Search Results for “Bufano” – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Search Results : Bufano

Benny Bufano’s Grave

Posted by Cindy on October 19, 2019

Oct 192019

Holy Cross Cemetery
Colma, California

Bufano’s gravesite is marked by his own sculpture of St. Francis. The statue overlooks that part of the cemetery that holds the unmarked graves of indigent children, the only part of the cemetery that permitted the type of statuary marking Bufano’s grave.

Bufano was a well known San Francisco artist whose work has been in this site many times.

Beniamino Bufano (October 15, 1890 – August 18, 1970) was an Italian American sculptor, best known for his large-scale monuments representing peace and his modernist work often featured smoothly rounded animals and relatively simple shapes. He worked in ceramics, stone, stainless steel, and mosaic, and sometimes combined two or more of these media and some of his works are cast stone replicas.

The tile work on this Saint Francis was done by Alfonso Pardiñas. Alfonso Pardiñas created a number of mosaics in San Francisco, including several for BART stations. His firm was called Byzantine Mosaics.

Saint Francis – Prince of Peace
To the human congregation of the United Nations
-A message to live by-
Lord
Make me an instrument of thy peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy

O Divine master
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be understood as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

Beniamino Benevento Bufano
October 15, 1890
August 18, 1970

Bufano at Westside Courts

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2013

Jan 312013

Westside Courts Housing Project
2501 Sutter Street
Lower Pacific Heights

This sculpture, by well known San Francisco sculptor Beniamino Bufano, is titled Saint Francis on Horseback. Standing 8′ x 6′ and of black granite it is located in the central courtyard of the project. It was made in 1935 but not placed here until 1945.

Westside Courts were built in 1943, Westside includes 136 units in six buildings that cover a full city block. Westside s unusual because it is located in a thriving, mixed-income neighborhood. Another distinction is in its construction, which relied on heavy cement blocks, creating buildings that have suffered less from degradation over time.

Westside is a development that has exceeded its useful life. The development is more than 65 years old, and residents live with outdated appliances; unpredictable plumbing, mechanical, and electrical systems; extensive rodent problems; and other issues that affect their health and quality of life.

Westside comes under the purvue of HOPE SF, a subsidiary of the San Francisco Housing Authority.

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.

Benny Bufano in the Sunnydale Projects

Posted by Cindy on December 12, 2012

Dec 122012

1654 Sunnydale
Visitacion Valley

This Beniamino Bufano statue is of a Bear over the Head of Peace. It was done somewhere around 1935-1940 and stands in front of the Community Center at the Sunnydale Projects. Bufano was a prolific sculptor in his time and his work can be found all over San Francisco.

Sunnydale was built in the 1940’s as a means to house military personnel and their families, it was later bought by the city of San Francisco and converted to a low-income housing project.

The Housing Authority was created in 1938 to help poor families build better lives by creating temporary subsidized housing. Over the years, the once well-kept projects turned into havens for crime, and the services that families need to get out and move on – such as child care, job training, legal help and counseling – evaporated with cutbacks.

Sunnydale, is quite possibly the most dangerous, depressed and decrepit area of the city. The dilapidated barracks that make up the development are lined up on a hillside in the shadow of the Cow Palace, opposite McLaren Park.

An estimated 1,633 people live in the square mile of concrete housing. Once considered a nice place for a family to live, the development is now home to those who can’t afford anything else.

The above was from a February 2008 SF Gate article by Leslie Fulbright. A two part series titled Life at the Bottom.

Bufano, hidden amongst the SFSU campus trees

Posted by Cindy on September 20, 2012

Sep 202012

San Francisco State University
Lakeside

St. Francis by Beniamino Bufano – Red Granite

This gift to the campus from the City of San Francisco sits on the main quad of the campus.

Peace by Bufano

Posted by Cindy on September 12, 2012

Sep 122012

800 Brotherhood Way

Peace by Benny Bufano

Located at the entrance to the San Francisco Airport for almost forty years”Peace” was relocated to make way for a parking garage. After restoration it was moved to Brotherhood Way, where it stands now.

