Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 15, 2012
Jun 152012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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This pair of canvas’ are also in the elevator alcove.  The depict the farmlands of the Santa Clara Valley and the hills of the East Bay.
The artists was Rinaldo Cuneo. (1877-1939).  Cuneo was a native San Franciscan from North Beach where he maintained a studio.  He was educated at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute as well as in Paris and London.  He taught at the California School of Fine Arts and was a prolific painter.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 14, 2012
Jun 142012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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This is the second of the murals in the elevator alcove, It is titled San Francisco Bay, North and is by Jose Moya Del Pino (1869-1969). The two young men represent Moya del Pino himself watching as fellow artist Otis Oldfield sketches what he sees below him. If one looks closely you can see the former prison on the island of Alcatraz. This too is oil on canvas.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 13, 2012
Jun 132012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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In the alcove, where visitors wait for the elevator are four more murals. This one is titled San Francisco Bay. This is an oil on canvas, and was painted in the artists studio. The two little girls are the artists, Otis Oldfield’s, daughters, Rhoda and Jayne. as they look down on the waterfront from their father’s Telegraph Hill studio. The larger island they are peering at is Yerba Buena Island. That is the island that the present day San Francisco Bay Bridge goes through. Treasure Island, which would have been attached on the left hand side of Yerba Buena, had not yet been built. Treasure Island was built (from fill dredged from the bay) for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939-1940.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 12, 2012
Jun 122012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
News Gathering by Suzanne Scheuer
Scheuer worked with assistant Heve Daum on news gathering for her panel in Coit Tower.
Suzanne Scheuer was born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898. She moved to San Francisco in 1918. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts and the California College of Arts and Crafts. She then taught for three years in the public schools of Los Banos and Salinas. In 1940 she joined the art faculty at the College of the Pacific in Stockton and taught there for ten years. She then moved to Santa Cruz, California where she designed and built six houses, doing much of the physical and artistic work herself while continuing to paint and sculpt. Scheuer died in Santa Cruz on December 20, 1984.  Other work of hers can be found in the Berkeley, California Post Office as well as two Texas Post Offices.
Sheuer’s window ledge San Francisco Chronicle front page announced the end of the art project in April, though some artists continued to add finishing details until June.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 11, 2012
Jun 112012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
The Library by Bernard B. Zakheim

