WPA – Page 2 – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

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.

Sutro Heights Park

Posted by Cindy on March 19, 2013

Mar 192013

Point Lobos Avenue
Land’s End

Copy of the original lion that stood at the Sutro Heights entry gate.

(Photo credit: UC Bancroft Library)

Adolph Sutro (1830-1898) was one of San Francisco’s most beloved mayors and esteemed citizens. Originally from Prussia, he amassed millions in the Comstock Lode (Nevada Silver Rush of 1859) by designing and constructing ventilated mining shafts. By cashing out just before the silver ran out, he was able to purchase fully one-twelfth of San Francisco, including all the western dunes and a section of the sea shore called the Outside Lands. Sutro’s name is commonly associated with the baths he built in the Outside Lands. He did, however, leave another legacy. The site of his home, now Sutro Heights Park.

Sutro first encountered the future site of his Sutro Heights home in March of 1881 while visiting ”¨the home of Samuel Tetlow, the owner of the Bella Union Music Hall. Tetlow had purchased the dwelling in 1860 from James Butler, the first developer of the Cliff House. It is said that Sutro fell instantly in love with the house and made a deposit of $1,000 (on a total sale price of $15,000) for the cottage and an adjoining 1.65 acres that very afternoon.

Carpet Bed designs including flowers, carefully trimmed grasses, hedges and moss were a standard feature in Victorian gardens. (Photo credit: GGNRA)

After purchasing the home, Sutro focused first on the grounds. He spent millions trying to recreate a European garden, dotted with statues, planters, and fountains. During an 1883 tour of Europe, Sutro arranged for the casting of more than 200 pieces of sculpture in Belgium. These were shipped to San Francisco in 1884. The sculptures (made of plaster, rather than marble, required an annual coat of white paint to keep the plaster from dissolving). In 1885, Sutro opened his gardens to the public for an entry fee of one dime. He hoped that the statuary would provide accessible examples of European culture to these visitors. The money he collected helped to pay the 15 gardeners employed to maintain the grounds. While many people brought picnic baskets for their visit, they were confiscated by the gate keeper and returned when the visitors departed. Litter, which often included peanut shells-hot peanuts were a popular snack of the era-were apparently too much for Sutro to bear.

Photo credit: UC Bancroft Library

In 1895, following a modest remodeling of the house, Sutro built a rock-and-sandstone parapet. Sited on the highest point of the estate, the parapet provides breathtaking views of the surrounding sea shore. Since its completion, the parapet has been a major focal point of visitors to the property.

As built, the parapet was a curved sandstone wall that extended in a semicircle for 280 feet. Thirty stone crenellations (notches), linked with iron railings and topped with statues or urns, defined the top edge of the parapet. Initially, the parapet also held freestanding chairs and two large Parrott-model cannons (each with a stack of cannon balls).

This small wood-frame structure originally featured carved wooden posts, iron grillwork doors, decorative shingles, and finials capping each roof end.

The well house, built around 1885, is the last surviving building from the Sutro era. Although it is not clear whether the structure ever actually housed a well, it did contain the plumbing for the pair of drinking fountains mounted on opposite sides of the structure.

Sutro died in 1898, prompting a call for the City to purchase the property. In 1902, Charles Bundschu wrote in The Merchant’s Association Review: “He immortalized his name in our local history, not alone by planting of miles of forests near the ocean line, by the building of the monumental bathing establishment bearing his name, by the inauguration of a competitive electric [streetcar] line introducing the five-cent fare, but he showed his admiration of nature’s greatest gifts in the creation of Sutro Heights, a beautiful park elevation, overlooking the Cliff House point, affording an unbounded view of the vast expanse of the great Pacific Ocean.”

In 1920, Emma Sutro Merritt, Sutro’s daughter, transferred the ownership of Sutro Heights to the City of San Francisco under the condition that it be “forever held and maintained as a free public resort or park under the name of Sutro Heights.” The Merritts retained a lifetime residence on the property. Between 1920 and 1933 the Merritts continued to allow visitors access to Sutro Heights, which by this time was starting to show its age and lack of maintenance.

The Conservatory was built to house Sutro’s exotic plants collected from all over the world. (Photo credit: GGNRA)

In 1933, at the request of Emma Sutro Merritt, the City of San Francisco agreed to assume maintenance of Sutro Heights. There were, however, no major improvements made or any rehabilitation of the grounds.

