Public Art – Page 8 – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Trader Vic the Sculptor

Posted by Cindy on June 1, 2013

Jun 012013

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

These two seals once resided outside the California Academy of Sciences. They are now inside near the restaurant. This view is through the fence. Entry to the Academy is $30 for adults.

These two seals were sculpted by Victor Jules Bergeron. Known locally as Trader Vic, Bergeron is far better known for his chain of Polynesian Restaurants name Trader Vic’s, and his claim of having invented the Mai Tai. In 1940 the first franchised Trader Vic’s opened in Seattle, Washington. In 1950, Bergeron opened a Trader Vic’s location in Hawaii and in 1951 at 20 Cosmo Place in San Francisco. The chain of restaurants grew and is credited as one of the first successful themed chains, a marketing model that many other restaurants followed.

Bergeron (December 10, 1902, San Francisco, California – October 11, 1984, Hillsborough, California) attended Heald College in San Francisco, California.

His life was an epic rags-to-riches story of the self-made American man.

The seals were created in 1970 and according to the Smithsonian are carved from black stone.

What is Missing?

Posted by Cindy on May 31, 2013

May 312013

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

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This piece, titled What’s Missing is by Maya Lin. The photo above was taken from outside the fence that rings the Academy of Sciences. Entry to the Academy is $30 for adults.

The permanent site-specific sculpture is the first component of an international multi-sited, multimedia art work dedicated to raising awareness about the current crisis surrounding biodiversity and habitat loss. The dedication of the sculpture, which was commissioned by the SFAC, coincided with the Academy’s one-year anniversary in its new location. The Academy is the only institution in the world to house two permanent sculptures by Maya Lin.

The conical bronze and wood sculpture is located on the East Terrace of the building and is Lin’s multi media art work containing sounds of endangered and extinct species, as well as images created from still photos and video footage from a wide variety of scientific sources.

You can read an in-depth interview with Lin about this piece and her What is Missing Project here.

Photo credit: SFAC

Where the Land Meets the Sea

Posted by Cindy on May 30, 2013

May 302013

California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park

This Marine Grade Stainless Steel wire sculpture (difficult to photograph) is titled Where the Land Meets the Sea, and is by Maya Lin.

This is the first permanent artwork by Maya Lin in San Francisco. The artist was selected through the Arts Commission’s competitive application process in 2005. Although Lin does not usually participate in competitions, she responded to the Arts Commission’s invitation to apply because of her keen interest in the California Academy of Sciences and the opportunity the project would provide to engage with the institution’s scientists. As an ardent environmentalist, Lin wished to develop a project that would make people more aware of their environment and the natural world.

The 36’ x 60’ x 15’ sculpture is fabricated from 5/8 inch marine grade stainless steel tubing. Like a line drawing in space, the sculpture depicts the topography between Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. To make the hills and valleys of the terrain more visible, the actual scale of the landscape is exaggerated by five times above sea level and by ten times below. “This piece was the culmination of a quest to reveal San Francisco Bay—to get people to think about what’s beneath the water line in a new way,” says Lin. “It took almost eight months for us to mesh the land and water data sets because the two sets of data were completely segregated—and this is the whole point! We think of these things as two separate systems even though they are literally connected to each other.” In order to build the sculpture, Lin’s fabricator, the Walla Walla Foundry, recreated the exterior West Terrace of the Academy in their warehouse to ensure precision in the attachment of the sculpture to the terrace’s six columns.

The sculpture is installed outdoors on the Academy’s West Terrace, where it is seamlessly attached to six columns and suspended by nine thread-like steel cables from the overhead solar canopy. It seems to float like a cloud in a Chinese landscape painting against the backdrop of greenery in Golden Gate Park, a dynamic counterpoint to the formal and orderly geometry of the building’s architecture by Renzo Piano. (from the SFAC press release).

You can view this piece from outside the gates of the Academy of Sciences. Entry is $30 for adults.

GGP’s Sea Serpent

Posted by Cindy on May 29, 2013

May 292013

Koret Childrens Quarters
Golden Gate Park

This divine sea creature is by Phoebe Palmer.