Benny Bufano was born in Italy in 1898, Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano came to the United States at young age with his family. After studying art in New York City, he eventually moved to San Francisco where he taught both at UC-Berkeley and at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He died in 1970.

On the back of the circular base is inscribed:

Dedicated April 19, 1958
George Christopher, Mayor

On the front of the circular base is inscribed:

Presented to the Citizens of San Francisco by the San Francisco Chronicle
Dedicated to the Brotherhood of Man and the Ideal of Peace Among all the Peoples of the World

UPDATE – April 17, 2013 – Where is the statue?

Brotherhood Way was originally called Stanley Way. But in 1958, under Mayor George Christopher, the city, which owned all of the land on the south side of the street, turned that property over to a long list of religious institutions and renamed the street to reflect its role as a place for houses of worship. It’s now home to six churches or synagogues and nine religious schools. It has its own (religious) neighborhood association.

On May 19, 2005, the Planning Commission approved an expansion of the Park Merced apartment complex to add up to 182 units on the north side of the street.

There has been a contentious battle over this plan ever since.

Opponents of the project say the area was set aside for educational and religious uses, not housing — and they argue that the expansion of Park Merced will add too much congestion to the area. Supporters say the west side of town needs to accept more housing and more density.

In April of 2010 a Letter of Agreement was executed between the San Francisco Arts Commission and the project property owner to protect the Bufano sculpture adjacent to the project site during project construction. The Agreement identifies a specific site for relocation of the statue. The Agreement also sets forth specific tasks and conditions for de-installing, storing, and re-installing the sculpture at a time agreed upon by the project sponsor and the Arts Commission. If you are interested in keeping up to date on the progress, here is the link to the SFAC page about the project.

As of February 1, 2013 all the plans have been approved by the City, however, the opponents are continuing their battle in court. The trees have been removed, the water and sewer pipes are being prepared to be installed and the developer is moving forward. The Bufano has been removed and I will report where Peace ends up when this is all over.

A little about Park Merced: Metlife owned and carefully maintained the property until the early 1970s, when it sold it to Leona Helmsley and the property began to deteriorate. There were a succession of owners and management companies beginning in the late 1990s. The commercial areas of the development were sold off to investors, and other parts sold to the California State University system. As of 2008, 116 of the original 150 acres are owned and maintained by a single investor, who purchased the property for $700 million and has committed $110 million in upgrades. The architecture of Park Merced is very unique and I hope to write a post about that in the near future.

2018

This piece is back in its original position off of Brotherhood Way. It is now amongst the homes of Park Merced but still visible from the street.

Benny Bufano at Fort Mason

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2012

Aug 172012

Fort Mason Green

Peace by Benny Bufano

Benjamin Bufano has many pieces throughout San Francisco.

This statue, featuring a child within a larger statue represents the peaceful blending of cultures.

The green sits on the hill above the actual fort. Called Fort Mason since 1882, the location at Point San Jose, as this area was known, was originally little more than a field of sand dunes. Following the Spanish American War, however, the military realized the need for its own shipping facility on the San Francisco waterfront.

As the United States began establishing a presence in the Pacific, Fort Mason’s shallow cove was soon home to three piers and four warehouses. By World War II, the fort was the headquarters for the San Francisco Port of Embarkation and over 20 million tons of cargo and more than a million troops were deployed through here. Fort Mason loaded ships like the Liberty Jeremiah O’Brien, which can now be seen at Pier 45. Also active through the Korean War and the early 1960s, Fort Mason ceased transportation depot operations in 1964.

In 1972, due to legislation introduced and supported by Congressman Phil Burton, Ft. Mason and 34,000 acres of shore land were designated as a National Park. Known as the Golden Gate Recreation Area, it became the largest urban National Park in the world.

Fort Mason is once again in for some changes. On May 6th the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story announcing that the city is hosting a design competition seeking “creative and practical design concepts” for the 13 acres of parking lots and former military buildings that sit midway between Aquatic Park and Marina Green.