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 10, 2012
Jun 102012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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Stockbroker and Scientist by Mallete (Harold) Dean
Their are six figures that stand alone in the Tower. (You can review the first four here).  The stockbroker/banker is thought to be A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy that later became Bank of America.  The Scientist is Nobel Prize winner, Albert Abraham Michelson.  He holds an interferometer and a scroll and stands near a picture of the James Lick Observatory which is on Mount Hamilton in San Jose, California.  Notice how the door of the observatory is a light switch.
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Mallete Dean was one of the more prolific painters of government sponsored murals in Northern California.  Born in Washington in 1907,  he studied at the California School of Fine Arts.  He was a furniture designer, decorator of books and graphic artist, for many years he created labels for the California wine industry.  Other works include the orchard scene in the Sebastapol, California Post Office.  He died in San Francisco in 1975.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 9, 2012
Jun 092012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
The Meat Industry by Raymond Bertrand
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Notice the clever use of the window
Raymond Bertrand (1901-1986) was a native San Franciscan.  He studied at the California School of Fine Arts where he later taught Lithography. Bertrand was primarily a landscape panter, a critic once commented that Bertrand used “freezing blues, whites and greys” in his oil in a “small but icy collection of arctic landscapes”.  His name is used as the “author” of the book titled Rape, Mayhem and Vagrancy in the law library scene at Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 8, 2012
Jun 082012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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Industries of California by Ralph Stackpole
This is a vast expression of the industries of California at the time.  Stackpole painted several fellow artists in this mural as well.  Tom Lehman, a local artist, pours chemicals into a container while William Hesthal bends over a table, notebook in hand.  Helen Clement Mills is one of the women working on an assembly line.
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Ralph Ward Stackpole (1885-1973) Stackpole grew up in Oregon.  He worked with scepter Arthur Putnam and painter Gottardo Piazzoni and the went to Paris to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts.  Some of Stackpoles work in San Francisco include a few bronze heads in City Hall, to large granite sculptures outside of the Stock Exchange, frescoes at George Washington High School and The Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 7, 2012
Jun 072012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
Department Store by Frede Vidar
This mural depicts the interior of a typical 1930’s department store with soda fountain and wine shop.  Some items of interest are the fact that the waitress wears a cap with a Star of Dave, (which is surprising as Frede Vidar frequently expressed pro-Nazi sympathies and even scratched a swastika on a windowpane when he worked on the project)  and the fact that one of the clerks is holding a box with the SS logo on it.  Notice the Bing Crosby music in the background as well as Roman Scandals by Irving Berlin.  And yes, all of the bottles of wine are of local California vintages.
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Frede Vidar (1911-1967) was born in Denmark and moved with his parents to San Francisco while in High School.  He graduated from the High School of Commerce and later attended the School of Fine Arts.  He studied with Matisse in Paris in the 1930s.   From 1950 until his death in 1967 he was Professor of Art at the University of Michigan.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 6, 2012
Jun 062012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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Cowboy and Farmer by Clifford Wight
These are four of six single standing figures in the collection.  They represent the very essence of California. The Will Rogers Style cowboy (that many friends of Wight said was a self portrait) and the farmer, that looks an awful lot like artist Ralph Stackpole.
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These two are Surveyor and Ironworker. There are three windows between these two figures. Over the central window Wight painted a bridge, which had the NRA Eagle in the center. Over the right hand window he stretched a segment of chain, and in the circle appeared the words In God We Trust, then over the last window he placed a section of woven cable and a circle framing a hammer and sickle, and the words United Workers of the World. This all proved to be entirely too controversial and it was removed before the tower opened in 1934.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 5, 2012
Jun 052012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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City Life by Victor Arnautoff is one of the largest murals in Coit Tower.  It is a wonderfully vibrant street scene taking artistic license with the various city landmarks and their geographic positions.
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Some things of note, the fire engine is Number 5, which was Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s beloved Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Department.  Newspapers that include New Masses, Daily Worker, Time, Argonaut and Screenplay, with Mae West on the front.  The San Francisco Chronicle is noticeably absent, causing quite a stir at the time in the local press.  The artist is in the mural, near the newspaper stand wearing a fur-collared coat.  Charlie Chaplin sits in the center of a sign announcing his new movie City Lights.  The “Auto Ferry to Oakland” is interesting in that the Bay Bridge would be built just a few years later in 1936.
Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (1896-1979) came to San Francisco via Mexico where he too worked as an assistant to Diego Rivera.  He attended the California School of Fine Arts, studying with Ralph Stackpole, fellow artist.  He returned to his native Russia in the 1960s.  Other works of his include frescoes in the Military Chapel at the Presidio and three lunettes in the Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute.  He taught in the art department of Stanford University.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 4, 2012
Jun 042012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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California Industrial Scenes by John Langley Howard
This mural gives us several juxtaposed scenes indicative of any society, but especially poignant during such difficult times.
There are the solemn workers of the May Day demonstration, a woman doing laundry on the rocks, and an elderly woman sawing logs by hand, while the great symbols of hydroelectric power are there in her sight. There is a migrant family with their broken down Model-T next to a group of observers with chauffeur and furs.  Notice the hobo on the train trestle, and the worker leaning on the culvert with newspapers around him that read “Relief Rolls Reach New All Time Peak” “I’m A Tough Guy, Franklin Roosevelt warns Congress” and “I learned a lot from the barracudas and the sharks, Roosevelt tells crowd at Station”.
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John Langley Howard (1902-1999) was the son of John Galen Howard, prominent architect, and brother Robert Howard, sculptor.  He attended the University of California and the California School of Arts and Crafts as well as the Art Student’s League of New York.  This is his only mural although he continued to paint, especially for sports magazines, depicting tools and machines in meticulous detail.

 

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 3, 2012
Jun 032012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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The California Agriculture Industry by Gordon Langdon
The dairy business is represented in this mural as well as several of the artists friends.  Gordon Langdon was assisted by Helen Clement Mills on this mural.

