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

Search Results : arthur putnam

Father Junipero Serra

Posted by Cindy on August 14, 2013

Aug 142013

Mission Dolores
16th and Dolores
The Mission District

This sculpture, found inside the cemetery is by Arthur Putnam. The cast stone sculpture is one of a series of allegorical figures originally commissioned to depict the history of California for the estate of E. W. Scripps. This cast was funded by D. J. McQuarry at the cost of $500. It was placed at Mission Dolores in 1918 when the Mission was remodeled.

Arthur Putnam (September 6, 1873–1930) was an American sculptor who was recognized for his bronze sculptures of wild animals. His bats grace the First National Bank and his other animals can be found on the street lights of Market Street. He was a well-known figure, both statewide and nationally, during the time he lived in California. Putnam was regarded as an artistic genius in San Francisco and his life was chronicled in the San Francisco and East Bay newspapers. He won a Gold Medal at the 1915 San Francisco world’s fair, officially known as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and was responsible for large sculptural works that still stand in San Francisco and San Diego. Putnam exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913, and his works were also exhibited in New York, Chicago, Paris, and Rome.

Spring Valley Water Company

Posted by Cindy on June 26, 2013

Jun 262013

425 Mason Street
Lower Nob Hill/Tenderloin

This unassuming and yet intriguing little building has been sitting in my computer waiting to be written about since March of 2012. My late husband, the architectural sculptor Michael H. Casey had driven me by to show me the wonderful detailed sculpture that covered the first floor. I was unable to find out anything about it and so the post was left unwritten.

In the past few months I had the privilege of hearing Gray Brechin, UC Berkeley lecturer and author, speak on the architecture of the UC campus. I purchased his highly detailed tome titled “Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin‘” to further my education on San Francisco’s history. He has chapters dedicated to the fights and corruption of water and its history within our fair city. Most San Franciscan’s familiar with their city’s history know of the fight to bring water to a sea surrounded town, but Gray brings it to life with some underbelly stories that make reading his book worth every second.

An excerpt from the book:

Between the mid 1860s and 1930, San Francisco’s water supply was controlled by the Spring Valley Water Company. As one of the most powerful private monopolies in the state, Spring Valley was controlled by, and used largely for the benefit of, the local land barons and financiers who authorized the development of a wide variety of often-destructive hydrologic projects. Efforts to de-privatize the city’s water supply began under the Progressive mayoral administration of James Phelan, and pressure mounted after the failure of the water supply during the 1906 Earthquake and fire. Eventually the Hetch Hetchy source was secured for the city, ending Spring Valley’s corrupt monopoly.

The Spring Valley Water Company was a private company that held a monopoly on water rights in San Francisco from 1860 to 1930. Run by land barons, its 70-year history was fraught with corruption, land speculation, favoritism towards the moneyed elite, and widespread ill will from the general populace.

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And yet, that is not what led me to write this post. In researching the First National Bank I took quite a long time to find the artist of the canopy over the side entrance to the bank. Emily Michels was a school teacher in San Francisco, and thus did not warrant much space on the hundreds of art sites dedicated to finding artists in the world. However, again thanks to the UC Bancroft Library, none-the-less, I found her.

It was in reading an interview with her that I discovered she was the one responsible for the water pouring down the Spring Valley Water Company building.

The building was designed by Willis Polk, who was a specialist in public-utility architecture and one of San Francisco’s leading architects. He was the architect on the Central Pump Station in San Francisco.

I found this excerpt about the building in The San Francisco Water, Volumes 1-8 dated January 1923

“The first two stories and part of the third will be devoted to the Water Sales Department. The fourth story will house the Agricultural Photographic, Publicity, Purchasing and Real Estate departments. The fifth will be occupied by the executive offices of the president and vice-president and manager. The sixth will be given over to the offices of the secretary and auditor. The top floor will accommodate the Engineering Department.

On the roof there will be a girls’ restroom, with a kitchen, set in the midst of a garden planted to grass and flowers, the latter being an unusual feature for the office building. The distinctive feature of the main floor will be a fountain designed by the distinguished sculptor, Arthur Putnam.