In 1937, the city submitted a proposal to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for the rehabilitation of the grounds at Sutro Heights. Some repairs were undertaken, and staircases were constructed at both ends of the wall to provide access to the parapet terrace. In total, WPA “improvements” to Sutro Heights cost $90,994. When Emma Sutro Merritt died in residence at Sutro Heights in 1938, the City directed the WPA to demolish the aged home that had fallen into severe disrepair.

In 1976, the City of San Francisco transferred ownership of Sutro Heights to the National Park Service, to be managed as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The National Park Service is charged with identifying and preserving the historic features remaining on the site. Under Park Service direction, the grounds have improved significantly.

Today, Sutro Heights provides a large, green open space for visitors. The parapet still wraps around the hill allowing anyone to sit and gaze out onto the magnificent view. And now, at least, you can have your picnic on the grounds.

The Beach Chalet

Posted by Cindy on March 5, 2013

Mar 052013

Designed by architect Willis Polk, the Beach Chalet has served as a gathering spot on Ocean Beach for most of its life. With its hipped roof and hand-made roof tiles, this Spanish Revival building survived a takeover by the US Army, the raucous residence of a biker bar and 15 years of abandonment. Today it houses two restaurants, offering visitors a variety of dining fare to accompany the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean (more on that later).

The City of San Francisco built the Beach Chalet in 1925, at a cost of $60,000, to provide facilities for beach goers. The ground floor consisted of a lounge and changing rooms, while the upstairs held a 200-seat bar and municipal restaurant.

Labaudt’s mural of sunbathers with a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge under construction

In 1936, under the auspices of the Works Project Administration (WPA), Lucien Labaudt was hired to execute 1500 square feet of frescoes on the first floor. California WPA artists believed that their art should be inspirational, and they often painted the world not as it was, but as how they wished it to be. The Beach Chalet murals depict a serene and simple San Francisco life, which contrasted with the harsh reality of what many were experiencing during the Great Depression.

Two other WPA projects can be found at the Beach Chalet: a magnolia wood staircase titled Sea Creatures by Michael von Meyer, and a series of mosaics designed by Labaudt and installed by Primo Caredio.

During WWII the Army commandeered the Beach Chalet for use as its Coastal Defense Headquarters. The military considered San Francisco a potential target during WWII, so several defensive fortifications were established throughout the Bay. The soldiers moved out in 1941, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) took over.

Members of the 78th Coast Artillery pitch camp behind the Beach Chalet. October 1941. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)

The VFW used the upstairs as a meeting room, and the downstairs became a biker bar of some disrepute. The VFW held the lease on the building for 15 years. In 1981, when the bar became a public nuisance, the City raised the rent by $500. The VFW moved out, and the building was shuttered.

In 1981 the National Park Service declared the Beach Chalet a National Landmark, but the building was padlocked and surrounded by a chain link fence, left to remain unused for 15 years-with the exception of feral cat squatters and an occasional fire-inciting vagrant.

In 1987 the city allocated $800,000 for infrastructure repairs, including restoration of the artworks. This work was completed in 1989, and yet the building continued to sit empty.

Beginning in 1993 restaurateurs Gar and Lara Truppelli saw the commercial potential of this historic building and led a movement to reopen the chalet.

A $1.5 million grant in 1996 to the Friends of Recreation and Parks (courtesy of the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund) gave the building its second life. Under the supervision of the architecture firm Heller Manus, an elevator was installed, and the bathrooms were made ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. The Beach Chalet opened its doors to the public once again.

The Brewery sits behind the second-floor bar.

The upstairs now houses the Truppelli’s Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant, which makes beer with wonderful local names like VFW Light, Riptide Red and Presidio IPA. The downstairs lobby is open for visitors to enjoy the murals and mosaics, and has a few small displays of San Francisco trivia. Behind this main lobby is a sunny window-filled restaurant, the Park Chalet, serving lighter fare for those not inclined toward pub fare.

The Beach Chalet has shown the resilience of so many San Francisco buildings, surviving abuse by man and Mother Nature for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.