On an architectural scale, Phoebe is building densely textured, sculptural ferro-cement walls and working in mosaics and metal sculpture as well as her “normal” mediums of paint and pastels. Phoebe has taken the characters formerly inhabiting her paintings and pastels and cast them in the round as she breaks into the classical realm of ceramic sculpture.

This is Palmer’s first piece of public art.

The ferro-cement-and-tile creature weighs nearly a ton and cost about $10,000.

According to San Luis Obispo.com:

From the start, the sea creature was a ‘her,’ Palmer said, “After a while, I just started calling her ‘the beast.’ ”

Palmer did 15 to 20 “little clay models” of the head, each with a different expression. She and Peterson agreed on one that “was somewhat sweeter than what he initially had in mind, I think.”

As always, making art is learning by doing, and “Phoebe always dives right in,” said her husband, Peter Fels.

Palmer made a rebar metal frame for the head and covered it with aviary wire — like chicken wire, only smaller — and metal lath similar to what would be used for plastering.

“Of course, it was harder to get the nice expression in wire than in clay,” she said.

Palmer fashioned the tail and midsection, and cemented the entire sculpture.

She made about 10,000 “little tile scales” out of medium-fire porcelain, roughly 1-inch triangles with a curved bottom. They were fired once, glazed and then fired again.

Other tiles as small as a quarter-inch were needed for the head, “so I would be able to keep her nice expression … It was a pain painting stripes on a quarter-inch tile,” Palmer said with a laugh. “As I kept having to make yet another batch … I muttered about the beast’s voracious appetite for tile.”

She recalled that “trial-and-error was the name of the game.”

It took many glaze experiments and test arrangements of more than 15 types of tiles. Some have a little yellow tip, she said, “and then two or three other glazes applied in stripes or speckles.”

The beast’s “eyes and lips were made out of bigger pieces of ceramic,” clay that shrinks 12 percent in the firing, “so getting the eyes to fit in the eye socket was a challenge.” In fact, she made “about 15 pairs before I got it right, plus tons of 3D glaze samples — the glazes act differently on the curved sample than on a flat one.

“Next time,” she said, “I’d make the eyes first and make the cement to fit them.”

She also made four sets of lips before getting the right color and texture.

In retrospect, Palmer said, everything concerned with such a complex creature took longer than expected. In fact, “even the installation is going slowly, and won’t be completed until the end of March. They are plumbing it to emit mist out of the nostrils.”

Mona Caron in Noe Valley

Posted by Cindy on May 27, 2013

May 272013

3871 24th Street
Noe Valley

These two murals sit on the two sides of a parking lot on 24th Street

They are by Mona Caron who has been in this website many, many times.

According to Caron’s website:
The mural comprises two paintings that face each other over a small park and parking lot in the Noe Valley neighborhood. As a tie-in to the weekly farmer’s market that is held there, both murals feature giant botanical illustrations of vegetables and their leaves and blossoms. A scroll-like ribbon weaves around the vegetables. Wherever the ribbon is larger and appears closer, there are views of the neighborhood depicted within it. On the Eastern wall, these views show scenes from Noe Valley’s past (late 1930’s) and a positive future vision. On the western wall, there are two views of the present: one of the upper, Western part of 24th Street (Noe Valley), and one of the adjacent Mission District part of the same street.

Spreckles Temple of Music

Posted by Cindy on May 25, 2013

May 252013

Music Concourse
Golden Gate Park
Spreckels Temple of Music

This is the third bandstand to grace Golden Gate Park. Claus Spreckels (The Sugar King) gave $75,000 towards the $78,810 cost of the building. The shell is an Italian Renaissance style with an acoustically reflective coffered shell standing 70 feet high and covered in Colusa Sandstone.

The Temple, dedicated on September 9, 1900, suffered damage in the 1906 earthquake (much of its Colusa sandstone cornices, balustrades and corners collapsed). It was further rattled by the region’s 1989 earthquake. This time the restoration was over seen by restoration architects Cary and Company. Performers under the dome have ranged from John Philip Sousa to Pavarotti and the Grateful Dead.

