sculpture – Page 4 – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Lee Kelly Fountain

Posted by Cindy on October 20, 2014

Oct 202014

Southwest 6th Avenue and Pine Street
Portland, OR

Oregon artist Lee Kelly, often referred to as “Oregon’s Sculptor” won an international competition to design this sculpture “Untitled.” In this work, water flows over several 20-foot-tall steel structures.

Born in rural McCall in central Idaho, Kelly was raised near Riggins, Idaho. In the 1950s he graduated from what is now Portland State University before joining the United States Air Force. During the late 1950s he attended Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. He presently lives in Oregon City, Oregon.

Talos Number 2

Posted by Cindy on October 20, 2014

Oct 202014

Southwest 6th Avenue and Stark
Portland, OR

Titled Talos Number 2 this bronze sculpture is by James Lee Hanson.

“Talos No. 2 is part of the Portland Transit Mall. It was completed during 1959–1977, and was funded by TriMet and the United States Department of Transportation. The abstract sculpture depicts Talos, the giant man of bronze in Greek mythology who protected Crete from invaders. The piece is 7 feet tall and is administered by the Regional Arts & Culture Council, which offers the following description of Talos and the sculpture he inspired:

“He had one vain running from his neck to his ankle which flowed with lead, a sacred fluid believed to be the blood of the gods. This sculpture transforms the mythic figure into an abstracted form. Rather than mimicking the monumentality of the character, Kelly invokes him though this vaguely human but altogether otherworldly creature that seems to take in its surroundings from three directions at once, acting as a guardian to those who pass by”

James Lee Hansen was born in 1925 and graduated from the Portland Art Museum School in 1950. He has spent a great time of his adult life as a teacher of Sculpture:
1964-1990 Professor in Sculpture, Portland State University, Portland, OR
1967 Instructor in Sculpture, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
1958-196 Fine Arts Collaborative, architectural art and art in public places
1958 Instructor in Sculpture, University of California, Berkeley
1957-1958 Instructor in Sculpture, Oregon State University, Corvallis

California Grizzly

Posted by Cindy on October 15, 2014

Oct 152014

San Francisco Zoo
In Front of the California Grizzly Exhibit

This Grizzly sculpture is by Scientific Art Studio. From their website:

We are designers, sculptors, painters, welders, builders, crafters, fabricators, and – above all – dreamers. We live to see the world through new eyes, to laugh and play like children, and to explore boldly and fearlessly. We push boundaries and relish challenges.

For the past 33 years Scientific Art Studio has been the design and fabrication studio pushing the envelope of the latest fabrication techniques and bringing beautiful to everything we do. Under Ron Holythuysen’s creative direction, our multi-talented team has designed and built engaging exhibits, themed environments, immersive playgrounds, and engineered icons around the world.

Originaly sculpted and cast for an outdoor trail exhibit the bear statue was recast and placed in the interpretive center of Hearst Grizzly Gulch.

Recognized as the California state mammal and the symbol of the California state flag, the grizzly bear is now extinct in the state. Between 1800 and 1975, the grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states decreased from 50,000 to less than 1,000. The decline can be attributed to human development, livestock depredation control, commercial trapping and unregulated hunting.

Maternite

Posted by Cindy on September 8, 2014

Sep 082014

Jewish Senior Living Group
Orignally known as Jewish Home of the Aged
120 Silver Avenue
Excelsior District

Ursula Malbin was born on April 12, 1917, in Berlin to Jewish parents, both doctors of medicine. While in Germany she worked as a cabinet-maker. In 1939, a few weeks before World War II, but after her family had already left the country, she fled Nazi Germany, alone, penniless and without a passport.

She found herself in Geneva when the war broke out, and there she met the sculptor Henri Paquet, whom she married in 1941. Since 1967, Ursula Malbin has divided her creative life between the Artists’ Village of Ein Hod in Israel and the village of Troinex near Geneva in Switzerland.

Maternite was a gift to the Jewish Home by Mr. and Mrs. Victor Marcus in 1970.

According to the Jewish Home Website:

The Jewish Home of San Francisco first opened its doors to residents in 1891. The complex has undergone many periods of development, including the construction of a Brutalist-style tower known as “Annex A” in 1969, designed by Howard A. Friedman, and its associated courtyard and fountain in 1970, designed by Lawrence Halprin. The courtyard is enclosed by Annex A (now known as the Goodman Building) and the Beaux Arts-inspired Main Building on an almost 9-acre site.

The design for the courtyard employs a central fountain, a generous expanse of lawn and deciduous and evergreen trees to create an urban oasis for residents. The fountain is composed of a series of cascading, rectilinear, overlapping concrete planes, animated with water that streams over them and collects in a shallow sunken pool. The concrete planes form an almost stage-like horizontal surface, upon which reclines a mother and child sculpture by Israeli artist Ursula Malbin. The fountain and its foreground apron are nestled into a shallow-sloping lawn edged with a curvilinear concrete seat wall and wide sidewalk with moveable seating. A mixture of pine trees and pollarded sycamores create a buffer along the courtyard’s edge.

The significance of Halprin’s own Jewish heritage and his role as an active member of the 1970 Jerusalem Committee, assessing the city’s master plan at the time of this commission, brings a unique cultural dimension to the importance of this Bay Area project.

****

Although you must enter the main building to access the garden, the Jewish Home is extremely accommodating, and this was not a problem what-so-ever on the day that I visited.

Hotel Pacific

Posted by Cindy on August 19, 2014

Aug 192014

300 Pacific Street
Monterey, California

Michael H. Casey sculpted these fountains for the Hotel Pacific in 1986.

The joy of working on a beautiful hotel such as this is that you get to stay there while installing the fountains. It became the go to place to stay whenever we were in the Monterey area.

Including when Michael H. Casey and Cecil Mark sailed the “Question Mark” a 36′ sail boat to Monterey and back.

St. Mark and St. Matthew of Grace Cathedral

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2014

Aug 172014

Grace Cathedral
1100 California Street
San Francisco, California

Saint Mark

Saint Matthew

Michael H. Casey was honored to have been chosen to sculpt both Saint Mark and Saint Matthew for Grace Cathedral in 2001 – 2002. He always felt he was chosen due to the fact that he mentioned seismic stability during his interview.

The sculptures were life sized, originally sculpted in clay with the final product in cast stone.

Michael’s Proposal for Saint Mark: Saint Mark has been described as a rebel. His gospel is terse and direct. Much has been made of the ordering of the events in his gospel, almost as if he wrote down Saint Peter’s teachings as they occurred to him. I have shown him as a younger man, in his early thirties, strong and vigorous. He has stopped in mid-stride, as if impatient to jot down a thought before it’s forgotten. He is dressed in typical Roman garb, because so much of his writing was thought to have been done there. The folds of the clothing, as well as the tall, slender figure are meant to conjure up images of the Saints depicted in the Gothic cathedrals of Europe He is shown with his iconic symbols, the lion, reflective of the incident where Mark’s faith in God converts his father, and the broken sandal, because his first convert was a cobbler he visited to repair a shoe.