Madonna by Benjamin Bufano at SF General

Posted by Cindy on July 28, 2012

Jul 282012

Potrero Hill

San Francisco General Hospital

1001 Potrero Avenue

Madonna by Benjamin (Beniamino) Bufano 1974

Benjamin (Benny) Bufano was a prolific artist in his time and has many pieces around San Francisco. This Madonna of Red Granite and mosaic sits on the edge of the comfort garden in San Francisco General Hospital, near building 80. The first buildings designated as San Francisco General Hospital were erected in 1872. Outbreaks of bubonic plague, the spread of tuberculosis, the earthquake of 1906, and the influenza epidemic of 1918 were all trials this hospital saw in its early years. Most of the present buildings were constructed during 1915–20. They were designed by city architect Newton Tharp in an Italianate style, laid out “with green lawns and bright flowering plants to add to the attractiveness of the structures.” Early photographs depict lawns, shrubs, paths, and palm trees between the buildings, formally designed, but — apparently — with no seats or benches to encourage use by staff or patients. The Comfort Garden is a small but well-used outdoor space in the sprawling contemporary “campus” of the hospital. It was established in June 1990 as a “living memorial” to hospital employees who had died. A name plaque in the garden, recording its inception, concludes with the words: “It is meant to be a place of solace where nature’s beauty can bring you comfort.”

San Francisco General Hospital was a subject of the New York Times scathing article about the San Francisco Public Arts Commission and it’s inability to keep track of its collection. The article pointed out that the city acquired 496 art objects for the Hospital when it was renovated in 1972 and by 2007 the commission could only find 49 pieces, by 2011 they had found 141. (There are no further updated numbers at this time)

Fortunately this one is still there and not only easy to find, but in such a delightful spot, it is a pleasure to visit.

If you would like to refresh your memory about Bufano there is a great article about his eclectic life in the Nob Hill Gazette.

Benny Bufano at Fisherman’s Wharf

Posted by Cindy on June 29, 2012

Jun 292012

Fisherman’s Wharf

Beach and Taylor Streets

St. Francis of Assisi by Benny Bufano

Born, Beniamino Bufano, in San Fele, Italy, in 1886, he was one of sixteen children. His family immigrated to New York when he was three, and at six he began contributing to the family income by shining shoes and peddling newspapers. He dropped out of school after the third grade, but entered art school as a teenager, working there as a janitor in lieu of tuition. Later he became apprenticed with the sculptor James Frasier, while he continued to work as a janitor.

In 1915, a fellow sculptor, who’d been selected to create works for the Panama Pacific International Exposition, offered Benny a job as his assistant. Once in San Francisco, Benny’s talents were recognized, and he began receiving regular and lucrative commissions. Saint Francis is the patron saint of San Francisco. Born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226, Saint Francis was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men’s Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history. The statue was brought to Fisherman’s wharf to stand a few yards from the Longshoremen’s Memorial Building honoring famed unionist Harry Bridges.

The statue stands 18 feet tall and weights 12.5 tons. In 1928, while the statue was being exhibited in Paris, where Bufano sculpted it, the late English art Critic Roger Fry wrote that is was “the most significant piece of sculpture done within 500 years.” The statue was brought to San Francisco in 1955 through the efforts of Bufano’s close friend Paul Verdier, owner of the City of Paris department store, mayor Elmer Robinson and the French government. San Francisco is lucky to have many of Bufano’s pieces scattered throughout the city, here are a few others.

“Athletics” by Sargent Johnson

Posted by Cindy on April 30, 2019

Apr 302019

George Washington High School
600 32nd Avenue
Football Field

Originally awarded to San Francisco artist Beniamino Bufano, the commission for this work went to Sargent Johnson after Bufano was fired by the WPA when he proposed to use the Marxist labor leader Harry Bridges as a model in his iteration for the frieze.

This 1942 Federal Arts Project gave Johnson the chance that he needed to express himself in new materials, and allowed him to work on a massive scale in well-equipped studios.

This giant sculpture was done in 3 by 4-foot panels so that it could be transferred from Johnson’s studio to the school.