Fellow artist Fred Olmsted and his assistant Tom Hayes

Fellow artist John Langley Howard holding a pitchfork

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Fellow artist Lucien Labaudt showering a cow

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

 Posted by on June 2, 2012
Jun 022012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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This mural is titled California and is by Maxine Albro.  A wonderful depiction of the bounty of the California agricultural industry from Mt. Shasta Almond Orchards to Napa Valley grapes.
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The “gentlemen farmers” are actually the artists friends.  Ralph Stackpole is in the checkered shirt and Albro’s husband, and fellow artist Parker Hall is by the tray of apricots.  The NRA (National Recovery Act)  eagle is found on the ends of the lugs of oranges.  The NRA was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt  in 1933. The goal was to eliminate “cut-throat competition” by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of “fair practices” and set prices.
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Maxine Albro was an Iowan who studied at the California School of Fine Arts.  During the 1920s she studied in Paris and then in Mexico with Diego Rivera.  Like Rivera, Albro was no stranger to controversy. A work of four nudes that she painted at the Ebell Women’s Club in Los Angeles, titled “Portly Roman Sybils,” offended some of the organization’s members. The club rescinded approval of her frescoes, and destroyed the wall on which it was painted in 1935. Also destroyed (due to remodeling) was her mosaic of animals over the entrance to Anderson Hall at the University of California Extension in San Francisco.  In 1938,  after getting married, Albro and Hall moved to Carmel, California. During the 1940s they traveled throughout Mexico. As a result, most of her work consisted of Mexican subject matter, which she was best known for. She died on July 19, 1966 in Los Angeles.

 

Chinatown Mural

 Posted by on April 30, 2012
Apr 302012
 
Chinatown
Grant and Sacramento

This mural is by Twick of ICP Crew who had a mural in SOMA that has since been painted over and another one around a Banksy in Chinatown.

According to his Facebook page:  “Twick” is a SF Hip Hop urban legend with many ranks like a general. He is one of the most respected figures shaping the Bay Area graffiti movement from the 80’s to present day. At the age of twelve Francisco (his real name) was inspired by the Chicano writing that decorated the walls of the Mission and his neighborhood. During this time he was introduced to his passion graffiti art. He is a self-taught artist who has been painting the art ever since it arrived in the Bay Area in the early 80’s. With 26 years of experience he uses Graffiti art as a positive tool. With his enduring passion evident through his everyday endeavors, Twick helps to break graffiti’s negative perception by transforming it to be looked upon as imaginative and inspirational works of contemporary art. He is a pioneer of hope and optimism painting murals with powerful images and full of culture. With the Mission and SOMA district walls as his canvas and his efforts to empower the local youth, Twick is dedicated to giving back to the community that raised him. In 2004 Precita Eyes gave him the opportunity to teach a graffiti mural class, Honored and inspired has been teaching youth workshops ever since.

 

The Haight – Listen to this wall.

 Posted by on April 11, 2012
Apr 112012
 
Haight and Schrader
On the wall of 540 Schrader

According to the Listen to This Wall website – “Listen to This Wall is an initiative to bring a creative antidote to the ever increasing visual noise that crowds our urban landscape. Working with artists and designers to produce original works that offer new ways of seeing and being inspired in our city spaces.

The first of our walls is located in the historic district of Haight Ashbury in San Francisco and will feature a rotating selection of creative work.

Thank you to the building owner for donating this wall to the cause.”

 

The Haight in Murals

 Posted by on April 9, 2012
Apr 092012
 
RAI Care Center
Haight and Schrader

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This mural in the Haight Asbury district was dedicated to the rich history of the Haight Ashbury. It focuses on the elements born from the Summer of Love, and the movement sparked in 1967 towards a more peaceful society. It is located on the corner of Haight and Shrader, just half a block from the epicenter of the Summer of Love and where shows were played in the park.

The wall was rendered as 4 large psychedelic posters, the 3 to the right pay homage to the 3 big elements of the time: Peace, Poster Art, and Music. Each poster design gave nods at original 70’s posters, adorned with the lettering styles reminiscent of Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse. Just like back then, aesthetics were mixed, like photorealism, cartooning, illustration and a heaping spoonful of aerosol techniques.

The poster on the left are the signatures of the painters, integrated in a psychedelic poster art background. It is a way to tie the mural in with more personal roots of the artists, and showcase the legacy of illegible lettering styles.

The work was done by Lost, Satyr and Wes Wong of Fresh Paint.  This crew is responsible a great dragon mural in Chinatown.

