Geary and Leavenworth The Tenderloin This phenomenal peacock is by Satyr-1, who has been in this website many times. Satyr-1 is a professional artist who has long since left the ideas of “tagging” behind for commissioned projects in defined spaces with the support of building owners. His work made a difficult transition, but it mirrors the challenges faced by many other artists in todays street art culture. *
Golden Gate Park Near the Sharon Art Center This memorial to Sarah B. Cooper was placed in the park by the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association in 1923. This area sits on the other side of the carousel from the Koret Childrens Playground. Sarah Cooper was instrumental in the Kindergarten Movement of San Francisco. Here, from John Sweet in Public Education In California, Its Origin and Development, With Personal Reminiscences of Half a Century. American Book Company: 1911. Excerpts, Chapter XIII, pages 224-226. Mrs. Cooper entered on the free kindergarten work with her whole soul. She was a woman of marked literary Continue Reading
Koret Playground Golden Gate Park There are five of these cast stone creatures in the new Koret Childrens Area of Golden Gate Park. They are the second public art project that Vicki Saulls did in San Francisco. The first you can view here. The playground underwent a major renovation with generous funding from the Koret Foundation and reopened in 2007 as the Koret Children’s Quarter. New features include a climbing wall shaped like waves and a rope climbing structure; the historic concrete slide was retained. The landscape Architect on the project was MIG. * * * These pieces were commissioned Continue Reading
Civic Center San Francisco City Hall These telamones by Henri Crenier have always taken my breath away. They sit on the Van Ness side of City Hall. Telamones (plural) or Telamon are sculptured male human figures used in place of columns to support an entablature. They are also called Atlantes (plural) or Atlas. They are called Caryatids if they are female figures. * Henri Crenier was responsible for much of the art work on City Hall.
City Hall San Francisco Civic Center San Francisco’s City Hall has an art collection of its own within its walls. This is about the art work that graces the building. City Hall was the cornerstone to the City Beautiful Movement in San Francisco. On City Hall there are two tympanums each holding a sculpture by Henri Crenier. A tympanum is the triangular space enclosed by a pediment or arch. The tympanum that faces the War Memorial Building on Van Ness features a figure representing Wisdom. Wisdom stands between the figures of Arts, Learning and Truth on the left and Industry Continue Reading
2266 California Pacific Heights Sherith Israel Synagogue “Loyal Remnant of Israel” On a whim, a photographer friend of mine, Lisa, suggested we stop in and take a look at the Sherith Israel Synagogue. She has been documenting its amazing details for posterity, and I had never been inside. What an incredible adventure and I am truly grateful to have been introduced to this architectural and artistic gem that holds so much San Francisco history. Sherith Israel was designed by Albert Pissis. Pissis (1842-1914) was the son of a French physician who immigrated first to Mexico and then to San Francisco Continue Reading
6th and Natoma SOMA Live Life Love is by Laser Punch and the Rattlecan Blasters, who have been on this website before. Laserpunch and the Rattlecan Blasters consists of 2 graffiti artists, Camer1 from San Francisco, CA and Fasm from Modesto, CA. The Duo teams up frequently to paint church youth rooms and do art shows. The mural is covered in sayings such as: Love is Kind Love is Patient It does not Boast Love does not Envy Love rejoices in the truth, it always protects Love always perseveres
Golden Gate Park Music Concourse This lion sits outside of the new DeYoung Museum near the Pool of Enchantment. It is by Roland Hinton Perry. Created in 1898 it was given to the City of San Francisco in 1906 by San Francisco jeweler Shreve and Company. The sculpture survived a fire in Shreve’s showroom caused by the ’06 earthquake. The red stone the sculpture sits on was donated by John D. McGilvray. John D. McGilvray Jr. and Sr. worked in the stone and masonry contracting business in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto, California. ( McGilvray-Raymond Granite Company) Together they Continue Reading