Bufano in Valencia Gardens

Posted by Cindy on December 20, 2012

Dec 202012

Valencia Gardens Housing Project
Corner of Maxwell Court and Rosa Parks Way

These animal sculptures at Valencia Gardens were sculpted by Beniamino (Benny) Bufano. They were done in the 1930s for the Work Progress Administration Project at Aquatic Park. In the 1940s, when the federal government pulled out of San Francisco the sculptures were given to the City of San Francisco and became the charge of the San Francisco Art Commission.

There are two other sculptures that were part of this grouping. The Frog and The Seal are still at Aquatic Park.

This collection of statuary is by San Francisco darling Beniamino Bufano. They sit in a courtyard of the completely newly rebuilt Valencia Garden Housing Project.

During the work that was done at Valencia Gardens, the statues were placed at the Randall Museum for restoration and the enjoyment of the citizens of San Francisco.

The $66 million development of the new Valencia Gardens replaced 246 dilapidated and blighted housing units with 260 affordable homes for extremely-low and low-income families and seniors. Valencia Gardens is located on a 4.9-acre site between Valencia, Guerrero, 15th, and 14th Streets in the Mission District, the same location as the previous public housing which stood for over sixty years.

After almost a decade of planning, the revitalization of Valencia Gardens was made possible through a network of partnerships and collaborations at the local, state and federal levels. As a HOPE VI development, $66 million in development financing was provided by both the public and private sectors.

The design and architecture of Valencia Gardens are based on new urbanism principles that have shown to increase the quality of life and sense of community in other HOPE VI affordable housing developments. Most importantly, Valencia Gardens is integrated into its neighborhood with new public roads and walkways, as opposed to being isolated by fencing, as was the case with the previous project.

Beach Chalet Murals Part III

Posted by Cindy on July 6, 2012

Jul 062012

Land’s End

The Beach Chalet – Part III

1000 The Great Highway

Lucien Labaudt’s Beach Chalet murals: John McLaren (G.G. Park Superintendent) in left foreground on bench, with Jack Spring (later General Manager of Parks and Rec Dept.) holding redwood tree’s root ball, while behind on horseback (upper right corner) sit sculptor Benny Bufano and Joseph Danysh, then head of California Federal Art Project.

Labaudt, following the precedent set by many of his era’s fellow artists to include other artists, depicts here Gottardo Piazzoni, a Swiss-Italian muralist who worked in San Francisco during the first two decades of the 20th century.

There are a few monochrome murals under the stairway they are also by Labaudt.

Beach Chalet Murals – Part II

Posted by Cindy on July 5, 2012

Jul 052012

Land’s End

The Beach Chalet Part II

1000 The Great Highway

It was common for WPA muralists to place people they knew or people of note in their work. Here Lucien Labaudt inserts Arthur Brown Jr.. Brown was the Architect of City Hall (shown over his left shoulder) and architect of Coit Tower, where Labaudt worked as well.

A few scenes from around San Francisco including Japantown.

Beach Chalet Murals

Posted by Cindy on July 4, 2012

Jul 042012

Land’s End

The Beach Chalet – Part I

1000 Great Highway

The Beach Chalet has its own fascinating history. This is however, about the WPA work found at the Beach Chalet.

Port Scene by Lucien Labaut -Beach Chalet Murals

Fisherman’s Wharf

A peaceful beach scene that incorporates some of Labaudt’s friends and family.

All the murals in the Beach Chalet were done by one artist, Lucien Labaudt. Born in France, he came to the United States in the early 1900s. He was an accomplished dress designer to the rich and famous of San Francisco High Society. He is responsible for decorating the curved walls in Coit Tower with frescoes (these frescoes are not available for public viewing). In 1936 he painted Advancement of Learning throughout the Printing Press, a fresco at George Washington High School. When asked about the limitations WPA art often came under he wrote “limitation forces one to think and therefore to create…Far from destroying the artist’s individuality, these limitations give him something to fight for. He must solve a problem. ” Labaudt died in a plane crash over Burma in 1943, on assignment to do war sketches for Life Magazine.