The band shell is home the the Golden Gate Park Band, an institution since 1882. They provide free concerts 25 Sundays each year.

Designed by Reid Brothers architects, it is similar to another structure designed by the Reid Brothers in Bellingham, Washington. There is an excellent history of the Reid Brothers by the San Francisco Examiner here.

The two relief sculptures are by Robert Aitken. The one on the left holds a lyre and the one on the right a trumpet.

Born in San Francisco, California, Robert Aitken became a noted sculptor who spent most of his career teaching at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He did numerous portraits, full size and bust, of well known figures.

For his early study he was a painting pupil of Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, and by the time he was age 18 he had his own studio. In 1897, he studied briefly in Paris, where influences turned him to sculpture.

He taught at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, University of California, from 1901 though 1904, and was awarded some of the premier sculpture commissions including monuments to the Navy and to President McKinley in Golden Gate Park. In 1904, he returned to Paris for three more years, and then settled in New York City where he was an instructor at the National Academy of Schools Sculpture Class, and at the Art Students League.

Lions and Bears in the Park

Posted by Cindy on May 23, 2013

May 232013

The Brown Gate
8th and Fulton Street

This bear and lion that grace the pillars when you enter the park at 8th and Fulton are by M. Earl Cummings. Cummings has been in this website many, many times, he also has quite a few sculptures within Golden Gate Park.

These sculptures were a gift of Susanna Brown, a one time resident of San Francisco. Ms. Brown gave $5000 to create the animals which were installed in 1908 to honor her late husband.

Gustave Albert Lansburgh of Lansburgh and Joseph, a firm noted for its movie theater design, is responsible for the stonework.

The Bard and The Park

Posted by Cindy on May 22, 2013

May 222013

Shakespeare Garden
Golden Gate Park

This is the Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park, a favorite spot for weddings. Behind that iron door is a bronze bust of Shakespeare. On either sides are plaques engraved with excerpts from some of the Bard’s works that mention plants.

The purpose of the garden was to showcase plants and trees mentioned in William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Some of the original plantings in the garden were from seeds from Shakespeare’s garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, supplied by plant purveyor Sutton and Sons. The garden was established by the California Blossom and Wild Flower Association in July 1928.

The bust is one of two copies made from an original in stone carved sometime before 1623 by Garrett Jansen. George Bullock created the bronze copies in 1814. The second copy resides in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. The bust is usually shuttered except for special occasions.

Horseshoe Courts of Golden Gate Park

Posted by Cindy on May 21, 2013

May 212013

Horseshoe Pits
Golden Gate Park

There are sixteen courts in a very out of the way spot of the park, not far from McClaren Lodge. The site was developed out of a rock quarry during 1934 as a WPA project.

There are two concrete bas-reliefs created on the face of the rocks. The artist was Jesse S. “Vet” Anderson (born 1875) who was a cartoonist and caricaturist for the Detroit Free Press and later for the New York Herald Tribune. Anderson was a member of the horseshoe club, he died in 1966.

The sculptures, overgrown and forgotten were revealed in 1968 by a Youth Corps volunteer.

The Horse has seen better days. This was shot in May of 2013.

This was shot in 2009 during its restoration.

The Horseshoe Pitcher remains in fairly decent shape.

Sarah B. Cooper Brings the West its First Kindergarten

Posted by Cindy on May 18, 2013

May 182013

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 ability. For many years she earned enough with her pen to aid in the support of her family and in the education of her sister’s children in Memphis, Tennessee. She had no money to contribute to the kindergarten cause, but she gave what was needed more than money, —the wealth of her clear intellect, her winning manner, and her devoted Christian philanthropy. It was through her influence that Mrs. Leland Stanford became interested in the work and finally endowed three kindergarten schools with one hundred thousand dollars for their support. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was induced by Mrs. Cooper’s persuasive power to endow another kindergarten school. A large number of citizens subscribed five dollars a month, each, for the support of other classes. The Golden Gate Kindergarten Association was organized, and in ten years there were forty-six kindergarten classes supported entirely by endowments and subscriptions. Mrs. Cooper’s annual reports were distributed and read wherever the English language is spoken.