These clay original photos were taken in Michael H. Casey’s studio

Saint Matthew in clay at Michael H. Casey’s studio

Michael’s notes for Saint Matthew: Saint Matthew is derived largely from Caravaggio’s painting. Because he came to Christianity late in life, after a successful, if not too popular, career as a tax collector, he is depicted as a much older man, almost elderly. His garb, again derived from Caravaggio, is more typical of the East, where his ministry lay. The drapery is again reflective of his future Gothic surroundings. His is captured here at the moment of the angel’s appearance, hopefully depicting the awe and wonder of the occurrence. The angel, though his iconic symbol, plays a much larger role in this sculpture than that of a mere identifier. On reflection Saint Matthew is captured perhaps a split second later than in Caravaggio’s painting. His tax roll book forgotten, it has lowered of it own weight and is about to be dropped completely. I suppose this is symbolic of Matthew dropping his old, Judaic life to follow the path of Christianity.

Michael always felt that the one person at Grace Cathedral that never got credit for all his hard work on making these happen was Fermin Nasol, so I would like to give him credit right now.

Michael also told a funny story about first meeting the art board : “When we had the first meeting, I entered the room and they were all seated around a conference table; three on the long side, one at each end. The remaining long side – my side – was empty save for the lone chair right in the center. After shaking hands all around and making introductions, I went to sit down, but as soon as I touched the chair, I jumped up saying “Wow that seat’s hot!!!” It broke the ice!

The sculptures, not including installation, cost $32,550 and were paid for by a grant from the Skaags Foundation.

Necklace of Lights

Posted by Cindy on August 16, 2014

Aug 162014

Lake Merritt
468 Perkins Street
Oakland, CA

Originally shut down during World War II, the Necklace of Lights circling Lake Merritt fell into complete disrepair and remained non-functional for many years, The Lake Merritt Breakfast club started a campaign in the 1980’s to raise money to restore the iconic Necklace of Lights. Once the project was complete, they commissioned Michael H. Casey to produce a stand to hold the dedication plaque.

The sculpture was designed by Sue Associates of Oakland, California. The actual sculpture itself was done by Michael H. Casey. The piece was produced out of cast stone by Michael H. Casey Designs in 1987.

The cost of the cast stone pedestal was $4000.

1940 Packard Building Comes Back to Life

Posted by Cindy on August 16, 2014

Aug 162014

865 The Alameda
San Jose, California

This photo shows the Packard Buidling in 1940. Notice the wonderful sculptural detailing over the windows and the doors. As often happened during the 1960’s and 1970’s many buildings were stripped of their ornamentation to reflect the modernism trend that was sweeping the country.

In 2009 the engineering firm Biggs Cardosa, who bought the building in 2007, hired Michael H. Casey Designs to re-create all of the cast stone ornamentation that was originally over the doors and window.

The projected was done in panels, originally sculpted by Michael H. Casey, to make the installation easy. Once the sculpture was done the final product was molded and cast in GFRC by Michael H. Casey Designs.

The cohesive group that consisted of the owners, the contractor, Garden City Construction and the architect Garcia-Teague made this one of the funnest projects that Michael H. Casey Designs had the pleasure of working on.

As Michael often did, he worked from old photographs of the building to as closely recreate the original as possible.

Females Grace the Olympic Club

Posted by Cindy on August 11, 2014

Aug 112014

665 Sutter Street
The Olympic Club Parking Garage
Union Square

I have showed you the figures at the front of the Olympic Club here. But at the back, the entry to the parking garage, are 9 female nudes.

The sculptures are by Michelle Gregor. Michelle has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from University of California, Santa Cruz and Master of Fine Arts degree from San Francisco State University.

Michelle Gregor has taught ceramics at San Jose City College since 2002. She also teaches 3-D design every spring semester.

“Her style is described as emblematic of the unique Californian style seen in art, as it is not too representational, but has a certain serenity and spiritual feeling about it. She comes from a generation that blazed the path of abstract expressionism in the Bay Area, specifically for female artists.” The California Aggie

Ndebele

Posted by Cindy on August 5, 2014

Aug 052014

1601 Griffith Street
BayView / Hunters Point

This abstract sculpture composed of three vertical elements, is titled Ndebele and is by Fran Martin. It was installed in 1987.

I have tried three times over many many months to find this piece. It is listed at the pump station but it is actually on the side in a small gated area off of Shafter Avenue.

Fran Martin received her M.A. in Art in 1973. She fabricated and exhibited sculpture until 1995. Since 1994, she has been co-founder of and ardent worker at the Visitacion Valley Greenway Project (VVGP).

The Griffith Pump Station was built in 1985, and is part of the SFPUC wastewater enterprise system.

SFAC Shame on You

Posted by Cindy on July 21, 2014

Jul 212014

1351 24th Avenue
Outer Sunset

This travesty sits in front of the San Francisco Department of Public Health Building.

The only photograph I could find was through the Smithsonian Institute.

The sculpture, titled Sailor and Mermaid, originally was made of copper sheets, cut, pounded, and welded, with bronze. It sits on a concrete pad. It was done in 1970 by Henry Marie-Rose.

Marie-Rose, who died in 2010, has been in this blog before with work both on a fire station in the financial district and about his work as a teacher. His death makes this even more tragic as it is now absolutely irreplaceable.

Photo from the Potrero View

There is absolutely no excuse for this piece to be in this state, especially as it sits in front of a San Francisco government building. The San Francisco Art Commission, which is the owner of the piece, has a lot to answer for.

UPDATE

I want to thank Joe Eskenazi for this wonderful follow up article. After he read my post he tracked down someone at the SFAC and the result was this article on Tuesday August 5th in SF Weekly

Raiders of the Lost Art: Another San Francisco Sculpture Goes Missing
By Joe Eskenazi
@EskSF

For 30-odd years, Cindy Casey and her husband, Michael, renovated ornate elements of city buildings and works of art here in San Francisco. Not so long ago, Michael died. Now Cindy maintains a blog about public art here in the city.

Or, sometimes, the lack thereof. On a recent trip past the Ocean Park Health Center on 24th Avenue, she was expecting to find Sailor and Mermaid, a glorious, 12-foot high copper sculpture crafted in 1970 by Henri Marie-Rose. Instead, all that remains is a stump roughly the size of a garden gnome.

As it turns out, the statue had been gone a long time.

Years ago, the artist’s son, Dr. Pierre-Joseph Marie-Rose, a pediatrician with the city’s Department of Public Health, visited the site for a meeting. He was shocked to find only the gnome-sized stump. He was even more shocked at the nonchalant explanation health center personnel offered him: They allowed the foliage to cover the sculpture for years and, when they finally cut it back, Sailor and Mermaid was gone.

The San Francisco Arts Commission believes the sculpture was swiped in the early 1990s. Dr. Marie-Rose made his serendipitous discovery in the late 1990s. It was left to him to inform his father of the loss.

In fact, Henri Marie-Rose’s lost work could stand in for any number of Arts Commission pieces. The body is undertaking a yearslong comprehensive survey to chart the whereabouts of its 4,000-plus items, many of which are unaccounted for. The commission has additionally loaned out some 754 works to 183 city agencies and offices. It does not know where many of them are.

