Tag: San Francisco Public Art
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Helen Bruton’s Tile Murals at the Golden West Hotel
114 Powell Street Union Square In the very narrow entry way to the Hotel Union Square are these two exquisite tile murals. While the hotel was originally built in 1908 for the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition, the murals were not added until 1935. The murals were done by Helen Bruton Bell (1898-1985) Ms. Bell…
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Painted Grain Silos in San Francisco
696 Amador Street off 3rd Street / Pier 90/92 Bayview/Hunters Point A while back I wrote about these grain silos, I also mentioned at the time they eventually would become an art project. You can read all about the silos here. This project is part of the Blue Greenway Project, a $2.2 million project funded…
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Tiled Stairways to Heaven
Golden Gate Heights 16th Avenue between Kirkham and Lawton This is the second project by Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher covering stairways in the Golden Gate Heights area. You can read about both of them and their first project here. This project was made possible by a group called Hidden Garden Steps. According to…
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Glass that challenges your understanding
San Francisco International Terminal Terminal Two Air Over Under by Norie Sato – 2011 These two Huge panels are easier to see than to photograph. (The above photo is courtesy of FlySFO) They are hand painted and silkscreened glass enamels on float glass and measure 16 ft. x 150 ft. each. Norie Sato’s imagery was inspired…
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Flight Patterns
San Francisco International Airport Terminal One Boarding Area C Flight Patterns by Larry Kirkland – 1987 Stainless steel cables, painted aluminum tubing, sheeting and screening 264 in. x 276 in. x 756 in. Born in 1950 in Port Hueneme, California, Larry Kirkland moved with his military family throughout the U.S. and abroad during his childhood.…
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A Mosaic of Bay Area History
San Francisco International Airport Terminal 1 Connector Level 2 Bay Area Victorian, Bay Area, Deco, Bay Area Funk by Joyce Kozloff – 1982 This artwork is inspired by historical decorative styles found in the Bay Area. The left panel, Bay Area Victorian, draws its sources from the ornament on old homes in the Mission District,…
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Thousands and Thousands of Tiles
San Francisco International Airport International Terminal Main Hall Gateway 2000- by Ik-Joong Kang This artwork contains 5,400 unique 3 in. x 3 in. paintings, wood carvings, tiles and cast acrylic cubes. The artist began working in this 3 in. x 3 in. format when he was a student and commuted long distances to various part-time…
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Stacking Stones
San Francisco International Airport Terminal Two Level Two Stacking Stones by Seiji Kunishma – 1983 These stones were commissioned by SFAC for the airport in 1983. They remained in the airport during the new construction. Born in Nagoya, Japan, Seiji Kunishima is an internationally renowned artist whose sculptures are characterized by a serene balance between…
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Tapestries to take your breath away
San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 Waiting Area This is a series by Mark Adams. They include Garden Outside Gate, Garden in Golden Gate Park, and Garden in San Andreas Valley. They have been in storage for over 20 years at the SFAC. They were brought out and installed as part of the complete remodel…
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Topo in Cloth and aluminum
San Francisco International Airport Departure Lobby Terminal 2 Kendall Buster -Powder coated steel tubing; greenhouse shade cloth- 288 in. x 288 in. x 192 in Topograph I & II Kendall Buster earned a BFA degree from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University as well…
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Welcome
San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 Baggage Claim Level 1 Dan Snyder – Polyurethane Paint on Aluminum -1983 Titled Welcome North, Welcome South, Welcome East, Welcome West, is designed to greet visitors from around the world. According to Mr Snyder’s website: Dan was born in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1941. His father…
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Kokeshi to Kaiju
San Francisco International Airport Astro Boy (Tesuwan Atomu) When the SFO Museum began Twittering about their upcoming Japanese Toy exhibit, I knew I needed to see it. Sadly, it is behind TSA. It is in Terminal Three for all you lucky people flying in and/or out of SFO in the next 6 months. I contacted…
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A Museum for the Cost of a BART Ticket
San Francisco International Airport Addison Model 2A Radio c. 1940 Many people know that there is art at SFO, but did you know there is an actual museum? Much of the art you see scattered around the airport as single pieces belong to the SFAC, however, the exhibits you see, carefully crafted for your enjoyment,…
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Guglielmo Marconi Memorial
Lombard Avenue On the drive up to Coit Tower North Beach This memorial to Guglielmo Marconi was placed sometime in 1938-1939. A group called the Marconi Memorial Foundation incorporated in the 1930s for the purpose of enshrining Marconi as the inventor of the wireless (a fact contested by the Russians). They placed two memorials…