After the death of Mrs. Cooper’s husband, she still continued her management of the kindergarten schools, her daughter Hattie meanwhile supporting the family by giving music lessons. Mrs. Cooper steadily refused to receive a dollar for services, though persistently urged by the officers of the association to accept a salary. Once when I urged her to yield to the wishes of the association, she replied, “This is the Lord’s work, and I feel it would not be blessed if I received pay for it.” She held frequent consultations with me about any new undertakings, and is no person living who knows more fully than myself the extent of her labors, and the wealth of philanthropic devotion and Christian self-sacrifice that she brought to the work of training, reforming, and educating the children of the poor in San Francisco. Her sad and sudden death cast a gloom over the city in which her great work was accomplished.

This sculpture is of a small child with a squirrel and cat at her feet. It was carved by Jack Moxom. According to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park by Christopher Pollock:

“A rainy spring day in 1923 witnessed the dedication of a cast-concrete pool with inlaid bronze lettering dedicated to Sarah B. Cooper, creator of the first kindergarten of the West and one of the most influential women of her time. Retailer Raphael Weill, owner of the White House department store, had spearheaded a memorial effort in 1912 when he met Cooper’s cousin by chance on a steamer trip, but the project lay dormant for several years until the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association accomplished the good deed.

The subject of the original statue, by native San Franciscan Enid Foster, was a child standing by a pool. A newer figure (shown here) was carved of red sandstone. Proposed in 1934, the replacement figure was sculpted in 1939 by WPA sponsored artist Jack Moxom, a Canadian by birth who was an architect and a painter.

“Moxom’s life-size sculpture of a naked girl with a cat and a squirrel at her ankles was modeled after Moxom’s younger sister. Moxom had no sculpting experience and in an interview for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts project Moxom recalls the challenge of creating his first sculpture. “But one of the errors, beside the kindness of hiring me, was that I bought a type of sandstone that darkened to a bloody red when the water hit it and while it was beautifully flesh colored in the studio or in the shed, it wasn’t the moment the water hit it. I kind of pretend it wasn’t that bad, you know, but this little girl of six looked kind of pregnant too. And it had the typical square noses, remember in those days every nose was square. I thought there was a law about noses. Noses just came down with a good flat bridge on them. Now who did we get that from or was it my own … ?” (SF Uncovered)

Now neglected, the pool is filled in with dirt. One can still read around the rim, In Memory of Sarah B. Cooper.

This badly neglected sculpture is administered by the San Francisco Art Commission.

Animals in the Park

Posted by Cindy on May 17, 2013

May 172013

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 by the SFAC for $54,000 in the 2007 budget year.

Henri Crenier’s Telamones

Posted by Cindy on May 16, 2013

May 162013

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.

Henri Crenier adds Beauty to San Francisco City Hall

Posted by Cindy on May 15, 2013

May 152013

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 and Labor on the right.

The figures in the tympanum that faces the Civic Center represent California’s agriculture and riches (on the left) and navigational skills (right). They also symbolize San Francisco’s role in the link between the riches of California and the mercantile needs of the rest of the world.

Henri Crenier (1873–1948) was an American sculptor born in France.

Crenier was born in Paris, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Alexandre Falguière, worked in Asnières-sur-Seine, and exhibited at the Paris Salon. In 1902 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen in 1911, and became active in New York City, serving as master sculptor in the atelier of Hermon Atkins MacNeil.

His solo work includes the James Fennimore Cooper Memorial in Scarsdale, New York, as well as his single largest commission, the two pediment sculptures in granite for the 1915 San Francisco City Hall. He also contributed to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) and designed the freestanding figure of Achievement that stands at theNemours Mansion and Gardens in Wilmington, Delaware.