The list of public artwork stolen or vandalized since 2007 runs to 15 pages. Among the more memorable losses are the serial thefts of the Mahatma’s spectacles from the Ferry Plaza Gandhi memorial; the filching of plaques from the Shakespeare Garden; and the theft of all four bronze tortoises from the eponymous Fountain of the Tortoises in Huntington Park. Hundreds of instances of graffiti are documented, including one wit who chose to scrawl “Just sit your fat ass down and relax” on the bronze chairs near the Church and Duboce Muni stop.

Kate Patterson-Murphy, the Arts Commission’s spokeswoman, urged concerned residents to report vandalism and contribute to the city’s ArtCare fund.

That won’t bring back Sailor and Mermaid, however.

Henri Marie-Rose died in 2010. His sole accounting on the Arts Commission’s list of public works is a copper relief emplacement on the exterior of a fire station on Sansome Street. It is mounted several stories above the sidewalk.

And, as such, it is still there.

The Sundial at Ingleside Terrace

Posted by Cindy on June 17, 2014

Jun 172014

Entrada Court
Ingleside Terrace

What is now Ingleside Terraces was the southwestern most portion of San Miguel Rancho, bordered on the west by Rancho Laguna de la Merced. Rancho Laguna de la Merced and San Miguel Rancho were apparently the last of the Mexican “ranchos” to be incorporated in what we now know as San Francisco.

The sundial was dedicated on October 10, 1913, with a rather spectacular event attended by 1500 people. According to the dedication brochure: “The ceremony attending the dedication of the sundial at Ingleside Terraces was one of rare delight. It took place at the close of a warm, vivid day in the fall of the year. The sun had gone down into the ocean, leaving the sky all crimson and gold. The air was soft and still and heavily scented with the fragrant breath of flowers. Far away beyond the grassy stretches of the Terraces the sea reflected the glory of the sunset, and one might easily imagine himself in an old garden on the shore of the Mediterranean. ”

“The sundial and the four columns surrounding it were veiled and loomed shapeless against a rippling background of flowerbeds…”

There were originally four columns upon which sat the four classic orders of column capitals and then an urn. The Corinthian column urn represented manhood, autumn, and afternoon

The urn atop the Ionic Column represented youth, summer and noon. The Tuscan Column urn represented old age, winter and night and

the Doric urn shows, childhood, springtime and morning. (Photo courtesy of www.SFog.us, as I failed to recognize it in its absolute simplicity while there)

The sundial was installed by the Urban Realty Improvement Company to lure buyers to its Ingleside Terraces development. The 148-acre residence park offered a lawn tennis court, a clubhouse for social gatherings and about 750 houses priced from $6,000 to $20,000.

The sundial stands 26 feet high and 28 feet across. The sundial was first promoted as “the largest and most magnificent sundial in the world,” but that is no longer true, not even in San Francisco . A sundial in Hunters Point that has been written up in this website and you can read about here, has a gnomon (the triangular piece that casts the shadow) that is 78 feet long, nearly triple the length of Ingleside’s.

The residential area was originally the Ingleside Race Track. The race track was dedicated in 1895, but when the 1906 earthquake struck the owner offered the site as a refugee camp for survivors and the track never saw a race again.

In the original brochure this was called Sundial Park and it was designed by Joseph A. Leonard. The brochure described the park like this: “The gigantic granite gnomon of the sundial at Ingleside Terraces…bridges a limpid pool wherein two bronze seals sport at the base of a fountain…four great heart-shaped plots of grass surrounded by walks point one each to the true south, north, east and west. At intermediate points four beautiful columns… surmounted by a bronze vase upon which, in bas-relief, is told by allegorical figures the story of the four stages of man, the four seasons of the year, and the four periods of the day.”

I have also found reference to this Sundial as the Urbano Sundial, I assume because Urbano Road essentially was paved over the course of the race track.

Thomas Houseago

Posted by Cindy on May 26, 2014

May 262014

Foundry Square
1st and Howard

These two sculptures are by Thomas Houseago. The standing is titled Boy III and the one laying is Sleeping Boy. These are both white coated bronze.

Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco Planning Commission

This information about the artist comes from the San Francisco Planning Commission.

Thomas Houseago was born in Leeds, England in 1972. In 1989 he received a grant to attend a local art school called the Jacob Kramer Foundation College, and later continued his studies at Central St. Martin’s College of Art in London. After finishing college in London, Houseago attended De Ateliers in Amsterdam, after which he worked in Brussels for several years until 2004 when he moved to Los Angeles with his wife Amy Bessone.

Although Houseago had previously shown his work in Europe, his art has gone largely unrecognized in the United States until 2007 when a collector from Miami purchased eights of his sculptures. In 2008, Houseago had his first solo show in the United States titled Serpent, at the Los Angeles based David Kordansky Gallery. Houseago was inspired for that showing by Virgil’s The Aeneid and the Hellenistic masterwork Laocoon and His Sons.

Thomas Houseago draws inspiration for his art from the past, in particular the myths of Ancient Greece. He portrays the human body with the abstraction of the modern era, while rejecting the late-modernist notion of the purity of materials. His intense and impatient personality is reflected in his art, which tends to be rough and crude at times. Houseago is drawn towards materials like plaster because of his ability to heap it on to his sculptures with little precision. These particular works, Boy III and Sleeping Boy, are cast bronze with a white patina finish, a new medium for Houseago.

Thomas Houseago’s sculptures advance a psychological hold over their viewers through a highly evolved artistic language that embodies multiple contradictions: his works are simultaneously three dimensional and flat; sculpture and drawing; sharply angular and bulbous. They exude menacing strength whilst at the same time conveying vulnerability. Their rough surfaced forms seem inchoate, yet sophisticated, to be strangely autonomous: they are empty and yet alive.

Houseago has described himself as a realist. His concern, more than with the appearance of his sculptures, is to impart a sense of anima into the works: “As a sculptor, I am trying to put thought and energy into an inert material and give it truth and form” he has said. His sculptures reject the ironic re-workings of readymade vocabularies so prevalent in contemporary art in favor of a deeply individual reckoning with matter. His influences are the heavyweight sculptors of Western art— Picasso, Brancusi, Rodin, Moore and Michaelangelo can all be felt in his art, but his work equally draws from the everyday art forms of music, cartoons and movies: “I see Modernist art through the lens of pop culture, not the other way around.”

The process of making is extremely evident in Houseago’s sculptures. Materials such as plaster, iron rebar, hemp fiber and un- treated wood exert a raw physicality, and their rough forms reveal the actions that have made them. In Sleeping Boy and Boy III, bronze sculptures that arrest the plasticity of clay, the molding process has left each body part riven, with no attempt made by the artist to smooth over the joins or to fill in the hollows of their forms. Houseago’s sculpture is wantonly unrefined. His limbs emphasize their fragmentation rather than the humanist concerns of his art historical forbearers. In both works, Houseago draws broadly on Classical sculpture, seeing them through his own, unique vision. Boy III reaches back through time to refer to the kouroi, the proto-classical representations of male youths that emerged in ancient Greece. But the pose of Houseago’s youngster is informed less by those Archaic Period sculptures than the struts of fashion and pornographic photography, one arm looped behind the head, the other jutting so that its hand is on a hip.

Sleeping Boy by Thomas Houseago at StormKing

The Financial Times did a very detailed article about Houseago and his creative process with some very informative photographs. You can read the article here.

Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Planning Commission

The two planted walls behind the sculptures at Foundry Square are 27 feet in height. One of the walls is “hedge-like” while the other is a multitude of different colored leafage. The firm of SWA is the landscape architect. “The original idea was to consolidate the open space for all four buildings in a single plaza. The four corner bosques soften the intersection and create open space.”

Reflections

Posted by Cindy on April 21, 2014

Apr 212014

680 Folsom Street
SOMA East of 5th

This piece by Gordon Huether is titled Reflections. It is part of the 1% for Art program in San Francisco.

According to his website Gordon Huether was born in Rochester, NY in 1959, to German immigrant parents. Having dual citizenship in Germany and the U.S., Huether has spent much time traveling between both countries. Huether learned art composition and appreciation at an early age from his father. In the course of his initial artistic explorations, Huether was resolved to create a lasting impact on the world around him through the creation of large-scale works of art. He took a deliberate step towards this goal in 1987 when Huether founded his studio in Napa, California.

In 1989 Huether was awarded his first public art commission for the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute. Given the opportunity to collaborate with a building design and construction team, allowed Gordon to realize what he envisioned, and proved to be a significant step for him.

Reflections draws on Huether’s belief that our essence can always be found in nature and light. The dichroic glass panels mounted to the stainless steel frame allow the viewer to explore that essence through the images they reflect, whether beautiful and pristine, or dirty, damaged and decayed. The piece is made of glass and metal and stands 5 X 12 X 5 feet.

Marine Firemen’s Union

Posted by Cindy on April 14, 2014

Apr 142014

240 2nd Street
SOMA East of 5th

The Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association often referred to as the Marine Firemen’s Union is an American labor union of mariners working aboard U.S. flag vessels. The Marine Firemen’s Union is an affiliate union of Seafarers International Union.The union was formed in San Francisco, California in October, 1883 by firemen on coal-burning steamers.

The building that holds this bas-relief was opened in 1957. Sculptor Olof Carl Malmquist designed the exterior bas-relief depicting marine firemen at work in a ship’s engine room.

Olof Carl Malmquist (1894-1975) was born in Wallingford, CT on October 26, 1894. Malmquist studied under Lee Lawrie at Yale and continued on a fellowship at Rome’s American Academy. After settling in San Francisco in 1922, he provided architectural embellishments on many public buildings in northern California. He contributed greatly to the sculpture on Treasure Island for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. He died in San Francisco.

I want to especially thank the authors of a wonderful book The San Francisco Labor Landmarks Guide Book, that was the only place I was able to find the artist of this historic piece.

Rain Portal

Posted by Cindy on April 7, 2014

Apr 072014

SFPUC Building
525 Golden Gate Avenue
Civic Center

Rain Portal by Ned Kahn. Kahn has several pieces around San Francisco that you can read about here.

Ned Kahn’s Rain Portal is located inside the lobby of the new Public Utilities building. Kahn’s Firefly graces the exterior of the building and you can read about it here.

Rain Portal seeks to permeate an interior architectural wall with rain. Drops of water falling inside of an undulating polycarbonate membrane suggests the endless cycle of evaporation and precipitation.

According to Kahn, “One of the paradoxes of the Rain Portal is that much of the entire history of architecture can be viewed as the endeavor to keep rain out. Here we have invited it in.”

The installation covers two walls located on either side of the lobby stairway. The installation is a self-sustaining system that continuously recycles water to create the illusion of rain inside the clear polycarbonate wall panels. The extruded polycarbonate has multiple cells of plastic that through which water is pumped up from a reservoir at the bottom of the panels and released as small drops into the top. The artwork was dedicated with the opening of the building in June 2012.

The installation of Rain Portal cost $24,800, and was done by Gizmo Art Productions. I was unable to find what the piece itself cost.

These two plaques are not part of Ned Kahn’s installation, but rather part of the buildings effort to be one of the foremost water conscious buildings in the world. An important reminder while California enters another year of severe drought.

This work has been deaccessioned.

Spirogyrate

Posted by Cindy on March 11, 2014

Mar 112014

Terminal Three
SFO
Post TSA

One weekend in January 2014 the city of San Francisco and the contractors opened the new Terminal Three to the public before it went live.

I used the opportunity to capture as much public art as I could before you had to buy an airline ticket to get access to this part of the airport.

The lighting in the terminal is pretty bad. There are big windows letting in lots of natural light, but the placement of the art made reflections, often the only thing, I was able to photograph.

This piece by Eric Staller proved to be very popular, it didn’t hurt that there was a DJ playing music for the kids to enjoy as well.

Eric Staller was commissioned by the SF Arts Commission to create a children’s play area at SFO. These are twelve, six foot diameter, spirals that seemingly propel one another like gears. The gears are laster-cut acrylic and are motorized to move both clockwise and counter-clockwise. The spirals sit under plate glass, and motion sensors activate the spirals to not only move, but change colors as people walk over them.

Eric Staller was born in 1947 in Mineola, New York. His father’s avocation has been architecture, this inspired Staller to study architecture himself. In 1971 Staller completed a Bachelor Degree in Architecture at the University of Michigan.

Spirogyrate was commissioned by the SF Art Commission for $304,000.

Oscar Wilde

Posted by Cindy on March 7, 2014

Mar 072014

Merrion Square
Dublin, Ireland

This fun statue of Oscar Wilde, laying back without a care in the world is in Marrion Square, Dublin. He is facing his boyhood home just across the street at 1 Merrion Square.

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, was born in nearby Westland Row in 1854. Wilde, who spent much of his adult life in England, is regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest literary figures. Until the late 1890s, owing to a gay affair which led to a prison sentence and disgrace, he was the darling of the upper classes, entertaining them with his considerable wit and lively conversation.

The statue was commissioned by the Guinness Ireland group for 45,000 pounds. It was unveiled in 1997. The sculptor was Danny Osborne. Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson was the model used for the sculpture’s head.

The sculpture is carved from a variety of colourful semi precious stones from many parts of the world. Green nephrite jade from Canada, white jade from Guatemala, pink thulite from Norway, black granite from India and blue pearl granite. The boulder on which the figure reclines is granite from the nearby Wicklow Mountains.

The two pillars which flank Oscar Wilde on both sides are used to set out his thoughts,opinions, witticisms on art and life. These quotes were selected by a mixture of poets, public figures, artists, and scientists, who use Wilde’s own words to pay tribute to him.

Danny Osborne was born in Dorset, England in 1949. He now resides in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada and Cork, Ireland. Osborne studied at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art. He is best known for his public sculptures, particularly this Oscar Wilde Memorial, listed by The Irish Times as one of the sites to see before you die. Osborn is also known for his paintings of the Canadian Arctic and his experimentation with lava flows to create sculptures. He is believed to be the first to figure out a process of casting sculpture out of live lava flows. His work has included lava casted sculptures from the active complex volcano Pacaya.

On the top of these two pillars are Dionysus and Constance. Male and Female. With Oscar in the middle – the perfect triangle.

“The bronze torso of Dionysus stands on the pillar of Art. Oscar had a plaster cast of a statue of this god in his study in Tite Street, London, associating this image not only with wine and youth but also with drama. Because it is fragmented, the sculpture represents not any particular body, but the unattainable or lost ideal that is Art.