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Pennsylvania Comes to San Francisco
600 California Street Chinatown These two bronze plaques were originally the doors to a hand operated elevator. The doors, designed by Lee O. Lawrie in 1930-1931 were in the Education Building of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Capitol Park in Harrisburg. The sculpture was one of six sets of elevator doors that the artist originally fabricated.…
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Washington High School and the WPA
George Washington High School 600 32nd Avenue Richmond District George Washington High School opened on August 4, 1936, to serve as a secondary school for the people of San Francisco’s Richmond District. The school was built on a budget of $8,000,000 on a site overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. The architect was Timothy Pflueger, here he begins…
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Herakut #7
McCoppin Between Gough and Valencia Mission / SOMA This mura, by Herakut is on the walls of the Flax Art Store on Market Street. Herakut has been in this website before with a piece in the Tenderloin. According to Flax’s website: In 2004 Herakut came together, finding a magic synthesis between the artistic skills and specialties of…
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Strong Roots, Healthy Tree
Olive and Polk The Tenderloin This mural was done in 1989. It is titled Strong Roots, Healthy Tree and is by Johanna Poethig who intertwined images from Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian cultures. Johanna is responsible for numerous pieces of public art around San Francisco * * Since the 1970s, a growing number of Vietnamese, Laotian…
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Old Time Fun
Frank Norris Street (aka as Austin) and Polk The Tenderloin Mike Shine is an artist who lives and paints in Bolinas, California. With no formal art school training, his background instead includes fine woodworking, furniture and cabinet making: skills that often appear in his artwork. He typically creates using driftwood and found objects, and many…
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Utility Boxes get Dressed Up
Duboce and Church Castro Mona Caron, who created the adjacent Bicycle Coalition mural on the back of the Safeway has added new touches to the Muni utility boxes on the sidewalk. On one side of the boxes, bicyclists entering the Wiggle are greeted by an illustrated flowing banner that lists the names of the streets that make…
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San Francisco’s Civic Center the Heart of the City Beautiful Movement
San Francisco’s 1906 fire and earthquake not only destroyed much of San Francisco, it also destroyed the dream of many to bring the City Beautiful Movement to large sections of San Francisco. The City Beautiful Movement began with the “White City,” also known as the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. The Exposition took place in Chicago and…
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Golden Gate Park – Our National Pastime
Golden Gate Park Our National Pastime by Douglas Tilden – 1889 Presented to the Golden Gate Park by a friend of the sculptor as a tribute to his energy, industry and ability Cruet Fondeur, Paris (John Cruet was a moldmaker in Paris, he also worked with Rodin. Fondeur means owner of the foundry) Tilden originally…
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S.F. Bicycle Coalition Mural
Castro/Duboce Avenue/Nob Hill Back of 2020 Market Street In 1972 BART built the Market Street subway, including Muni Metro. Along the Duboce Avenue tunnel entrance was a single eastbound lane for cars. During the 1994 closure of the street, for construction, The Bicycle Coalition worked to show that this street, which when used by…
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SOMA’s Fun Creatures
354 5th Street This work is by Sirron Norris. Born in Cleveland, Ohio he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, eventually settling down in San Francisco in 1997. Sirron worked as a production artist in the video game industry while he perfected his skill set as a fine artist. In 1999, Sirron quickly gained…
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UN Plaza
Civic Center – San Francisco United Nations Plaza United Nations Plaza is an area off of Market Street with a walkable corridor straight to Civic Center, which includes City Hall and Herbst Theatre. The United Nations Charter was signed in the War Memorial Veterans Building’s Herbst Theatre in 1945, leading to the creation of the…
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The Eastern Outfitting Company
1017 Market Street Mid-Market This gorgeous building sits on Market between 6th and 7th. It has been sheathed and scaffolded for quite awhile now, and it is a pleasure to see that it has come out from behind its blanket much better for the stay. The seven story building, with its terra-cotta finish and steel…
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Poetry of Pier 14
Pier 14 Waterfront/Embarcadero This 637-foot-long pedestrian span opened in 2006. It is the newest recreational pier on the San Francisco waterfront. The reason it exists is the breakwater on which it rests, a shield for ferries from winter storms; the design, by ROMA Design group was to top the pier with a 15-foot-wide corridor of…