 

The Tenderloin – Pieces of San Francisco

 Posted by on February 12, 2012
Feb 122012
 
The Tenderloin
569 Ellis Street

Pieces of San Francisco Mural Project – 2008 -Created by youth from Glide Memorial, Youth With a Mission, Golden Gate YMCA and Hamilton Family Center in collaboration with Amnesty International.

This mural is in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, on the street side of the organization of “Youth with a Mission” on Ellis Street. This area in San Francisco is notorious for its problems with drugs sales and a as center for homelessness in the city. However the Tenderloin is also known for the intense community efforts to improve the area by providing opportunities for student outreach, care and education. The Amnesty International San Francisco office has coordinated this mural as a venue for students to empower themselves and beautify their own living space.

Approximately 40 youth were involved in the creation of the mural. Students from 1st grade thru high school and from various after school and summer programs came together to paint their own piece of the San Francisco Cityscape.

The mural is eight feet by six and a half feet. The San Francisco cityscape at the bottom of the mural is a silhouette below the sky. The sky has been tessellated with puzzle pieces. Each person taking part of the mural got their own puzzle “piece” to illustrate their part of San Francisco. To the right of the mural are names of all the artists involved.

Michael Kershnar Around Town

 Posted by on January 7, 2012
Jan 072012
 
San Francisco
Around Town
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Market and 6th Street

Hemlock Alley
Caledonia Street, The Mission

These are all by Mike Kershnar

The Citrus Report did a great interview with Mike, a fun excerpt: The greatest way graffiti has changed my life is the ever-present knowledge that whatever the visual landscape is, it has the potential to be artfully altered. Like if the intersection of Haight and Ashbury is important to me because of what it represented culturally, then I can make sure there is always a visual reminder of me around.

According to StudioVisit: Michael Kershnar is a 32-year old artist from California. His background in urban skateboarding and wilderness survival has given him a lifestyle that is in constant motion

 

Rincon Annex Murals

 Posted by on November 20, 2011
Nov 202011
 
The Embarcadero
Rincon Annex
98 Howard Street

Panel #3

The murals in the Rincon Annex Post Office, have lived a long and very controversial life.  In 1941 the WPA held a competition for the murals, it was won by Anton Refregier.  He began work immediately and kept at it until they were finished in 1948, with a two year break during the war.  He was paid $26,000 for the job, the largest job ever given by the WPA in the painting/sculpture arena.

The twenty-seven murals (29 panels) are actually casein-tempra (a process of painting in which pigments are mixed with casein, or egg, especially egg yolk, to produce a dull finish) on white gesso over plaster walls.

The murals underwent 92 changes while they were being painted, all results of special interest groups.  If you are interested in reading the controversy and politics involved in these changes, Rob Spoor  has done an amazing job in his education of City Guides.

Panel #3. “Sir Francis Drake – 1579 Sir Francis Drake, an English navigator and privateer, set sail from Plymouth (England) in 1577 on a voyage around the world. According to accounts of that voyage, Drake landed in a California harbor in June of 1579. He stayed for 36 days during which time he had good relations with the Indians, repaired his ship and claimed the land for Queen Elizabeth of England, naming it Nova Albion. The precise location of Drake’s landing is not known. Various theories suggest it may have been Bolinas Bay, Drake’s Bay, the Marin side of San Francisco Bay. Bodega Bay or Point Reyes.”  Notice the blood at the end of the sword, depicting the Spanish as a bloodthirsty lot.

Panel #4

Panel #4 “Conquistadors discover the Pacific Baja California was discovered by Europeans in 1533 by a man named Fortún Jiménez of the Cortés expedition. By 1540, Ulloa, another member of that expedition had explored the Sea of Cortés. Also in that year Hernando de Alarcón had sailed up the Colorado River and in 1541 Francisco de Bolaños explored both sides of the Baja Pennisula. The first European to explore Alta California, the land above the Baja Pennisula, was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo who sailed to the Santa Barbara Islands in 1543.”

Panel #6

Panel #6. “Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores The purpose of all California Missions was to Christianize the Indians. In addition to religion, the Indians learned farming, building, spinning and other basic skills. All instruction was given in Spanish.”  According to Spoor  the Catholic Church protested the large belly of a friar depicted in a Mission Dolores mural while the Indians appeared gaunt. In response to these objections, Refregier performed “artistic liposuction”.