The King of Beasts in Golden Gate Park

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2013

May 112013

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 helped build many of San Francisco’s best known buildings including the City Hall, the Civic Auditorium, the Public Library, the State Building, the St. Francis Hotel, the Emporium, the Flood Building, the Stanford University Chapel and the original buildings on the Stanford campus.

Roland Hinton Perry was born in New York City to George and Ione Hinton Perry January 25, 1870. He entered the École des Beaux Arts in 1890 at the age of 19. At 21, he studied at the Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris and focused on sculpture, the medium in which he would achieve the most artistic success.

After returning to the United States, Perry received a commission to sculpt a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress inWashington, D.C. in 1894. The following year, he was commissioned to create the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the Library’s main building, now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. He died October 28, 1941.

55 Stockton Street – Looking up

Posted by Cindy on May 8, 2013

May 082013

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 loop and called it “Shot Dog Film.” In 2011, when this was discovered, Otterness’ contract for $750,000 worth of work for the new subway terminal, was cancelled. You can read about the controversy here.

Tom Otterness was born in 1952 in Witchita, Kansas. He is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums.

His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful, but also political. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism. He studied at the Arts Students League in New York in 1973, the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. and was a member of the Collaborative Arts Project in 1977.

The pieces at 55 Stockton Street are of concrete.

Tigers and Cougars at the Zoo

Posted by Cindy on April 30, 2013

Apr 302013

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 an MFA from UCLA (1972)

Cougar III

Tiger II and Cougar III were purchased by the Arts Commission for the Zoo’s main entry plaza with funds generated by the City’s percent-for-art program, which allocates 2% of capital projects for art enrichment

Gwynn Muller is also Responsible for the Hawaiian at 200 California Street.

A Fossil on the Great Highway

Posted by Cindy on April 27, 2013

Apr 272013

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 of our generation; the unresolved tension in a bird captured mid-flight; the subtle geometry of a distant landscape and the patterns that define it and it’s peoples; these elements together reveal a new order and visual reality that I continue to explore.

EDUCATION
1982 Master of Fine Arts, California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA
1978-79 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Boston, MA
1977 Ukrainian Studies (Summer Program), Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1973 Bachelor of Arts, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ

Incomplete Metamorphosis

Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2013

Apr 252013

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 sculptures: “Not only are they flightless, but they stand motionless, while their skeletal design requires viewers’ vivid imagination to complete.” She has expressed the hope that “many children will be able to share the joy and amazement I found with dragonflies as a youngster.”

Joyce Hsu (who has been in this website before) received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998. For the last ten years, she has exhibited throughout California and increasingly internationally. Currently Hsu is working to complete a Master of Architecture degree at CCA in San Francisco, where she has also received numerous awards for her work. To date, Ms. Hsu has received five public art commissions, including an upcoming major work to be installed at the San Francisco International Airport.

Incomplete Metamorphosis was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission in accord with the city’s public art ordinance, which provides for an art enrichment allocation equivalent to 2% of the construction budget of a new or renovated civic construction project. Funds for the artwork were provided by the Recreation and Park Department. The two sculptures were commissioned for $25,o00 in the 2006-2007 budget.

Edison and DaVinci by Olmsted

Posted by Cindy on April 23, 2013

Apr 232013

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 of monumental architecture.”

As Vice Chairman of Fine Arts at the 1939-1940 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island, Pflueger was able to have transferred to the College, at no cost , several of the culturally significant projects created by artists during the fair. These include these two sculptures carved by Fredrick Olmsted. They are 7 feet high, four foot square, and 9 tons of granite, representing Leonardo DaVinci and Thomas Edison. (In researching these two pieces I have also found reference that they are limestone or Tuff stone, my personal opinion is that they are limestone.)

The sculptures were carved for the WPA exhibition “Art in Action”. Art in Action was an exhibit of artists at work displayed for four months in the summer of 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) held on Treasure Island. Many famous artists took part in the exhibit, including Dudley C. Carter, woodcarver and Diego Rivera, muralist.