“San Francisco Life” is the title of the frescoes covering three walls of the first floor of the Beach Chalet. The mural depicts four San Francisco tourist locales: the beach, Golden Gate Park, Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Marina. Recognizable figures of the time from the arts and politics are shown in the mural scenes, engaging in leisure activities. Since Labaudt painted the mural in 1936-37, during the Great Depression, such leisure would have actually been out of reach for most people. Showing high-profile figures, including WPA administrators, enjoying their leisure time, was most probably a political comment on the inequalities of the times.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 15, 2012

Jun 152012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This pair of canvas’ are also in the elevator alcove. The depict the farmlands of the Santa Clara Valley and the hills of the East Bay.

The artists was Rinaldo Cuneo. (1877-1939). Cuneo was a native San Franciscan from North Beach where he maintained a studio. He was educated at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute as well as in Paris and London. He taught at the California School of Fine Arts and was a prolific painter.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 14, 2012

Jun 142012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

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

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 13, 2012

Jun 132012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

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

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 12, 2012

Jun 122012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

News Gathering by Suzanne Scheuer

Scheuer worked with assistant Heve Daum on news gathering for her panel in Coit Tower.

Suzanne Scheuer was born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898. She moved to San Francisco in 1918. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts and the California College of Arts and Crafts. She then taught for three years in the public schools of Los Banos and Salinas. In 1940 she joined the art faculty at the College of the Pacific in Stockton and taught there for ten years. She then moved to Santa Cruz, California where she designed and built six houses, doing much of the physical and artistic work herself while continuing to paint and sculpt. Scheuer died in Santa Cruz on December 20, 1984. Other work of hers can be found in the Berkeley, California Post Office as well as two Texas Post Offices.

Sheuer’s window ledge San Francisco Chronicle front page announced the end of the art project in April, though some artists continued to add finishing details until June.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 11, 2012

Jun 112012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The Library by Bernard B. Zakheim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 10, 2012

Jun 102012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Stockbroker and Scientist by Mallete (Harold) Dean

Their are six figures that stand alone in the Tower. (You can review the first four here). The stockbroker/banker is thought to be A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy that later became Bank of America. The Scientist is Nobel Prize winner, Albert Abraham Michelson. He holds an interferometer and a scroll and stands near a picture of the James Lick Observatory which is on Mount Hamilton in San Jose, California. Notice how the door of the observatory is a light switch.

Mallete Dean was one of the more prolific painters of government sponsored murals in Northern California. Born in Washington in 1907, he studied at the California School of Fine Arts. He was a furniture designer, decorator of books and graphic artist, for many years he created labels for the California wine industry. Other works include the orchard scene in the Sebastapol, California Post Office. He died in San Francisco in 1975.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 9, 2012

Jun 092012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The Meat Industry by Raymond Bertrand

Notice the clever use of the window

Raymond Bertrand (1901-1986) was a native San Franciscan. He studied at the California School of Fine Arts where he later taught Lithography. Bertrand was primarily a landscape panter, a critic once commented that Bertrand used “freezing blues, whites and greys” in his oil in a “small but icy collection of arctic landscapes”. His name is used as the “author” of the book titled Rape, Mayhem and Vagrancy in the law library scene at Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 8, 2012

Jun 082012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

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Industries of California by Ralph Stackpole

This is a vast expression of the industries of California at the time. Stackpole painted several fellow artists in this mural as well. Tom Lehman, a local artist, pours chemicals into a container while William Hesthal bends over a table, notebook in hand. Helen Clement Mills is one of the women working on an assembly line.

Ralph Ward Stackpole (1885-1973) Stackpole grew up in Oregon. He worked with scepter Arthur Putnam and painter Gottardo Piazzoni and the went to Paris to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts. Some of Stackpoles work in San Francisco include a few bronze heads in City Hall, to large granite sculptures outside of the Stock Exchange, frescoes at George Washington High School and The Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 7, 2012

Jun 072012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Department Store by Frede Vidar

This mural depicts the interior of a typical 1930’s department store with soda fountain and wine shop. Some items of interest are the fact that the waitress wears a cap with a Star of Dave, (which is surprising as Frede Vidar frequently expressed pro-Nazi sympathies and even scratched a swastika on a windowpane when he worked on the project) and the fact that one of the clerks is holding a box with the SS logo on it. Notice the Bing Crosby music in the background as well as Roman Scandals by Irving Berlin. And yes, all of the bottles of wine are of local California vintages.