Panel #8
Panel #8 “Hardships on the Emmigrant Trail The Emigrant Trail was a term used to describe various overland routes to California in the 1840’s and 1850’s. The subject of this panel is the trail through Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Both Donner Summit and Donner Lake are named after the Geroge and Jacob Donner brothers of Illinois. Their party of 87 settlers were forced to spend the winter of 1846 along the shore of Donner Lake after being trapped by heavy early November snows. Only 47 group members survived.”
Panel #24

Panel #24. Titled – “The Waterfront 1934.   This controversial panel depicts events surrounding the San Francisco dock strike of 1934. On the left a shakedown operator demands bribes in exchange for longshoremen jobs. The center shows labor organizer Harry Bridges addressing dockworkers. The right third refers to what is known as “Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934, when employers battle strikers to open the docks. Two longshoremen died and many on both sides were injured.”

Again, according to Spoor, The VFW and even some labor organizations were incensed that labor organizer and alleged Communist Harry Bridges appeared to be rallying workers, including one with a VFW insignia on his hat, in the mural “Maritime and General Strike,” and pointed out several inaccuracies in the three historical events depicted. The longshore workers union was especially sensitive to the association with 1930s-era Communism, from which they’d distanced themselves by the late 1940s. In response to their objections, Refregier painted out the VFW symbol.

From:  Anton Refregier: Renaissance Man of WPA
Of the 27 panels covering the walls of Rincon, the most widely reproduced (via silkscreen) is the scene “San Francisco ’34 Waterfront Strike,” which takes on the 82-day strike that crippled the shipping industry all along the West Coast. Workers were striking against low wages caused by corruption and graft, and before the outrage and rioting died down, three men were killed, out of the 31 who were shot by police and the dozens who were beaten and assaulted with gas.  Refregier did not paint violence or defeat in his mural, but instead focused on the solidarity of the union workers.

All these descriptions can be found on plaques near the murals.

 

Dan Plasma in the Mission

 Posted by on October 18, 2011
Oct 182011
 
Mission District
15th and Valencia
This is the side wall of restaurant Pica Pica.  Dan Plasma had originally painted a tiger mural on this wall, then over the course of a few days other aerosol muralists covered it over with their work.  This made Mr. Plasma rather angry, so when he took the wall back he commemorated the little war with this piece.

 

 

Polk Street History in Murals

 Posted by on September 19, 2011
Sep 192011
 
Tenderloin
1221 Polk Street
This series is by Dray.  This set of murals is on the side of Lush Lounge at 1221 Polk Street in San Francisco.  When I spoke to Dray about these murals he relayed an article in the San Francisco Examiner that discussed the controversy regarding a series of murals that was to be scheduled in the neighborhood on Hemlock, just down the street.
While Dray’s murals were not quite as controversial the Examiner stated “The Fern Alley mural proposal was far less contentious — the artist, Dray, proposed a visual timeline of Polk Street dating back to 1906.
The artist faced some heat for featuring an image of a gay hustler, and for depicting famous graffiti artist Shepard Fairey at work, which a few residents said glorified vandalism. Still, the mural proposal is moving forward.”
Here is Dray’s explanation: “There are seven 6ft by 10ft panels which were painted and then later installed on the building.  Each panel depicts a certain era with relative imagery to reflect that era.  Even some of the styles of painting reflect the era also.  Depending on which panel you are looking at you will see Max Beckmann, Picasso, Dali, Andy Warhol and Shepard Fairy.  If you research the history of Polk Street you will see that this illustration is somewhat mild compared to what was REALLY going on on that street.”

 

Chor Boogie

 Posted by on August 28, 2011
Aug 282011
 
Mid Market – San Francisco
2174 Market Street

Mid market is a desolate stretch of abandoned store fronts and SRO’s.  This long frontage of boarded up building has been covered by an artist known as Chor.  This is not any random street painter, Chor has a worldwide body of work, including a commissioned piece for the Beijing Olympics.  His website
displays his incredible talent, and his blog is loaded with fabulous images of his work.

I had the privilege of seeing some of his art gallery work at “The City We Love” showing at 941 Geary street.  If you are in the neighborhood, drop in and ask about him.  The piece below is on Clarion Alley in the Mission District.  Chor has also done it on a smaller scale, and it is on display at 941 Geary.