Frederick Olmsted (April 10, 1911-February 14, 1990) was born in San Francisco. A collateral relative of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Olmsted studied science at Stanford and art at the California School of Fine Arts, where he met and married Barbara Greene. In 1937, the couple visited fellow student Helen Phillips in Paris and spent time working at Atelier 17.

Olmsted worked in the WPA, assisting John Langley Howard and George Harris in the Coit Tower, creating his own mural on a three-foot panel above the main entrance. He also assisted Diego Rivera with his mural at the Art Institute in San Francisco. Olmsted created numerous murals and sculptures for public works in San Francisco, including the Theory and Science mural at San Francisco City College. He taught art for a while at Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

After Barbara and he divorced, he continued to work as a sculptor, moving to Cleveland where he designed medical equipment for the Cleveland Clinic. It was there he developed a machine to shock the diseased heart of one of his dogs, a prototype for today’s pacemaker. Olmsted then worked at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, designing equipment and machinery for the Oceanographic Institute. He died in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Swimming through Jessie Square

Posted by Cindy on April 22, 2013

Apr 222013

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 canvas and unroll it on some wall and do my piece there. Thankfully these Yerba Buena folk think big and my contact told me he was going to find a wall for me. He called me about a month later and we met up in front of this 70 foot wall and he said “Here it is”. Then he asked how many panels of it I wanted to paint so they could get the appropriate amount of lights for the event. Pfff how many panels… if they were giving me access to this entire huge wall I wanted to paint the entire thing! So they did indeed rig up this entire wall with clamp lamps so that i could continue to paint into the night of the event.

All told, I was painting for 12 hours straight from 10 am to 10 pm and it was great to work with such an awesome institution.”

About painting “To take a previously mundane surface and splash paint and twist colors around one another, pushing ideas here and there in a mad frenzy until finally a scene pokes its toes into the realm of readability, it gets me higher than anything else ever could. I can’t get enough of it, dancing with my mind and body through dimensions of abstraction and bringing back a handful of solid images to show people where I went.

I hope to lure people in with a tasty, digestible, morsel of an image and from there to snatch them into the realm of abstraction, help them dance around with their own subconscious, and deliver them back to their daily life with a slightly dizzy feeling.”

There is an interesting article on YM&C if you would like to explore further.

Fish Tale

Posted by Cindy on April 19, 2013

Apr 192013

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.

Dance of the Cubes

Posted by Cindy on April 18, 2013

Apr 182013

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 in Romania, Jacques came to the United States with his family in 1903 and grew up in San Francisco. His formal education included an A.B. degree in engineering from Stanford in 1920 and an M.A. degree in Sociology from Berkeley in 1939.

An interest in city planning led to his abandoning a successful career in engineering and enrolling in the Department of Architecture at Berkeley. This in turn gave him his first experience in art, since architecture students were required to take art courses. Architectural interests were rapidly supplanted by his fascination with sculpture, and he dropped out of school to devote full attention to it.

Following his retirement in 1966, Jacques’ creative energy seemed to double and his work underwent a change. Having previously favored such materials as stone, wood, bronze, marble and copper, he now focused on the medium of carved and polished clear acrylic resin (Plexiglas). His concentrated effort in this difficult material led him to say in 1975 that “at last I’ve found my medium” and “it’s as though I’m sculpturing pure light. At 76, I’m hitting my stride.”

Jacques Schnier died March 24, 1988, at the age of 89.

Dance of the cubes is on the dining room balcony at San Francisco General Hospital. It is owned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Torso With Arm Raised II by De Staebler

Posted by Cindy on April 17, 2013

Apr 172013

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.

L’Octagon by Pol Bury

Posted by Cindy on April 16, 2013

Apr 162013

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 research group): Ruptures. He then discovered the work of Tanguy and started to paint, influenced by the work of René Magritte.

In 1947 Bury turned towards abstract painting and entered the Jeune Peinture Belge (Young Belgian Painting) group. In 1949 Bury broke away from the group and committed himself to geometric abstraction.