San Francisco Mining Exchange 350 Bush Street Financial District The San Francisco Mining Exchange, the second oldest exchange in the United States after the New York Stock Exchange, was formed in 1862 to trade mining stocks. It is San Francisco Landmark #113. When trading in mining stocks surged in the early 1920s, the Mining Exchange hired the firm Miller & Pflueger, whose work can be found all over San Francisco, to design this Beaux Arts building. 350 Bush is an adaptation of the classical temple form much favored by financial institutions in the period, the building’s pediment and four pairs of fluted columns recall the Continue Reading
Originally the Title Insurance Company Building 130 Montgomery Financial District This lovely Art Deco building was built in 1930 by the O’Brien Brothers along with Wilbur D. Peugh. O’Brien Brothers consisted of Walter J., Albert L. and Arthur T. O’Brien, and practiced in San Francisco from 1907 through 1935. They were architects with the Pickwick Corporation. In 1925, after the deaths of his brothers, Walter J. O’Brien began working with Wilbur D. Peugh; the firm ultimately became known as “O’Brien Brothers and Wilbur D. Peugh.” Wilbur D. Peugh was born January 9, 1897 in Kelseyville, California. He attended High School Continue Reading
55 Stockton Street Union Square / Market Street This building, designed by Heller Manus Architects in 1989 stands at a very busy corner one block off of Union Square. If you look closely you can see 14 figures drumming or holding spheres. * According to the Smithsonian Institute, these figures were done by Tom Otterness. Mr. Otterness has a difficult history with the City of San Francisco. In 1977, at the age of 25 Otterness bought a shelter dog, tied it to a fence and shot it on camera. He displayed the footage in an art exhibit in a constant Continue Reading
2920 23rd Avenue Merced Manor / Sunset District This classical building is the Central Pump Station. Designed by Willis Polk and built in 1936, it sits atop the asphalt capped Merced Manor Reservoir which holds 9.5 million gallons of water to supply the city of San Francisco. The building has been attributed to N. A. Eckart by some, but he was the General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Water department. The City and County of San Francisco through the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, owns and operates a regional water system that serves 2.4 million people, primarily in San Continue Reading
Insurance Exchange Building 433 California Street Financial District Turning 100 years old this year, the Insurance Exchange was designed by Willis Polk. This highly ornamented building is complimented by its sister building the Merchant’s Exchange next door. The highly decorated exterior of the building, flanked with majestic Corinthian columns and topped with a very detailed cornice simply commands attention. The ornamentation is derived from Renaissance/Baroque sources. The building exemplifies the City Beautiful Movement in its simultaneous success as urban architecture, achieved through form and composition, and as an individual building, achieved in the quality of its details. Insurance Exchange Cornice Continue Reading
St. Francis of Assisi Church 624 Vallejo Street North Beach This was the first parish church in San Francisco after Mission Dolores. The cornerstone of the present building was laid in December, 1857, and the church was dedicated in 1860. This twin towered Victorian Gothic Revival church, in the heart of North Beach, was gutted by the fire of 1906. It was rebuilt in 1913. The walls and the two towers survived the fire, so the church we see today is almost identical to the original that was built in the 1850’s. The original architect was Charles J. Devlin. The Thomas Continue Reading
Larsen Park 19th Avenue at Ulloa Sunset District This plaque can be found on the corner of 19th Avenue and Ulloa. The plaque was done by M. Earl Cummings in 1913 of Carl G. Larsen. Cummings has appeared prominently in this website for the many sculptures he has done around town. “In the late 1800s, many speculators began buying land in the Sunset District. By the early twentieth century, landowners in the area included Michael deYoung, Fernando Nelson, and Adolph Sutro. But one of the largest land owners, Carl Larsen, also had other ties to the district. Larsen did not live in the Sunset District, but Continue Reading