Lower Haight

 Posted by on August 19, 2011
Aug 192011
 
Lower Haight – San Francisco
Oak and Scott Streets
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This mural was painted by San and Escif.
Escif is a 28 year old artist from Valencia Spain.  San is 29 and from Madrid.  Earlier this year they traveled up and down the coast of California creating street art.  All of their inspiration culminated in an exhibit at Fifty24SF art gallery in July.  The exhibit, entitled “See you in Croatan” was described like this:  “For the past month, the two friends have journeyed all along the coast of California, gathering inspiration to create works on walls and paper and documenting it on their blog, El Tercero En Cuestion Regarding their project, “the mission was to work as far away as possible from doctrines, imperialisms and linear reasoning, searching for beauty in errors and fortuitous tools, working with intuition and hazard; trying to light relations, transitions and processes; working with research as the way itself; understanding chaos as an ideal space for creation”. The product of their journey was on display at the opening, which consisted of an installation of various drawings, paintings, sketches, keepsakes and photographs inspired by places they have visited, such as Death Valley, Tijuana, Yosemite, Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
In an interview with the two artists I found these quotations most interesting.  When San was asked his favorite medium:
I like to experiment with different techniques. I usually paint with Black 2G Montana Spray Paint and acrylic colors. I like to work with water-colors and crayons. Between, always with my Pilot 0.4 in a skeetchbook anyone.
Escif was asked about his favorite color, and then again about his favorite vacation spot and this was his answer.
I have no favourite things. When you said ” My favorite…” you are blocking new possibilities.

SOMA & The Haight – EL Mac

 Posted by on August 13, 2011
Aug 132011
 
SOMA – San Francisco
The Haight – San Francisco
This is on the corner of Russ and Howard Streets, South of Market.

Miles “Mac” McGregor.  Goes by The Mac or El Mac.  According to his own website El Mac was “born in Los Angeles in 1980 to an engineer and an artist, Mac has been creating and studying art independently since childhood. His primary focus has been the lifelike rendering of human faces and figures. He has drawn inspiration from the surrounding Mexican & Chicano culture of Phoenix and the American Southwest, religious art, pin-up art, graffiti, and a wide range of classic artists such as Caravaggio, Mucha, and Vermeer. He began painting with acrylics and painting graffiti in the mid ’90s, and has since worked consistently towards mastering his signature portrait style. Around 1998 he began to paint technicolor aerosol versions of classic paintings by old European masters. This led to being commissioned in 2003 by the Groeninge Museum in Brugge, Belgium to paint his interpretations of classic Flemish Primitive paintings in the museum’s collection. He has since been commissioned to paint murals across the US, as well as in Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, Belgium, Italy, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Singapore, Germany, Ireland, and Vietnam.”

While I am grateful for the murals that he has done in San Francisco, please go to his website and check out some of the amazing work he has done around the world.   If you go to the spraypaint section and get as far as page 9, you will find, what I hesitate to label as my favorite, but certainly worth seeking out – Young Scribe.

This is on Fillmore between Haight and Waller.

The Tenderloin – Humming With Life

 Posted by on August 4, 2011
Aug 042011
 
The Tenderloin – San Francisco
Hyde and Golden Gate
This is panel one of a new mural on the U.S. Postal Service office building  at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate.  It was done by Johanna Poethig, whose work we saw in The Tenderloin National Forest and Tutubi Plaza.  This mural is titled humming with life.  If you hop over to her blog. where she has posted lots of pictures of the activities that took place around her while she was installing this blog you get a sense of how apt the title its.

This is directly from her blog – “Humming With Life”, the title of this mural is an understatement.  The Post Office building at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate is a magnet for drug dealers, crack addicts and homeless folks looking for a spot to lie down.  The Tenderloin has long been the neighborhood that offers services to the down and out so this is where they live  with the vibrant mix of cultures and community in the North of Market of downtown San Francisco. The Civic Center Post Office does not sell stamps or send mail.  It has endless rows of post office boxes for people without permanent addresses.”

She has truly added a bright spot in a rather sorry part of town.

Update: The Post Office is slated for demolition.  