After seeing the Alexander Calder exhibition at the Maeght Gallery in Paris in 1950, Bury began to move away from painting towards three-dimensional work. He moved to Paris in 1961. He became professor at Paris’s Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts (National School of Fine Arts), where he led a class in monumental sculpture until 1987.

Pol Bury died on September 27, 2005 at the age of 83, in Paris.

The public art requirement created by the downtown plan is commonly known as the “1% for Art” program. This requirement, governed by Section 429 of the Planning Code, provides that construction of a new building or addition of 25,000 square feet or more within the downtown C‐3 district, triggers a requirement that provide public art that equals at least 1% of the total construction cost be provided.

Credit is given to Pol Bury at the cornerstone of the building.

Harvey Milk Rec Center

Posted by Cindy on April 15, 2013

Apr 152013

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 of living…”

The artists said that as daylight shifts across the buildings facade, Milk’s words are revealed, obscured, and then reappear, reminding us of his enduring influence throughout the passage of time.

Susan Schwartzenberg works as an independent artist and holds a senior artist position at the Exploratorium. She has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of Art, and Stanford University, and is a Loeb Fellow for Advanced Environmental Studies in The School of Design at Harvard University. Recent endeavors include works for the Stanford School of Medicine, San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Office of Cultural Affairs in Los Angeles. At the Exploratorium, she has developed numerous projects exploring the intersections of art and science. She is currently principal curator for the Observatory—a social and environmental look at the contemporary San Francisco landscape scheduled to open at piers 15 and 17 in 2013.

Susan was also one of the artists on the Philosophers Walk at McClaren Park.

Michael Davis is a native of Los Angeles, and received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Cal State Fullerton. He lives and works in San Pedro, CA. Davis’ sculptures and installations can be found in public, private, and institutional settings throughout the country. His public art collaborations can be found in North Hollywood, Dallas, Miami, and Anaheim, and he is working to complete projects for Santa Monica, San Antonio, New York, Santa Fe Springs, San Jose, and Long Beach.

This piece was commissioned for the SF Rec and Parks Department by the SFAC for $62,000.

Called to Rise

Posted by Cindy on April 13, 2013

Apr 132013

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 1% for Art Program.

The two bronze panels on each side of the door below the light explain the contributions of each person. Links are provided to art works representing the appropriate person or structure.

Juan Bautista de Anza (2735-c1788) Between 774 and 1776, De Anza brought settlers across vast deserts of the Spanish Southwest, without loss of life, into Alta California and the Bay of San Francisco.

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) Muybridge took a series of photographs at the Stanford Farm in Palo Alto that led directly to the invention of the motion picture camera.

Makato Hagiwara (1854-1925) Hagiwara conceived of the idea of the “fortune cookie” and, together with his son established the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst (1842-1919) Mother of William Randlolph Hearst, the San Francisco newspaper tycoon, Mrs. Hearst devoted herself to the improvement and expansion of the University of California.

Chungwah Lee (1901-1980) Lee, a Hollywood actor for 40 years helped establish Boy Scout Troop 3, the first all-chinese troop in the United States and the Chinese Historical Society of America.

Ishi (c1860-1916) Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) Ishi, the last survivor of the Yahi people, worked in association with Kroeber to document the vanished language, customs, and values of his people.

Philip Burton (1926-1983) As author of the Golden Gate National Recreation Act, U.S. Congressman Burton helped preserve the headlands of Marin and northern edges of the San Francisco peninsula.

Amadeo Peter Giannini (1870-1949) Giannini established the Bank of Italy in North Beach, which he latr developed into the Bank of America, the premier bank of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin Norris (1870-1902) A writer of fiction, Norris helped establish the reputation of San Francisco as a romantic seaport city, alive with mystery and adventure.

Timothy Pflueger (1892-1946) Pflueger’s notable architectural achievements include the Pacific Stock Exchange Building, the Castro Theater, the Pacific Telephone Building on New Montgomery Street, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Douglas Tilden (1860-1935) Tilden is famous for his bronze sculptures; the Mechanics Monument on Market Street and the Baseball Player and Junipero Serra statues in Golden Gate Park.