Frede Vidar (1911-1967) was born in Denmark and moved with his parents to San Francisco while in High School. He graduated from the High School of Commerce and later attended the School of Fine Arts. He studied with Matisse in Paris in the 1930s. From 1950 until his death in 1967 he was Professor of Art at the University of Michigan.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 6, 2012

Jun 062012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

Cowboy and Farmer by Clifford Wight

These are four of six single standing figures in the collection. They represent the very essence of California. The Will Rogers Style cowboy (that many friends of Wight said was a self portrait) and the farmer, that looks an awful lot like artist Ralph Stackpole.

These two are Surveyor and Ironworker. There are three windows between these two figures. Over the central window Wight painted a bridge, which had the NRA Eagle in the center. Over the right hand window he stretched a segment of chain, and in the circle appeared the words In God We Trust, then over the last window he placed a section of woven cable and a circle framing a hammer and sickle, and the words United Workers of the World. This all proved to be entirely too controversial and it was removed before the tower opened in 1934.

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 5, 2012

Jun 052012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

City Life by Victor Arnautoff is one of the largest murals in Coit Tower. It is a wonderfully vibrant street scene taking artistic license with the various city landmarks and their geographic positions.

Some things of note, the fire engine is Number 5, which was Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s beloved Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Department. Newspapers that include New Masses, Daily Worker, Time, Argonaut and Screenplay, with Mae West on the front. The San Francisco Chronicle is noticeably absent, causing quite a stir at the time in the local press. The artist is in the mural, near the newspaper stand wearing a fur-collared coat. Charlie Chaplin sits in the center of a sign announcing his new movie City Lights. The “Auto Ferry to Oakland” is interesting in that the Bay Bridge would be built just a few years later in 1936.

Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (1896-1979) came to San Francisco via Mexico where he too worked as an assistant to Diego Rivera. He attended the California School of Fine Arts, studying with Ralph Stackpole, fellow artist. He returned to his native Russia in the 1960s. Other works of his include frescoes in the Military Chapel at the Presidio and three lunettes in the Anne Bremer Library at the San Francisco Art Institute. He taught in the art department of Stanford University.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 4, 2012

Jun 042012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

California Industrial Scenes by John Langley Howard

This mural gives us several juxtaposed scenes indicative of any society, but especially poignant during such difficult times.

There are the solemn workers of the May Day demonstration, a woman doing laundry on the rocks, and an elderly woman sawing logs by hand, while the great symbols of hydroelectric power are there in her sight. There is a migrant family with their broken down Model-T next to a group of observers with chauffeur and furs. Notice the hobo on the train trestle, and the worker leaning on the culvert with newspapers around him that read “Relief Rolls Reach New All Time Peak” “I’m A Tough Guy, Franklin Roosevelt warns Congress” and “I learned a lot from the barracudas and the sharks, Roosevelt tells crowd at Station”.

John Langley Howard (1902-1999) was the son of John Galen Howard, prominent architect, and brother Robert Howard, sculptor. He attended the University of California and the California School of Arts and Crafts as well as the Art Student’s League of New York. This is his only mural although he continued to paint, especially for sports magazines, depicting tools and machines in meticulous detail.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on June 3, 2012

Jun 032012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The California Agriculture Industry by Gordon Langdon

The dairy business is represented in this mural as well as several of the artists friends. Gordon Langdon was assisted by Helen Clement Mills on this mural.

Fellow artist Fred Olmsted and his assistant Tom Hayes

Fellow artist John Langley Howard holding a pitchfork

Fellow artist Lucien Labaudt showering a cow

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

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

Posted by Cindy on June 2, 2012

Jun 022012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This mural is titled California and is by Maxine Albro. A wonderful depiction of the bounty of the California agricultural industry from Mt. Shasta Almond Orchards to Napa Valley grapes.

The “gentlemen farmers” are actually the artists friends. Ralph Stackpole is in the checkered shirt and Albro’s husband, and fellow artist Parker Hall is by the tray of apricots. The NRA (National Recovery Act) eagle is found on the ends of the lugs of oranges. The NRA was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate “cut-throat competition” by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of “fair practices” and set prices.