On the pillar of life, kneels the figure of Constance, 6 months pregnant, her hands cradling the life she is carrying, gazing across the path over her shoulder at Oscar. It is significant that Oscars first homosexual encounter occurred when she was at this stage of pregnancy with her second child. Here the figure is complete and realistic, and represents the tyranny of fact, and Oscar is not looking at her but beyond her.” From Danny Osbornes website.

For information on travel in Ireland check out PassportandBaggage.

Bog Wood

Posted by Cindy on February 26, 2014

Feb 262014

Blarney Castle
Blarney
County Cork, Ireland

Blarney Castle has a fabulous curator. There is art work spread out throughout the grounds, and it is all so beautiful chosen for its particular site. This piece is by artist Pieter Koning.

The pice is actually a 7000 year old piece of bog oak and is titled Organic Growth. Pieter has done many pieces out of bog wood and according to his website: Bog Wood is found in the Irish bogs where it has been preserved for 5,000 years or more. There are three types of Bog Wood: Oak, Yew and Pine. The wood was part of the great forests which covered the central plains of Ireland. The fluidity and impression of movement are very endearing features of these bog wood sculptures.

Koning was born in Holland in 1948. He turned to sculpture after three years studying sociology and then subsequently worked with qualified stone sculptors for two years. Koning now lives in Ireland in Teeraha, Caherciveen, County Kerry where he also has his studio.

I was curious about working with bog wood and this is what I found. Bog-wood, is also known as abonos or morta, especially in the world of the pipe smokers. Which means to me, it must be somewhat easy to carve. The wood is usually stained brown by tannins dissolved in the acidic water. Bog-wood represents the early stages in the fossilisation of wood, with further stages ultimately forming lignite and coal over a period of many millions of years.

For information on traveling in Ireland checkout PassportandBaggage.com

Famine

Posted by Cindy on February 23, 2014

Feb 232014

St. Stephen’s Green
Dublin, Ireland

There are many famine statues around Ireland, as well as the world, and this one is by Edward Delaney.

Edward Delaney (1930–2009) was an Irish sculptor born in Claremorris in County Mayo in 1930. His best known works include the 1967 statue of Wolfe Tone and famine memorial at the northeastern corner of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the statue of Thomas Davis in College Green, opposite Trinity College Dublin. These are both examples of lost-wax bronze castings, his main technique during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Delaney attended the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and, supported by the Irish Arts Council, studied casting in Germany. He represented Ireland at the Biennale de Paris in 1959 and 1961.

Arts writer Judith Hill points out that these statues make no attempt at an exact likeness of the figures they portray, instead, they communicate the public stature of their subjects and, indeed, the public role of memorial statues through their proportions and scale.

The following is his obituary from The Guardian:

The Irish sculptor Edward Delaney, who has died aged 79, is best known for his two major public monuments in Dublin, the Thomas Davis and Wolfe Tone memorials, which were unveiled in 1966 and 1967 respectively. When the figure of Wolfe Tone, weighing three-quarters of a tonne, was placed in St Stephen’s Green, there were complaints that it was too big. He rejected them out of hand: “Tone figured life-size in a park setting would look like a leprechaun.”

Asked what the four famine figures flanking the fountain at the rear of the memorial had to do with Tone, he replied that the failure of the French-backed 1798 rebellion presaged the disaster of the late 1840s. “I would like to have depicted him in French uniform, plumed hat and victorious sword. But history decided otherwise.” The Davis memorial, opposite the gates of Trinity College, also attracted unfavourable comment, and was dismissed by one critic as “an elephantine-footed” monster. Delaney retorted: “Truth lies in proportions, not in size.” In 1971, the memorial was blown up and had to be reconstructed by the artist when only the head survived.

Described as direct to the point of brazen, Delaney cultivated the image of the “angry man of sculpture,” as one newspaper portrayed him. He lambasted collectors who did not buy his work and was scathing in his criticism of some public art. The Irish public, in his view, had little understanding of sculpture: “They think you are codding them, so if I get the chance to throw sculpture at them, I do it with style.”

He grew up in Farmhill, Crossboyne, Co Mayo. By his account, his forefathers, the De Laniers, were French stonemasons who came to Mayo in the mid-19th century. He recalled growing up “surrounded by stone fireplaces made by my grandfather”. But his father chose to be a farmer. Delaney left school at 14, to work as an assistant in a hardware shop. Wanting more out of life, he headed for Dublin. There, he “infiltrated” the National College of Art, attending classes without ever enrolling.

He was drawn to sculpture after reading an article about the German sculptor Josef Wackerle and used bursaries from the West German and Italian governments to travel. His aim was to learn the art of lost-wax bronze casting, an exceptionally faithful method of casting that allows for fine detail. His quest led him to study in Rome and Munich, after which he worked in seven different foundries in Germany and northern France.

He got to work with sculptors such as Toni Stadler and Giacomo Manzù, whom he considered “the greatest sculptor in Christendom”, and came to identify with the postwar tradition of European figurative sculpture. Other artists who influenced him were Marino Marini and Emilio Greco. His return to Ireland in the early 1960s coincided with an expanding art market, a consequence of economic growth and cultural change. Reflecting the optimism of the times, he established his studio in Dún Laoghaire along with a foundry capable of casting monumental sculpture. Until then, such work had been cast only in London, Paris or Milan.

He regularly exhibited in Dublin, showing lithographs as well as small bronzes. He also designed album covers for the Chieftains and illustrated Wolf Mankowitz’s play The Samson Riddle.

In the mid-1970s he built a studio in Carraroe, Co Galway, moving there permanently in 1980 to live and work on a 21-acre farm. He grew vegetables, but devoted most of his efforts to developing an outdoor sculpture park. The bronze figures of humans and animals that first dotted the landscape were in time joined by pieces in pressed steel.

He represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1959 and 1961, and exhibited his work in Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Budapest. He complained that London did not welcome Irish artists.

Represented in many private and corporate collections, he created an altar piece for St Michael the Archangel church in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and work for Our Lady’s hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth. His six-metre-high steel sculpture Celtic Twilight is situated on the campus of University College Dublin. His bronze statue Eve With Apple was recently donated by a private collector to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The piece was inspired by the artist’s years in Germany and the postwar poverty he witnessed there.

His reputation may ultimately rest on his small-scale work – animal and human figures, as well as more abstract creations. Of this work the critic Anthony Butler wrote: “Place these small sculptures on some Atlantic headland, letting the wind whistle through their complex spaces and cupping the rain on their raw texture, and they would be as natural as the limestone cliffs of Aran.”

For information about travel in Ireland checkout PassportandBaggage.com

Famine

Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2014

Feb 222014

Custom House Quay
Dublin. Ireland

This breathtaking group of statues is titled “Famine” and is by Rowan Gillespie.

