison at SFGH
1001 Potrero San Francisco General Hospital 2nd Floor – Cafeteria Patio Buffalo by Raimondo Puccinelli Raimondo Puccinelli, (1904-1986) born and raised in San Francisco, is known above all for his sculpture which has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. His standing as a sculptor was confirmed early on, firstly by the interest shown…
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The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange
301 Pine Street Financial District 301 Pine Street-one of the historic buildings that comprised our financial system on the West Coast-began its life in 1915 as a sub-treasury building for the United States Treasury. In 1930, when the San Francisco Financial District was fast becoming the Wall Street of the West, the “gentlemen of the…
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Empire Park
600 Block of Commercial Street at Kearny Empire Park Chinatown Empire Park (once called Grabhorn Park) is a POPOS (privately-owned public open space). It is provided and maintained by, The Empire Group, owners of 505 Montgomery Street. The spire perched atop 505 Montgomery is said to be a replica of the Empire State Building, but…
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Ed Carpenter Arches the 6th Floor Terrace at 150 California
150 California Street POPOS on the 6th Floor Terrace Open 9 am to 6 pm Ed Carpenter is an artist specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon, Carpenter…
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Star Maiden a relic of the Pan Pacific Exposition
1 Sansome Street POPOS Open During Business Hours Star Maiden by Stirling Calder (Alexander) Stirling Calder attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in 1885, at the age of 16. Here he studied under Thomas Eakins. He apprenticed as a sculptor the following year, working on his father’s extensive sculpture program for Philadelphia City Hall,…
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The Beach Chalet
Designed by architect Willis Polk, the Beach Chalet has served as a gathering spot on Ocean Beach for most of its life. With its hipped roof and hand-made roof tiles, this Spanish Revival building survived a takeover by the US Army, the raucous residence of a biker bar and 15 years of abandonment. Today it houses two…
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Carnaval on 24th
3195 24th Street The Mission This badly faded mural is titled Carnaval and was done in 1983. The artist was Daniel Galves with help from Dan Fontes, James Morgan, Jay Shield and Keith Sklar. Daniel Galvez is an Oakland-based muralist. He studied at the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (BFA in painting in…
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A Start to the Blue Greenway Art Trail
Arelious Walker and Innis Street originally at Cargo at Third Street Bayview/Hunters Point This piece is titled Red Fish by William Wareham. Wareham has several pieces around San Francisco. The piece was installed as part of San Francisco’s Blue Greenway project. The Blue Greenway is the City of…
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Zio Ziegler Paints the Mission
Bartlett and 24th Mission and Sycamore * * Zio Ziegler has several murals around San Francisco. According to his website: For me painting is balance. Within this balance there is consciousness, instinct and distraction. My work is a constant fusion of all three. Torn between the classical and the contemporary in my inspirations, but constantly…
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The Movie Palaces of Mission Street
The Mission District Before Netflix, streaming videos and television, most people got their entertainment at a vaudeville/movie theater. These “palaces” were places to see and be seen. The Mission district was the home to at least five theaters whose marquees still can be seen amongst the graffiti and signage that marks the street. Of these…