Maxine Albro was an Iowan who studied at the California School of Fine Arts. During the 1920s she studied in Paris and then in Mexico with Diego Rivera. Like Rivera, Albro was no stranger to controversy. A work of four nudes that she painted at the Ebell Women’s Club in Los Angeles, titled “Portly Roman Sybils,” offended some of the organization’s members. The club rescinded approval of her frescoes, and destroyed the wall on which it was painted in 1935. Also destroyed (due to remodeling) was her mosaic of animals over the entrance to Anderson Hall at the University of California Extension in San Francisco. In 1938, after getting married, Albro and Hall moved to Carmel, California. During the 1940s they traveled throughout Mexico. As a result, most of her work consisted of Mexican subject matter, which she was best known for. She died on July 19, 1966 in Los Angeles.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

Posted by Cindy on June 1, 2012

Jun 012012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

The little seated boy looks at a book whose page shows the date of Coit Tower (1933) and the date of the WPA projects at Coit Tower (1934).

Animal Force by Ray Boynton

These are the first frescoes that one sees when entering Coit Tower. Boynton chose to portray animal power in Agriculture. As often occurred he included fellow artist Gordon Langdon leaning on a horse.

Ray Boynton was an Iowan, after studying art in Chicago he came to California to become the first California Fresco artist. His first project appeared in a Los Altos home in 1917. While teaching fresco at the California School of Fine Arts he completed the first large scale mural in the auditorium of Mills College in Oakland. He went on to become a teacher at UC Berkeley. He was called the “Dean of Frescoes” at Coit Tower. After Coit Tower he completed 15 lunette murals in the Modesto Post Office.

These further symbols of machine force include a man at the controls of a hydroelectric plant, a surveyor, steam shovel, and oil derricks. Notice that he had to work around not only a door, but a delightful art deco light fixture

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on May 31, 2012

May 312012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This law library has some interesting book titles when one looks closely. There are the usual Civil, Penal and Moral Codes, but also the Law of Fresco Painting, Counterfeiting, and Laws on Seduction. A fun one is Martial Law by Brady, he was the VFW caretaker who watched over the project and lived in the Tower’s apartment. The man on the left with the pipe is thought to be, patron of the arts, William Gerstle.

The Stock Exchange. Notice the downward movements of the market.

Federal Reserve Bank. It is thought that the curly haired blond is Fred Olmsted, assistant to Coit Tower artist John Langley Howard and later an artist in the program himself.

The artist on this panel was George Albert Harris (1913-1991). Harris was one of the youngest artist to work on Coit Tower. He was a student at the California School of Fine Art and later painted a mural in San Francisco’s Chamber of Commerce building. He was a professor in the art department of Stanford University.

Telegraph Hill -Coit Tower Murals

Posted by Cindy on May 30, 2012

May 302012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

WPA Murals

This is the beginning of a series on the WPA murals of Coit Tower. When the Great Depression hit, like everyone, artists were not finding work. George Biddle, a prominent lawyer turned successful artist, a member of a socially prominent family from Philadelphia, and most importantly, a Groton and Harvard classmate of Franklin Roosevelt, went to the President with an idea.
He suggested that America hire American artists to paint murals depicting the social ideals of the new administration as well as the American way of life, on the walls of public buildings.

The WPA, created by an order from the President, was funded by Congress with passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 on April 8, 1935.

San Francisco became District 15 of the National Plan. Coit Tower was one of three large WPA mural projects in San Francisco the others are at Rincon Annex Post Office and The Beach Chalet.

Dr. William Heil, a new immigrant from Germany and the director of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park was chosen to select and supervise “worthy artists”. It was also Dr. Heil who suggested the medium of frescoes for the project.

According to Masha Zakheims book Coit Tower. there were few interpersonal problems; the “purists” created their preliminary sketches and layouts in their own studio. The artists put in their thirty hours a week as they chose, often working into the small hours to meet the demands of the rapidly drying plaster. Surprised at their diligence it was reported to Washington D.C. that the artists at Coit Tower were very moral and conscientious, not drunken, promiscuous, and orgiastic as some had predicted a group of Bohemians would be.

Fresco (plural either frescos or frescoes) is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls, ceilings or any other type of flat surface. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the Latin word for “fresh”.

Rincon Annex Murals

Posted by Cindy on November 20, 2011

Nov 202011

The Embarcadero

Rincon Annex

98 Howard Street

Panel #3

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

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

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

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

Panel #4

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

Panel #6

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

Panel #8

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

Panel #24

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

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

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

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

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