Origins
The West Coast of the United States was first a theme illustrated by artists, before becoming the crucible of pictorial schools. One can even speak of the mythology of the American West. On the one hand, the romantic landscapes that it inspires participate in the quest for identity of the young America. On the other hand, the conquest of the West was revisited by painters such as George Catlin (1796-1872) who undertook to create an Indian museum. A portraitist of the American bourgeoisie, he decided in 1828 to focus on Native American civilizations. During several expeditions, he relates the daily life of these populations. His abundantly detailed genre scenes present clothing, weapons, body paint, and customs in vast landscapes of the Far West. This quasi-ethnological documentary work was continued by other painters and photographers trained in Europe. At the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the most exhaustive collection of American art of its kind, stretches from the 17th century to the present day. Located in the heart of Golden Gate Park, this renowned museum encompasses art from every continent. More than 27,000 works of art make up a national treasure trove that is a must-see in more ways than one. Its photography department traces the history of photography in America and Europe.
Photography
Photography is one of the arts in which Northern California has excelled. Special mention should be made of two native San Francisco artists, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Dorothea Lange is a photojournalist best known for her photographs of the Great Depression that followed the crash of 1929. Ansel Adams dedicated his career to defending the nature of his native region. His tool of persuasion: photography. He put in scene the majestic beauty of Yosemite Park in particular, but also of the Pacific coast and Big Sur. In 1945, he founded the photography department of the San Francisco Art Institute, the first program in the region dedicated to photographic art. Today you can visit the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite and participate in a photography session.
Wall art
The most influential muralist, Mexican painter Diego Rivera, visited the San Francisco area in November 1930 with his wife Frida Kahlo, at the request of architect Timothy Pflueger. He painted his first two murals at the Stock Exchange Tower (now the City Club of San Francisco) and the San Francisco Art Institute. His energy and allegory of the Bay Area greatly intrigued and inspired the local art community even after he left. Four years later, his followers painted the murals on the Coit Tower. About twenty local artists, led by Victor Arnautoff or José Moya del Pino, will respond to state commissions within the framework of the Work Projects Administration (WPA). In this movement, let's also mention the frescoes of the Beach Chalet Brewery
in Golden Gate Park created by Lucien Labaudt in 1936. The Rincon Center is home to the murals of a Russian immigrant, Anton Refregier, who traces the history of California.Recently, the art community has been up in arms about the proposed sale of the San Francisco Art Institute's Rivera work, The making of a fresco showing the building of a city
(1931). Estimated at over $40 million, its sale would help save the institution from ruin caused by the pandemic. The reactions show how integral the work is to San Francisco. In other news for Rivera, his gigantic 23-meter-long mural Pan American Unity, painted in 1939 on panels (and therefore transportable), has temporarily left the City College of San Francisco, which houses it. While a new space is being created to house it, it can be admired at the SFMoMa until the summer of 2023.Bay Area Figurative Movement
The "San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Movement" or San Francisco School was active in the 1950s and 1960s. It was initiated after the Second World War by artists who proposed a figurative alternative to the then dominant abstract expressionism. Their approach was supported by institutions such as the San Francisco Art Institute. Three generations of artists can be distinguished. The First Generation includes abstract painters David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud and James Weeks. By the end of the 1940s, abstract art was being produced by many visual artists. However, the idea of completely abandoning the subject of the realizations does not convince them. In 1950, the Californian David Park surprises with the painting kids on bikes,
revealing his subjects while remaining in the abstract. Two other generations would follow: the "bridge generation" (Henrietta Berk, Paul Wonner, Nathan Oliveira among others) then the "second generation" which brings together students from the first generation.After his studies in Mexico, Richard Diebenkorn became one of the leaders of the movement in 1955. A painter of abstract expressionism, he gradually abandoned the abstract for figurative art. One of his best known works is his Ocean Park series of paintings, begun in 1967 and completed in 1988, which made him internationally famous. Born in 1922 in Portland, Oregon and died at the age of 70 in 1993, he remains an icon and symbol of the Bay Area Figurative School