The accompanying plaque reads ” Unveiled by Her Excellency President Robinson – Commissioned and Donated to the people of Ireland by Norma Smurfit 29th May 1997″

“A procession fraught with most striking and most melancholy interest, wending its painful and mournful way along the whole line of the river to where the beautiful pile of the Custom house is distinguishable in the far distance……”
Irish Quarterly Review, 1854

This location is a particularly appropriate and historic as one of the first voyages of the Famine period was on the ‘Perserverance’ which sailed from Custom House Quay on St. Patrick’s Day 1846. Captain William Scott, a native of the Shetland Isles, was a veteran of the Atlantic crossing, gave up his office job in New Brunswick to take the ‘Perserverance’ out of Dublin. He was 74 years old. The Steerage fare on the ship was £3 and 210 passengers made the historical journey. They landed in New York on the 18th May 1846. All passengers and crew survived the journey.

No event in history effected Ireland more than the Great Irish Famine, which lasted 1845 to 1849. During that time more than one million men, women and children died and a further one and a half million emigrated.

Rowan Fergus Meredith Gillespie (born 1953) is an Irish bronze casting sculptor of international renown. Born in Dublin to Irish parents, Gillespie spent his formative years in Cyprus.

In 1969 he attended York School of Artwhere he was first introduced to the lost-wax casting process by the bronze sculptor Sally Arnup.In 1970 he attended Kingston College of Art where he was tutored by woodcarver John Robson and through whom he met, and was encouraged by, Henry Moore. Following his studies at York and Kingston, he completed his studies at the Statens Kunstole in Oslo.

For information on travel in Ireland check out PassportandBaggage.

Sargent Johnson and Aquatic Park

Posted by Cindy on February 13, 2014

Feb 132014

Maritime Museum
Aquatic Park

This carved sandstone entry to the Maritime Museum was done as a Federal Arts Project (FAP) by Sargent Johnson. Johnson was in this site before for the log.

This building was originally a New Deal WPA (Works Progress Administration) building called the Aquatic Park Bathhouse. Construction began in 1936 and the building was dedicated in 1939. It is a stunning Streamline Moderne style building and a focal point of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.

Both the interior and exterior of the building contain art funded through the FAP.

Johnson designed and carved this green Vermont slate that adorns the museum entrance. The two-inch thick pieces of slate were cut into three by four foot pieces and carved by Johnson offsite. They were then attached to the building using wires and plaster of Paris.

According to Gray Brechin, author of Imperial San Francisco: allowing Johnson a prominent piece of art on a large scale, was a significant tribute to him and the African American community. WPA projects should also be remembered for efforts in gender and racial equality. Almost half of the artists who worked for the WPA were women, and room was made for Chicanos, American Indians, Asians and African Americans.

Judge James Seawell

Posted by Cindy on February 11, 2014

Feb 112014

Second Floor
City Hall
Civic Center

The San Francisco Call ran this article on November 8, 1898:

Judge James M. Seawell.

No better nomination has been made by any party than that of Judge James M. Seawell, one of the Democratic candidates for Superior Judge. During the six years he has served in that capacity he has built up a reputation as a jurist that he may justly feel proud of. He has shown conspicuous ability, has ever presided with dignity and has been honest and conscientious in his interpretation of the law. It can be truly said that his services have helped to elevate the bench of San Francisco and gain for it the confidence and respect of the people. Judge Seaweil was born in 1536 at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, where his father, who was at the time a captain in the regular army, was then stationed. The Judge graduated at Harvard College In 1855. and at the law school of Louisville, Ky., in 1857. He came to this city in 1861 and has resided here ever since. He was elected to the Superior bench in 1892, and his candidacy for re-election is most favorably received because of his eminent fitness for the position.

The artist of this bust was Ralph Stackpole. Stackpole is responsible for many statues throughout San Francisco that you can see here.

Ralph Ward Stackpole (May 1, 1885 – December 13, 1973) was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco’s leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realism, especially during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Federal Art Project for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Stackpole was responsible for recommending that architect Timothy L. Pflueger bring Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to San Francisco to work on the San Francisco Stock Exchange and its attached office tower in 1930–31.

The statue was a gift of the SF Bar Association.

Sky

Posted by Cindy on February 10, 2014

Feb 102014

San Francisco International Airport
Terminal 3
Post TSA

This is Sky by Merge Conceptual Design. Merge Conceptual Design is comprised of Franka Diehnelt and Claudia Reisenberger who are both architecture graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and currently teach at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Sky is a suspended light sculpture comprised of 27 mirror-polished stainless steel spheres in varying sizes. The globes are hollow with circular openings oriented at various angles. The interior of the globes is painted an even matte blue, and illuminated by LED edge lighting that creates a soft interior glow. A computerized program will cause the lights within the globes to brighten and dim at various intervals creating an ever changing pattern of light.

According to Merge, the installation explores the human perception of space. The exterior of the mirrored spheres use reflections to camouflage themselves in their surroundings; they reflect their environment, and distort and reproduce it in miniature. The optical effect caused by the blue interior and the edge lighting will cause the viewer to lose a sense of the spheres’ proportions as objects. Through subtle shifts in color and light intensity the space will become unreadable – both expanding and flattening at the same time.

Sky was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for $290,000.

Dianne Feinstein

Posted by Cindy on February 7, 2014

Feb 072014

City Hall
Mayors Balcony
Civic Center

Dianne Feinstein was the head of the Board of Supervisors on the day that Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were tragically assassinated. She instantly became Mayor.

This sculpture (the second of Dianne Feinstein to sit in City Hall) was done in 1996 by Lisa Reinertson.

According to Lisa’s website:

Lisa Reinertson is known for both her life size figurative ceramic sculptures and her large-scale public sculptures cast in bronze.

Coming from a family of peace and social activists, Reinertson’s work has an underlying humanism that can be seen both in her poetic ceramic figures with animals, to her more historic public commissions that express ideals of peace and social justice. In her public sculptures of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez she blends bas-relief into her three-dimensional sculptural forms creating an historic and powerfully moving narrative. Her work combines a realism rooted in figurative art traditions, with a contemporary expression of social and psychological content.

Reinertson completed her MFA at UC Davis in 1984, studying with Robert Arneson, and Manuel Neri. She has taught at several universities and colleges in Northern California including CSU Chico, Santa Clara University and UC Berkeley. Her ceramic work has been in exhibitions and museums nationally and internationally, and is in several public and private collections including the Crocker Art Museum, the ASU Art Museum and the Mint Museum. Reinertson has completed over 20 public commissions in bronze.

City Hall in Wood

Posted by Cindy on February 6, 2014

Feb 062014

City Hall
South Light Court
Civic Center

This is one of five wooden models that Don Potts did for the 1982 AIA Convention. The pieces were later purchased by the City and four are now on display in City Hall. You can read about the first two here. Don was a meticulous artist. Another renown project, that has since been destroyed was “My First Car”.

The fourth of these models is of the Hallidie Plaza, a building that houses the San Francisco Chapter of the AIA.

In researching Don Potts I found this article by Hal Crippen about “My Car”

THE FIRST CAR of Don Potts is actually an extraordinary assemblage—a concours d’elegance of one man’s work. The title itself has a sort of parallel to Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout and the objects themselves are resonant with the objects of a now—lost American boyhood—an American Flyer wagon, a soap box derby car, a first bicycle—but here raised to the Nth power of imagination.

At a time when true craftsmanship, and even the idea of it, is fast disappearing in automobiles, and even the very existence of the automobile is called into question, Don Potts has paid a necessary act of homage to the greatest of automobiles. One thinks of Bugattis, Lancia Lambdas, early MGs, birdcage Maserati frames.