San Francisco Zoo Outer Sunset Tiger II by Gwynn Murrill Gwynn Murrill has always worked with animals as her subject matter. She captures the beauty of her subjects and their particular postures with astonishing authority. Stripped of surface detail and complexity, the subject is reduced to the essence of its being and the sculptures are almost abstract in their contemplation of pure form. Her creatures roam amongst us, inviting interaction, yet remain intent on their own purposes, directed by their own passions, their inner life inaccessible to us. Gwynn was born June 15, 1942 in Ann Arbor, Michigan she holds Continue Reading
Leavenworth and Turk The Tenderloin This mural is titled Any Man’s Land and is by Sand One. The name seems especially appropriate to me as there was a crack deal going on as I was taking this photo. The street corner really is Any man’s land. According to Sand One’s Facebook page, she is a Street artist based out of Los Angeles California,influenced by the L.A chicano culture Sand characters come with lots of attitude flavor and funk! This is straight from a great interview she did with the LAist: At 19 years old, Sand One has put her art Continue Reading
The Great Highway at Pacheco Outer Sunset Fossil by Mary Chomenko Hinckley – 1989 A cast bronze medallion inset into the sidewalk depicts the history of the Ocean Beach and incorporates elements discovered or retrieved from the neighborhood into the design. According to Mary’s website: Her work seeks to illuminate the hidden relationships between found objects. Darwin discovered order in nature’s chaos, Surrealists sought the same; trying to distill sense in nature. The juxtaposition of images and objects from disparate locales generates new insights into the interrelationships between nature and civilization. Found objects, bits and bytes from Silicon Valley junk bins, building blocks Continue Reading
Masonic Temple 25 Van Ness Civic Center Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville were the architects of this, the second Masonic Lodge in San Francisco. The first lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and burned down in the 1906 fire. In 1911 the Masonic Temple Association, headed by William Crocker, laid a 12—ton cornerstone (the largest ever in California at that time) for their new building. Two years later a grand parade of 8,000 Masons, with Knights Templar on horseback, marked its dedication. Cornerstone An outstanding example of the Beaux-Arts period, the temple is primarily Italian Gothic in Continue Reading
Argonne Park 18th Avenue between Geary and Anza Inner Richmond * Artist Joyce Hsu combines her personal memories of summer adventures with a complex skeletal structure similar to an airplane to create two unique artworks for Argonne Playground. These two sculptures, Firefly and Dragonfly each grace one of the two entrances to the park. Hsu explains that the title, “Incomplete Metamorphosis” is a scientific term describing a particular type of life cycle of insects. Hsu has adopted the term, but not its specific meaning. She has created her own meaning, seeing in the term a way to describe her insect Continue Reading
The Tulip at Embarcadero Center Four Concrete began as a structural component of architecture. A mixture of cement, aggregate and water, concrete has been used as a building material for over a millennia. It was only in the 1920s, however, that technical innovation allowed for precast concrete to become an acceptable substitute for stone in architectural ornamentation. Moreover, by the late 1950s, precast concrete was a direct competitor with metal-and-glass curtain wall systems. Architectural precast concrete is a broad term for concrete that is colored, shaped, finished or textured for architectural effect. Its appearance can be altered through techniques such Continue Reading
CCSF Ocean View Campus 50 Phelan Sunnyside * According to CCSF’s website “Archibald Cloud, the Chief Deputy Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, began in 1930 to vigorously articulate a long held educational dream: that the “premier” county in the State—San Francisco—must have the same educational “jewel” as did 38 of the State’s 58 counties. That is, it must have a junior college! Cloud hired world prominent architect, Timothy Pflueger. The two rapidly moved ahead with the design and the construction of the gymnasiums as well as Science Hall, a building they were determined to make into “a showplace Continue Reading