. This trend was part of a vast movement, described as the San Francisco Renaissance, which disrupted all areas of creation between 1945 and 1960. Initially felt in poetry and literature, this renaissance took the form of readings, which took place in art galleries, the most famous being the one at the Six Gallery, which launched the Beat Generation. It involved all-rounders like the poet and painter Harold Martin Silver, known as Jack Micheline (1929-1998). Close to street artists and theunderground, he drew to music and transcribed blues and jazz into paint. He exhibited murals at the time of his death on a train at the Abandonet Planet Bookstore in San Francisco.Photorealism
Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and still in practice today, the term photorealism was given by Louis K Meisel in 1969. Its birth was inspired by the pop art and minimalism movements, both originating in New York. Photorealism paintings and sculptures are sometimes called hyper realism, new realism, sharp-focus realism and super-realism. Today, the practice of this movement is to bring out human details and expressions in order to convey emotions or even political messages. A beautiful gallery of paintings and sculptures from this artistic movement is on display at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Photorealism originally appeared as a way to confront abstract art and react in an opposite way to it. This is why this movement finds its place in California, where abstract art was left aside. One of the reasons for this can be explained by the beauty of the landscape and the singularity of California, where so many subjects and actions were born. The will to transmit the images as they are, in the most real way possible, is sought in order to interloquer, make think, even shock the spectator. Ralph Goings and Chuck Close are two of the most renowned artists of this artistic style and are both exhibited at SFMoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Current street-art
Nowadays, street artists meet in the Mission District. The Latino tradition is palpable in these colorful streets, worthy heirs of the great muralist Diego Rivera. More than 600 murals are spread out everywhere. The two axes to focus on are Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley
. Here, the walls began to be transformed into public canvases around 1985, when a group of artists demonstrated in defense of the human rights they felt were being violated in Central America. This uprising generated creations with a humanist tendency, concentrated around Balmy Alley. Since 1992, the CAMP or Clarion Alley Mural Project is open to all causes and all aesthetic trends. Placed under the sign of inclusion, the association is at the origin of exchanges and initiatives involving hundreds of street-artists.Outdoor course
One of the largest museums of contemporary art, the sublime San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA
) covers all the currents (let's mention Frida Kahlo, Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol) until today. After this whirlwind tour from room to room, exploring San Francisco is an opportunity to discover a hundred outdoor sculptures.At the Sculpture Garden of the Recology Center (501 Tunnel Avenue), artists give new life to abandoned objects as part of the AIR (Art In Residence) program. Visual artists are invited to draw from the city's recycling center to redefine art in relation to the environment. Since 1992, Joseph Johnson, director of the waste management center and artist, has been a strong advocate of this project. Now, the park covers more than one hectare, and houses about forty sculptures.
At the heart of the Embarcadero Plaza, the sculpture by Armand Vaillancourt (also a Quebec activist) called Fontaine Vaillancourt is a source of controversy. The first time, its creator inscribed in red, a few hours before its inauguration in 1971, the claim Free Quebec! Later, in front of a large audience, the singer Bono climbed it to inscribe "Rock & Roll stops the traffic" to affirm the power of music!
Not far away, Cupid's Span was planted in the lawn of Rincon Park. Cupid's Span is the work of sculptors Claes Oldenbourg and Coosje Van Bruggen. It can be seen from afar with its 18 meters and its red tip.
Lawrence Argent reinterprets the Venus de Milo in the Piazza Angelo (Trinity Place). His Venus emerges from a silver propeller nearly 100 feet off the ground.
San Francisco has collected one of twenty copies of Rodin's The Thinker
, installed in front of the Legion of Honor Museum. Given to the city in 1921, the bronze statue of the meditative man was originally commissioned as a portrait of Dante meditating on his poem at the Gates of Hell.In another register, Master Yoda spreads his wisdom in a fountain erected in front of the Letterman Digital Arts Center.
The musical Wave Organ
, designed by Peter Richards and George Gonzalez in 1986, is activated by the sound of the surf. Its organ pipes arranged around the sculpture translate the movement of the tides into music. In the heart of the bay, in the Marina district, it takes on its full charm at high tide. The hearts that dot the city of San Francisco are part of a project initiated in 2004. This project has resulted in 130 hearts, various sculptures created to benefit the city's hospitals. A dozen are now permanently installed, including Tony Bennett's heart in Union Square, America's Greatest City by The Bay.