There are Olympic rings between the female golfers and the relay racer. The frieze is framed by golf clubs on the east end and oars from crew races on the west.

Sargent Claude Johnson (October 7, 1888 – October 10, 1967) was one of the first African-American artists working in California to achieve a national reputation. He was known for Abstract Figurative and Early Modern styles. He was a painter, potter, ceramicist, printmaker, graphic artist, sculptor, and carver. He worked with a variety of media, including ceramics, clay, oil, stone, terra-cotta, watercolor, and wood. Sometimes considered a Harlem Renaissance artist, Sargent Johnson spent his career in the Bay Area. Johnson moved to San Francisco in 1915 to study painting, drawing, and his primary medium, sculpture. He was committed from early on to using modern aesthetics to create positive representations of African Americans. Like many of his contemporaries, he studied African carvings. For Johnson, however, the purpose of these formal borrowings was to suggest racial continuity and dignity. In the 1930s, while working on public art projects for the New Deal, he began to expand his range of subjects, taking on aspects of abstraction as well as Mexican muralism.

Sargent Johnson Tile’s the Maritime Museum

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2014

May 112014

Maritime Museum
Aquatic Park

This 14′ x 125′ glazed tile mural was created by Sargent Johnson in 1939 with the help of FAP (Federal Art Project) funds. The east end, however, is incomplete.

When the project began, the building was to be a publicly-accessible bathhouse. However, shortly after it opened, the City leased a majority of the building to a group of private businessmen who operated it as the Aquatic Park Casino, limiting the public’s use of the building. Because of this, Johnson walked away from the project before he had completed this interior tile mosaic.

Johnson has been in this website before here for the slate art piece on the front of the building.

This shows the unfinished section of the mural.

And yes, those two animals are by Beniamino Bufano.

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.

SFGH Healing Garden

Posted by Cindy on March 28, 2013

Mar 282013

1001 Potrero
San Francisco General Hospital

The artist designed this small garden, in 1993, as an extension to an existing hospital memorial garden and as a place to provide seating sheltered from the wind. A red gravel walkway, edged in white granite city-surplus curbstones, forms a double helix, which is symbolic of life. The seating is made from salvaged granite.

Look closely, you can see the double helix in the planter on the left.

Benny Bufano’s Madonna graces the back of the garden.

Peter Richards is a long-term Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium (an innovative science museum in San Francisco, California) Peter shares his enthusiasm for nature and the elements through his work. His engaging outdoor public sculptures and immersive landscaped environments bring such phenomena as wind and tidal movement into a larger cultural context. Peter is responsible for the Wave Organ in the bay, and the Philosophers Walk at McClaren Park. He holds an MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture in Baltimore, Maryland and a BA in Art from Colorado College.

The garden is part of the SFAC collection.

Artwork at Candlestick Park

Posted by Cindy on November 20, 2012

Nov 202012

Candlestick Park
Gate A
Jamestown Avenue

St Francis by Ruth Wakefield Cravath – 1971-1973

The sculpture is a standing abstract figure representing St. Francis, the patron saint of San Francisco. The figure is made of concrete, but the face, torso, halo, cross, and lower section of his robe are made of colored pieces of Plexiglas. The halo is gold; the face and torso are turquoise; the cross is red, and the lower section of the robe is gold. The sculpture is installed on a low base in the middle of the bus area at the stadium.

Ruth Wakefield Cravath is known for her civic sculptures, busts, and bas-reliefs. She was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1902. Cravath attended public high school in Chicago and took summer classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She went on to attend college at Grinnell, Iowa, for one year before returning to Chicago where she enrolled in drawing and design classes. Her parents moved to California in 1921 and Cravath followed soon after. She studied for the next three years at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco where she received praise for her student artwork. She learned sculpting techniques from Beniamino Bufano and Ralph Stackpole. By 1926 she was an established artist and was invited to conduct art classes of her own at the California School of Fine Arts. Her work was exhibited in the 1927 Annual Exhibit of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists. She married Sam Bell Wakefield III in 1928 and continued to teach sculpture at the CSFA and later at Mills College in Oakland in 1945. As a teacher and an artist, she became famous for her use of the direct cut method of sculpting, carving and chiseling without mechanical assistance. She was an active exhibitor at the San Francisco Art Association between 1922 and 1932 and also exhibited at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (1933) and the San Francisco Museum of Art (1937). In 1937 she was appointed to the board of the Art Commission of San Francisco. She was commissioned to do three large figures for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. Cravath died in Paulsbo, Washington in 1986.