Site of the future Mexican Museum 706 Mission District Museum Row SOMA This is titled Exploring New Territory and is by Henry Lipkis. This wall is the edge of the construction site for the forthcoming Mexican Museum, so the piece will be temporary. This is from Henry’s blog: “Back in October I painted my first big public mural in San Francisco. It started back in July when I applied to do an interactive mural as a performance piece for Yerba Buena Night, a cultural art happening in Jessie Square. At first I was going to get a big roll of Continue Reading
566 Bush Street Union Square/Chinatown There are a handful of buildings in San Francisco that turn 100 this year. This will be the beginning of my covering those buildings over the next few weeks. Notre Dame des Victoires is one of the names for the Virgin Mary. This statue of Jesus’ mother is in front of the French church, Notre Dame des Victoires. The French priest, Père Langlois journeyed to Oregon in 1842 with French Canadian trappers under the auspices of the Hudson Bay Company. He arrived in San Francisco in 1848. On July 19 of that year, he celebrated Continue Reading
San Francisco General Hospital Potrero Hill Fish Tale by Hilda Shum was done in 1995. A stainless steel sculpture of an abstract fish tail rises from a mosaic “pool” of green and blue tiles. The fish is a symbol of transformation in many cultures and, as such, has special significance for this facility, which is the Skilled Mental Health Nursing Facility at San Francisco General Hospital. Shum is a Canadian artist born in 1957. The Sculpture is Stainless Steel and Mosaic. It is owned by the San Francisco Art Commission. **
San Francisco General Hospital Potrero Hill Dance of the Cubes is by Jacques Schnier. It is made of plastic and fiberglass and was done in 1975. Jacques Schnier taught at Berkeley for 30 years. First appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Architecture, he retired as Professor of Art, Emeritus, in 1966. Jacques was a prolific sculptor whose work was widely exhibited and given critical recognition throughout his career. Major University recognition of Jacques’ achievements came in the form of appointment to the Institute of Creative Arts in 1963 and the awarding of the Berkeley Citation in 1970. Born Continue Reading
475 Sacramento Street Financial District De Staebler has appeared on this website before. Stephen De Staebler, a sculptor whose fractured, dislocated human figures gave a modern voice and a sense of mystery to traditional realist forms, died on May 13 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 78. This bronze sculpture is an abstract figure of a human torso with an arm partially raised. The arm is incomplete. The sculpture was purchased for the Embarcadero Art in Public Places project.
353 Sansome Street The Financial District L’Octagon by Pol Bury – Marble and Steel L’Octagon is a result of the 1% for Art program in San Francisco. It is available for viewing between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. M-F This lovely sculpture actually moves. The balls slightly fill with water on the bottom and roll approximately 90 degrees, once the water drains they roll back to their upright position. Pol Bury was born on April 26, 1922 in Haine-Saint-Pierre, Belgium. In 1939 he met the poets Achille Chavée and Andre Lorent and joined their Groupe de recherches surréalistes (Surrealist Continue Reading
50 Scott Castro This saying is over the back entry way to the Harvey Milk Recreation Center. It is in Architectural foam and is by Michael Davis and Susan Schwartzenberg. This phrase comes from “A City of Neighborhoods,” speech Harvey Milk delivered during his inaugural dinner after his election to the Board of Supervisors in 1977. “Let’s make no mistake about this: the American dream starts with the neighborhoods, If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. and to do that we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard Continue Reading
235 Pine Street Financial District Called to Rise features individuals who have contributed significantly to the history of San Francisco. The figures include, Juan Bautista De Anza, Eadweard Muybridge, Makato Hagiwara, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Chingwah Lee, Ishi, Alfred Louis Kroeber, Philip Burton, Amadeo Peter Giannini, Benjamin Franklin Norris, Timothy Pflueger, Douglas Tilden, Kurt Herbert Adler, Mary Ann Magnin, Harry Bridges, Robert Dollar, John C. Young, Howard Thurman, John Swett, Charlotte Amanda Blake Brown, Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessey. Done in 1990 the sculptor was Thomas Marsh who has another piece here in San Francisco. This bronze is part of the San Francisco Continue Reading