The craftsmanship is literally stunning–but it is no more important to know that Potts’s spent six years on this creation than it is to know Michaelangelo’s back bothered him in painting Sistine Chapel. The Potts car is simply there in ultimate perfection. The aim of the craftsman is to reveal rather than to conceal—and thus this Vesalian anatomy of the idea of a car, beautiful in its nakedness.

It is a fantasy of a car—ultimately useless, somehow gut-exciting, doomed and yet with a strange optimism. It is a car for dream riders in dream landscapes.

The entire work consists of the Basic Chassis of wood, the Master Chassis, motorized and radio controlled, and two bodies, one of stainless steel and the other of fabric and steel. The whole work must, for the purpose of classification, be considered as sculpture, but actually it exists beyond classification simply as a work of art. It is not something that one could buy to “decorate” a space. It is, in heroic scale, both a monument and a memorial of an age.

George Moscone

Posted by Cindy on February 4, 2014

Feb 042014

City Hall
Mayor’s Balcony
Civic Center

This bronze bust is of the late Mayor George Moscone. Moscone was assassinated by Dan White along with Harvey Milk in November 1978, a tragedy for the City of San Francisco. Moscone was our 37th mayor.

The bust was done by my dear friend Spero Anargyros. Spero has a few works throughout San Francisco, and you can read about them here.

Many people are aware of the highly controversial, but in my opinion, excellent, sculpture of Moscone by Robert Arneson. The bust that Arneson created was not liked by the powers that be. The new mayor, Dianne Feinstein, had a letter hand delivered to each Arts Commissioner just before their vote on whether to accept the bust, asking them to reject it, and they did, by a seven-to-three vote. The bust, being shown at Moscone Center, was removed and Robert Arneson returned the thirty-seven thousand dollars he had been paid to do the work.

In December 1994, Spero Anargyros’s sculpture of George Moscone was unveiled.

The pedestal reads: San Francisco is an extraordinary city, because its people have learned to live together with one another, to respect each other, and to work with each other for the future of their community. That’s the strength and beauty of this city – it’s the reason why citizens who live here are the luckiest people in the world.”…a quote from George Moscone.

Log

Posted by Cindy on February 3, 2014

Feb 032014

Corner of Webster and Golden Gate Avenue
Park behind the Rosa Parks Senior Center
Western Addition

I have driven past this park one thousand times and have always wondered about this tree stump. Then one day my dear friend Netra Roston told me about an artist named Sargent Johnson. Sargent Johnson was not a stranger to this blog, his WPA work is at the Maritime Museum.

Born in Boston on October 7, 1887, Sargent Claude Johnson was the third of six children of Anderson and Lizzie Jackson Johnson. Anderson Johnson was of Swedish ancestry, and his wife was Cherokee and African American. All of the children were fair enough in complexion to be considered white, and several of Johnson’s sisters preferred to live in white society. Sargent, however, was insistent upon identifying with his African-American heritage throughout his life.

The Johnson children were orphaned by the deaths of their father in 1897 and their mother in 1902. The children spent their early years in Washington, D.C., with an uncle, Sherman William Jackson, a high school principal whose wife was May Howard Jackson, a noted sculptress who specialized in portrait busts of African Americans. It was probably while young Sargent was living with his aunt that he developed his earliest interest in sculpture.

Johnson arrived in the San Francisco area in 1915, during the time of the Panama Pacific International Exposition, which impressed him greatly.

The same year Johnson arrived in San Francisco, he met and married Pearl Lawson, an African American from Georgia who had moved to the Bay Area. The couple had one child, Pearl Adele, who was born in 1923. The couple separated in 1936 and shortly afterwards Mrs. Johnson was hospitalized at Stockton State Hospital, where she died in 1964.

Johnson worked at various jobs during his first years in San Francisco but also attended two art schools, the A. W. Best School of Art and the California School of Fine Arts. Johnson was enrolled at the latter school from 1919 to 1923 and from 1940 to 1942. He studied first under the well-known sculptor Ralph Stackpole for two years, and for a year with Beniamino Bufano. Johnson’s student work at the California School of Fine Arts was awarded first prizes in 1921 and 1922.

The 1930s were the most productive decade in Johnson’s career. The W.P.A. Federal Art Project provided a number of opportunities for Johnson during the late 1930s in the Bay Area. Johnson’s first large W.P.A. project was an organ screen carved of redwood in low relief for the California School of the Blind in Berkeley. The eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot panel was completed in 1937 and installed in the school’s chapel. In 1939 he undertook another W.P.A. project, decorating the interior of the San Francisco Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park.

For the Golden Gate International Exposition Johnson completed his largest figures. He designed two eight-foot-high cast stone figures, which were displayed around the fountain in the Court of Pacifica. Johnson’s figures depicted two Incas seated on llamas and were distinctly East Indian in inspiration. They are known as the “happy Incas playing the Piper of Pan,”. He also designed three figures symbolizing industry, home life, and agriculture for the Alameda-Contra Costa Building at the Exposition.

Johnson moved a number of times in the final fifteen years of his life. Following an illness in 1965, Johnson finally settled in a small hotel room in downtown San Francisco. In October 1967 Johnson died there of a heart attack.

This was Johnson’s last large work. It is not titled, and I could find out literally nothing about it and how it came to be sitting at this corner. The brochure that Netra gave to me was regarding a fundraiser titled Reclaiming Our Treasures. The intent was to raise funds to restore and resurrect the “log” along with the intent to place an historical marker near it. The fundraiser took place in 1997, I have not been able to find out anything more.

The Smithsonian has a transcript of a delightful conversation between Johnson and fellow artist Mary McChesney about Johnson’s work that can be found around San Francisco. You can read it here.

update 2016: The log has been removed and is now with the University of California for both authentication and potential restoration. It most likely will not return to this location.

Harvey Milk

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2014

Jan 302014

City Hall
Supervisors Legislative Chamber
Civic Center

This is the only bust of a supervisor in San Francisco’s City Hall.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office. Milk won a seat as a San Francisco supervisor in 1977. He served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor. Milk’s election and assassination were key components of a shift in San Francisco politics.

Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. In 2002, Milk was called “the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States”

This sculpture was designed by the team of Daub Firmin and Hendrickson of Berkeley at a cost of $84,000. Rob Firmin said artists tend to avoid busts that show toothy smiles, as Milk’s does. They went for it because, Firmin said, “Harvey Milk’s signature expression was a huge, amused and infectious grin.”

Part of the inspiration for the bust is from a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta, who worked in Milk’s Castro Street camera shop and is a co-chair of the memorial committee. His photograph caught Milk’s tie blowing in the San Francisco breeze and the bust includes that detail.

Engraved in the pedestal is a quotation from one of the audiotapes Milk recorded in the event of his assassination, which he openly predicted several times before his death. “I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give ’em hope.”

***

Eugene Daub is D & F’s principal sculptor. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and taught there. He has been an instructor at the Scottsdale Artists’ School. He has work in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institute, The British Museum, Ellis Island Museum, as well as many public-sculpture installations across the United States. He is accomplished in all sculpture modes and in a wide range of more general art.