Sadly you can not get to see the sculpture without a ticket.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 1, 2015

With the demolition of Candlestick Park the statue will be placed into storage, as city officials seek a new home for the artwork. It has been said that it will be moved from the ballpark and refurbished. The estimated cost of the project is expected to range from $150,000 to $200,000. We will bring you the new location as soon as we learn.

FURTHER UPDATE November 2015

This was a motion in the September 15, 2015, SFAC Meeting Minutes “Motion to approve the de-installation and removal to storage of St. Francis, 1973 by Ruth Wakefield Cravath, a concrete and Plexiglas sculpture, approximately 27 feet high x 10 feet wide x 10 feet deep, (SFAC Accession Number 1973.27) commissioned for Candlestick Park and currently located at 490 Jamestown Avenue.

Apparently the piece is headed for Hunter’s Point sometime in 2018. There is now no discussion about refurbishing the piece, but moving it to Oakland, California for the duration.

As of July 2018 it is still not in the public eye.

Penguin’s Prayer

Posted by Cindy on September 29, 2012

Sep 292012

1100 Lake Merced Blvd.
Sunset District

Penguin’s Prayer
by Beniamino Bufano

Placed by
Lake Merced Neighborhood Organization
Bufano Society of the Arts
Dedicated December 4, 1976

This sculpture by prolific, and San Francisco darling, Benny Bufano was originally made for the Treasure Island Golden Gate Exposition of 1939.

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.

Sun Yat Sen

Posted by Cindy on September 8, 2011

Sep 082011

Chinatown

St Mary’s Square

Quincy, Pine, California and Kearny Streets

Sculpted by Beniaminio Bufano

This 12 foot statue is inscribed (in Chinese):

Dr. Sun Yat Sen 1866-1925

Father of the Chinese Republic and First President

Founder of the Kuo Min Tang

Champion of Democracy

Lover of mankind: Proponent of friendship and peace among the nations,

based on equality, justice and goodwill

Bufano has been in this blog before. His work usually used an easily-recognized style of glazed terra-cotta, a technique he learned from porcelain glazers while traveling in China. Also while in China, Bufano met and befriended the Chinese revolutionary leader, Dr. Sun Yat Sen. His claim to have stayed at the Sun home has never been substantiated, but it is clear he knew the man.

When Sun was in political exile, he visited San Francisco with the largest Chinese community outside Asia, to rally support for his overthrow of the Manchu Empire. Sun was successful in founding the Chinese Republic in 1911, and was inaugurated as first president on January 1, 1912. He served only six weeks, but the republic lasted more than a year. Dr. Sun lived until 1924.

In 1938, Chinatown business leaders commissioned this stainless steel and red granite statue of Sun, to commemorate Sun’s visit to the city. Bufano received the commission.

Dr. Sun Yat Sen was recently described by the People’s Daily (official paper of China) as, “the forerunner of the democratic revolution in China.…a great revolutionary and a great statesman who fought against imperialist aggression and for the independence and freedom of China.” Dr. Sun was among the first graduates of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese.

Photographers note: That is a pigeon on Dr. Sun’s head. The bane of statuary photography.

Sydney Walton Park

Posted by Cindy on July 5, 2011

Jul 052011

This is one of the entries to Sydney Walton Park in the Embarcadero Area of San Francisco. It sits surrounded by Jackson, Pacific, Davis and Front Streets. This wonderful park is full of art, and history. It is just a marvelous oasis in the middle of lots and lots of high rises. You will also find Kokkari Restaurant across the street on Jackson, one of the best Greek restaurants you will ever have the pleasure of dining in.