Chinatown Murals

 Posted by on July 20, 2011
Jul 202011
 
Chinatown – San Francisco
Stockton and Pacific

This mural is also on the Ping Yuen Housing Project.  This is the Stockton Street Side of the building.

Painted by Darryl Mar in 1999.  Mar is a graduate of UC Irvine.  He went on to get a masters in Asian American Studies from UCLA.  Mr. Mar was aided by Darren Acoba, Joyce Lu and Tonia Chen.  It is in memory of Sing Kan Mah and  those who have struggled to make America their home.
Walking further down Stockton Street towards the tunnel you will find this mural on the Victory Memorial Hall it was erected by the China War Relief Association of America and painted by Amy Nelder.
The Center sign reads: “Ten Miles of Track, Laid in One Day, April 28, 1869”
The waving banner reads “On April 28th 1869, a team of 848 Chinese railroad workers, using only hand  tools, set a record laying more than 10 miles of track in just 12 hours. For the entire year of 1868 the Central Pacific Railway laid only 350 miles of track – about one mile a day.  Chinese immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom (over 90%) came from Gwang Chou Province, constituted about 86% of the Central Pacific workforce, more than 12,000 of out of 14,00 workers.”

According to Wendy’s website she “comes from a rich San Francisco tradition. Her grandfather, Al Nelder, was the revered former Chief of Police for San Francisco and her mother, Wendy, is the former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She continues that spirit of public service by being one of only 18 fulltime forensic artists in the United States as the forensic artist for the San Francisco Police Department.”

As you can see above, the Chinese were instrumental in building the railroads throughout the west.  It is a piece of our history fraught with both the good and the bad.  If you are interested in reading further about it I suggest checking out the following book.  “Nothing Like it in the World” by Stephen E. Ambrose, I know there are hundreds others, but his makes for wonderful reading about the entire railroad history in the west.

SOMA – Meagan Spendlove

 Posted by on July 17, 2011
Jul 172011
 
SOMA – San Francisco

This mural is on the corner of 10th Street and Sheridan in the South of Market Area of San Francisco.  The artist is Meagan Spendlove.  Her website reads “Meagan Spendlove currently works in San Francisco, California as a professional designer, illustrator and project coordinator. Her latest endeavors include yet are not limited to mural project coordination and digital illustration. Over the past twelve years her style has become recognized mainly for its feminine subject matter and organic ingredients. Assorted shaded ethereal women & bright colors surrounded by bold lines, similar to stained glass.”

The bright colors are what caught my eye, otherwise, it is on a very obscure alley and very easy to miss.

This piece was sponsored in part by the SFAC StreetSmArts Program.

Love in the Lower Haight – Silly Pink Bunnies

 Posted by on April 26, 2011
Apr 262011
 
Silly Pink Bunnies and Love in the Lower Haight.
In October of 2010 the long wall on the corner of Haight and Laguna that surrounds a series of buildings that once housed the UC extension campus became a mural collective. Called “Love in the Lower Haight,” the mural stretches 100 feet up Haight Street from Laguna Street and 75 feet on Laguna. The mural is granted for at least one year with the possibility of a longer extension.
An estimated 12 local artists worked on it, while an additional component let residents add their personal touch to the project.
Information about the piece above took me a while to round up, I first went to the artist’s – Jeremy Fish- blog and this is what I read:
“my gang, THE SILLY PINK BUNNIES, is celebrating 20 years of being a mean gang this year. coincidentally 2011 is the year of the rabbit. this statue and mural is a tribute to the the gang and our history in the lower haight. viva la bunnies! see you this easter.”
But then I found an explanation –
“[the gang] is basically it’s an inside joke that just got carried and carried and carried. For me, it’s just the fascination of taking nothing and making it into something, and also watching peoples desire to be involved in something. It’s fascinating for me to watch grown adults gravitate towards something that’s kind of stupid… I’m also fascinated by watching something I created grow into something that I’m not even farming anymore. To see stickers in places that you have never even been when you go there, or to talk to a friend that just got back from South Africa and said he saw a Silly Pink Bunnies sticker in the subway. You know, I’m like, ‘how the [expletive] did something go from being so dumb to something so big?'”
I love the concept he describes, while the silly pink bunny in the photo above, probably leaves many different emotions with different people, the concept that he talks about is truly what art is about.
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