Kurt Herbert Adler (1905-1988( Under Adler, the San Francisco Opera won fame for its bold re-staging of classics and its willingness to produce new or previously obscure works.

Mary Ann Magnin (1849-1943) Magnin, a pioneer business woman opened a notions and fine needlework shop which later grew into I. Magnin & Co., specializing in imported European clothing.

Harry Bridges (1901-1990) Bridges, a longshoreman on the docks of San Francisco played a major role in a coastwide strike spearheaded by the International Longshoreman’s Association

Robert Dollar (1844-1932) Dollar is considered a pioneer in the evolution of San Francisco as in important trade and shipping center for the Asia Pacific Basin in the early twentieth century.

John C. Young (1912-1987) An Engineer from Stanford University, Young devoted himself to the improvement of San Francisco’s Chinatown and helped found the annual Chinese New Years Parade.

Howard Thurman (1900-1981) As a preacher writer and social activist, Reverend Thurman helped establish the intellectual and moral foundations of the Civil Rights Movement in America.

John Swett (1830-1913) Devoted to teaching and developing the public schools of San Francisco Swett helped form Lowell High School and pioneered the education of children in preparation for college.

Charlotte Amanda Blake Brown (1846-1904) Dr. Brown, a specialist in the care of women and children helped found Children’s Hospital. She also played a major role in establishing nursing education in San Francisco.

Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessey (1864-1934) As city engineer O’Shaughnessey laid out the municipal railway streetcar system and is mainly noted for his contributions to the Hetch Hetchy water and power system.

Folded Circle Split

Posted by Cindy on April 12, 2013

Apr 122013

201 Spear Street
SOMA Financial Area

Folded Circle Split by Fletcher Benton – 1984

In walking through the lobby of 201 Spear Street I tripped upon this sculpture. The office building is open from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm M-F.

Fletcher Benton (born February 25, 1931 Jackson, Ohio) is from San Francisco, California

He graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1956. From 1964 to 1967 he taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and taught as an associate professor and then professor of art at San Jose State University from 1967-1986.

Fletcher Benton began his career as an abstractionist painter in the 1950s and 1960s. Frustrated with the limitations of paint on canvas, Benton began work on movement with geometric pattern pieces and boxes which he was familiar with from his work in commercial signs. This was at the beginning of the kinetic movement, and Benton worked largely in isolation, unaware of other efforts of kinetic artists. The early works were more concerned with change, rather than movement. The pieces were really more like three-dimensional paintings. Full three-dimensional sculptures designed to be viewed from all angles came later and the movement of the pieces became less prevalent in his later works. In the late 1970s, he abandoned kinetic art, switching to a more traditional bronze and steel.

I tripped upon this piece while looking for two other pieces that are part of the 201 Spear Street POPOS. The pieces, titled Smile and News are so poorly executed that I will leave it to the explorer in you to find them and make your own opinion.

Go Bears

Posted by Cindy on April 11, 2013

Apr 112013

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 for print and the web for major marketing and PR firms as well as start-ups and private businesses.

As a muralist, Paul has been commissioned large-scale indoor and outdoor pieces for business parks, restaurants, and offices. He has also worked with interior designers to paint murals for private homes.

Mid Market Sees Black and White

Posted by Cindy on April 8, 2013

Apr 082013

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 nature.

These two have been collaborating around the bay area lately with a artist well known to this website, Zio Ziegler.

Sumer #24 by Larry Bell

Posted by Cindy on April 6, 2013

Apr 062013

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.

Larry Bell (born in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) is a contemporary American artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California. From 1957 to 1959 he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles as a student of Robert Irwin, Richards Ruben,Robert Chuey, and Emerson Woelffer. He is a grant recipient from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions. Bell’s work has been shown at museums and in public spaces in the United States and abroad over the course of his 40-year career.

Larry Bell’s art addresses the relationship between the art object and its environment through the sculptural and reflective properties of his work. Bell is often associated with Light and Space, a group of mostly West Coast artists whose work is primarily concerned with perceptual experience stemming from the viewer’s interaction with their work.

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