The Arch above is the Colombo Market Arch on Front Street, it is the only structural piece remaining from the old San Francisco produce market, a series of brick buildings that occupied this area. This is the part of town nicknamed the Barbary Coast. By 1892 it had become a raucous district of prostitution, dance halls and thievery. The Coast continued to flourish until 1911, when Major James (Sunny Jim) Rolph initiated a clean-up. Shut down for good in the early 1920’s, it became the Produce District.

Golden Gateway Center, created in the 1960s, was designed as a mixed-use, urban residential community. At that time, it was the largest project of its kind in the country. By law, art was required as part of the project, originally the pieces were slated to be spaced around the project, and indeed some are, but later it was decided to put all the art in the park, and this is the result. The two-acre site was designed by the well-known landscape architect Peter Walker (managing partner of Sasaki Walker, later to become SWA).

Penquins by Benny Bufano was one of the original pieces and it stands outside the park on Davis Court. Bufano is one of San Francisco’s most prolific artists and you can find his pieces in many places on this website.

“Portrait of Georgia O’Keefe” Marisol Escobar, 1982

O’Keefe sits on an old tree stump like an ancient wizard, loosely dangling her walking stick and flanked by two compact woolly dogs.” This description is based on photographs Marisol Escobar took while visiting the 90-year-old O’Keefe in New Mexico. Her sculpture, with her two pet show dogs, is the product of that visit. Marisol Escobar was born in 1930 in Paris to wealthy Venezuelan parents who were traveling through Europe. As a child, Marisol was educated in private schools in Los Angeles, then continued her art studies in New York City. In 1963 the Venezuelan Marisol became U.S. citizen.

Guns and Roses

Posted by Cindy on June 9, 2011

Jun 092011

San Francisco City College

Ocean Avenue

At the entrance to San Francisco City College is “St. Francis of the Guns” by Bufano. Born in Italy, in 1898, Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano taught at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, (but was dismissed in 1923 because he was considered too modern), the University of California, Berkeley, and Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts so his work is (or should be) well known to natives.

Following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, then Mayor, Joseph Alioto, initiated a voluntary turn-in drive that yielded 2000 handguns. He commissioned Bufano to use the gunmetal in a sculpture. Bufano had it forged in Italy, adding bronze to the gunmetal to keep it from corroding in the city’s foggy weather. A mosaic inlay depicts John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln, all victims of assassination by handguns, above a multi-racial children’s chorus. The sculpture was dedicated by Mayor George Moscone who was himself assassinated by a handgun eighteen months later. Bufano died in 1970.

Edgar Walter and Electric Power

Posted by Cindy on March 29, 2001

Mar 292001

Pacific Gas and Electric Building
245 Market Street
Embarcadero/Financial District

Above the arched entryway to the Pacific Gas and Electric building is this bas-relief depicting the primary activities of the company, hydroelectric power. At the top is a waterworks with water pouring through three openings symbolizing the “falling waters” that come from the mountains. This sign is flanked with two kneeling men facing the center. Under the base is a head of a grizzly bear, set amidst foliage, claws showing over the rim of the archway.

The sculptor for this entry way was Edgar Walter.

Edgar Walter was born in San Francisco, CA in 1877. He studied locally with Arthur Mathews and Douglas Tilden at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, and then continued in Paris with the painter Fernand Cormon and and the sculptor Jucques Perrin.

A longtime resident of San Francisco he was one of a group of West coast sculptors that included his teacher Douglas Tilden, Arthur Putnam and Beniamino Bufano.

Work in San Francisco included St. John at Grace Cathedral and the Spandrels at the San Francisco Opera House. He exhibited his Nymph and Bears at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was awarded an honorable mention. There is cast of the work, also known as The Bear Charmer at the Hearst San Simeon State Park.

He taught at the CSFA (1927-36) and maintained a residence in San Francisco at 1803 Franklin Street until his death on March 2, 1938.*