Rob Firmin, in addition to hands-on art creation, works on concepts, composition, research, model building, and project management. Firmin holds a double major in history and art history from Denison University. His career and education have ranged across: realist-figurative sculpture, the formal study of history and art history, to the invention of project management techniques, financial risk reduction, dynamic process control, modeling techniques, and software concepts and design.

Jonah Hendrickson lives in Oakland where he splits his time between sculpture and his real estate business.

Goddess of Progress

Posted by Cindy on January 29, 2014

Jan 292014

City Hall
South Light Court

Goddess of Progress by F. Marion Wells

The plaque that accompanies her reads: On April 17, 1906, the dome atop San Francisco’s City Hall that was completed in 1896 supported a twenty foot statue by F. Marion Wells. The Goddess of Progress, with lightbulbs in her hair, held a torch aloft in her right hand, causing some contemporary counts to refer to it as the Goddess of Liberty. The statue was so securely mounted that on April 18, 1906, when City Hall and the city around it lay in ruins from the great earthquake-fire, it continued to stand at the peak of the now exposed steel tower. After workmen brought it down from the precarious perch when the building was finally torn down in 1909 the statue fell from a wagon and the 700-pound head broke off.

***

It is my understanding that the whereabouts of the body is unknown.

Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library taken in 1906

Francis Marion Wells was born in Pennsylvania in 1848. Wells arrived in San Francisco about 1870 and was a cofounder of the Bohemian Club in 1872. He was Douglas Tilden’s first teacher in 1883 and the following year was commissioned to do a bust of Hawaii’s King David Kalakua who was visiting in Oakland. Wells was active in the local art scene as a teacher as well as a producer of portrait busts and bas reliefs.

Once a very wealthy man, he fell on hard times, as this article from the San Francisco Call of July 14, 1903 attests:

FRANCIS MARION WELLS FORCED TO ENTER THE COUNTY HOSPITAL

Well-Known Sculptor, Artist, Literateur and Former Club Man, Afflicted by Illness, Compelled to Ask Municipality for Help

FRANCIS MARION WELLS, sculptor, literateur, club member and well-known man about town, was forced by dire illness and strain of circumstances to apply for admission to the City and County Hospital yesterday. He is now lying there in a helpless and pitiable state. Not one single friend came to him in his distress, although when in affluent circumstances his beautiful home and grounds at Berkeley were filled with those who enjoyed the royal hospitality that they were always welcome to there.

Broken in spirit, sick nigh unto death, his arms paralyzed, his mind partially deranged from his sufferings, he was compelled to seek the only relief at hand and become a ward of the city. His faithful wife has struggled nobly during his four months illness. He has been during all that time entirely, helpless, the result of five apoplectic shocks.

Two months ago, to save the family from actual starvation, Mrs. Wells took a position as housekeeper at the Vienna Lodging-house, 533 Broadway, where, with their two young sons, she was just enabled to make enough to keep the wolf from the door. As she had to do the entire work of twenty rooms and also cooking for the family, she had no time to give her husband the constant nursing that his case required, but was by his side whenever she could steal a moment from her work.

Yesterday afternoon when the ambulance came to take Wells away he said: “I hope there won’t be a crowd to see me put into the ambulance, as I don’t want the people to see me in this poverty stricken condition.” This was too much for his wife to bear, and she borrowed $2 from some kind neighbors, a hack was procured and the sufferer was, carried down the rickety stairs and placed in it. His wife and sons accompanied him, to the hospital and made him as comfortable there as possible and then bade him farewell and returned to their humble lodgings.

Mrs. Wells, who is a highly educated and refined Parisian, is broken hearted over the thought of his position.” She said with tears streaming down her pale face: “I do not care for myself; I am young and can work for my two boys, but to think that my husband’s friends should allow him to become a burden to the city is almost more than I can bear. When we were in deep distress, surrounded, by poverty and sickness, I wrote to several of his former wealthy, old-time and intimate friends in the Bohemian Club to come to his relief with food and medical attendance, but not one of them replied. I did not ask for anything for myself, only for him, and that appeal they refused him. Today he fainted four times on the way to the hospital, and when I left him he was almost, unconscious. Oh! I do not want him to die there. Don’t you think some of his old friends will do something for him and put him into a private sanitarium where his last hours can be spent?

RUINED BY SPECULATION.

“We have been very unfortunate.. When I came from Paris, fourteen years ago, I brought $60,000 with me and used it in buying property here and then built a beautiful home in Berkeley. All went well until General Ezeta persuaded us to go into his San Salvador scheme, and he was so persuasive that we put in $40,000— and we lost every cent of it.

Bad luck followed, we mortgaged our home; and lost it. Then I commenced to sell my jewels. My $8000 diamond necklace, which my mother gave me, I pawned for $1200. I had hoped to redeem it, although Mr. Shreve had offered to buy it for $5000. Little by little everything went, and now we are worse than penniless. My husband was always goodness itself to me, and we all love him dearly. My oldest son is 13. He has just ha, the misfortune to cut off the end of his finger. My youngest boy, Emanuel, is 11, and helps me as much as he can. “My husband is a member of the Universal Order of Knight Commanders of the Sun, and here are the original parchments granted him. I think he was also one of the charter members of the Bohemian Club. It is a very sad ending to the life of a man with a brilliant brain, with accomplishments and with so generous and kind a heart for all his friends.

He was born in Louisiana, his father being General Francis Marion Wells, but he was educated in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.

SCULPTOR OF LIBERTY. Marion Wells, as he was called, has been well known here for many years and has been one of the most prominent sculptors in the city. His statue of Liberty on the dome of the City Hall is a fine piece of work and a monument to his abilities. The figure is modeled from his wife and the poise is extremely graceful. The bas relief of John Lick, which was executed at the request of the Lick trustees, and now hangs in the Pioneer Hall, is a splendid likeness of the great philanthropist. The John Marshall monument in Sonora County, erected to commemorate the first discovery of gold in California, also exhibits great talents.

Among other works are the bears over the entrance to the First National Bank, which have marked merit in conception and design. He also did some artistic modeling for the Hibernia Bank, which adds much to the beauty of that handsome structure. The great owl which stands at the top of the grand stairway of the Bohemian Club is also of his handiwork. Other work which has been highly commented upon adorns St. Ignatius Church, the quadrangle and the memorial chapel at Stanford University.
***
Wells Died, July 22, 1903

The head suffered a few indignities on its way to the San Francisco City Hall Museum area.

The head was apparently given to John C. Irvine by former mayor James D. Phelan after it was removed from the old City Hall. It was, later, owned by his son, William Irvine.

It then came into possession of the South of Market Boys who gave it back to the city April 18, 1950, the 44th anniversary of the Great Earthquake.

It was later displayed in Golden Gate Park, then placed in storage.

Seven years later, in 1957, the head was sold, along with several cable cars, at public auction to Knott’s Berry Farm, a Southern California amusement park. It was given back to the city by Knott’s Berry Farm in the mid-1970s.

The goddess was, for many years, displayed at the Fire Department Museum, but was moved in 1993 to the Museum of the City of San Francisco. The goddess was then moved to City Hall in 1998 to celebrate the reopening of the structure after it was repaired following the 1989 earthquake.

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