The public spaces in the building will have marble floors and wainscotings. The woodwork throughout will be oak. An intercommunicating Dictograph system will be installed to relieve the pressure on the telephone exchange.”

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It is interesting that Arthur Putnam also was a sculptor on the First National Bank.

The City and County of San Francisco acquired the property on March 3, 1930 when it purchased Spring Valley Water Company’s water system. The building served as headquarters for the San Francisco Water Department until January 2003. The City declared the property surplus and placed it on the market in June 2007 at that time the sale price was $5,600,000.

The First National Bank Building

Posted by Cindy on June 24, 2013

Jun 242013

1 Montgomery Street
Financial District

This classic Italian Renaissance bank building was designed by Willis Polk in 1908. Polk has been in this website many times. The Raymond granite entryway is only the tease to a beautiful and highly ornamented interior, replete with a carved white marble staircase; counters and benches of carved marble along with bronze tellers’ windows, and hardware.

Originally the Crocker-Citizens National Bank (absorbed by Wells Fargo in the 1980’s), the building has been extensively remodeled. It originally housed an 11 story office tower above it and was sheathed in terra cotta.

One of its more outstanding features is the rotunda entrance supported by granite pillars, with its coffered ceiling.

Originally a “combination bank and office building” it is now one of the most lavish banking interiors in the city. In 1921 the banking hall and its arcaded base were extended to the north in an exact copy of the original design. This extension made a grand interior even grander but it incurred an interesting reaction from Polk who sued the architect, Charles E. Gottschalk, for plagiarism.

By 1960 the sandstone façade was crumbling. So Milton Pflueger, whose brother Timothy was the city’s most influential architect in the 1930’s and 1940s, redesigned the façade for the upper floors. When Crocker proposed a new world headquarters tower and galleria further west on Post Street, the city provided air space in exchange for the demolition of the upper floors of the building at 1 Montgomery. The roof of the bank is now a garden for the Crocker Galleria Shopping Center.

Found on both the interior and exterior of the windows are these little bats. They were designed by Arthur Putnam. Within the frieze, also done by Arthur Putnam, are mountain lions, wolves and foxes.

Arthur Putnam has also appeared many times in this website. Why bats? I have no idea, other than Putnam was well known for his animal sculptures.

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.

Golden Gate Park – Pool of Enchantment

Posted by Cindy on February 24, 2012

Feb 242012

Golden Gate Park

This is the Pool of Enchantment, it sat between the two circular stairway entries to the old de Young Museum. The pool is now on the east side of the entryway.

The Pool of Enchantment actually preceded the Museum by a few years. Donor Marie Becker, widow of banker Bernard Adolph Becker, originally proposed using her $42,000 bequest to rebuild the Sweeny Observatory on Strawberry Hill. The park commission rejected this proposal but struck a compromise and applied the funds to create the Pool of Enchantment in 1917. M. Earl Cummings sculpted the Native American boy playing a flute and the two mountain lions in the center. Architect Herbert A. Schmidt designed the carved granite stonework.

This work consists of four parts, the young man playing a reed flute, the cats listening, the island of vegetation, and the pool (The Pool of Enchantment).

The animals are lifelike bronze statues of native California mountain lions. The young man does not look like any particular person or ethnic group, portraying the better nature common to all humanity. Since the sculpture was first placed in 1894, the ferns and reeds have had to be replanted, but the original boulders and turtle-sunning rocks remain the same.

M. Earl Cummings (given name Melvin Earl Cummings) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 13, 1876. As a teenager Cummings was apprenticed to a wood carver in decorating the Mormon Temple. After moving to San Francisco in 1896, he won a scholarship to the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art where he was a pupil of Douglas Tilden. His benefactress, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst enabled his further study in Paris with Mercie at Ecole des Beaux Arts. Returning to San Francisco, he exhibited regularly at the Bohemian Club while sharing a studio with his close friend and sculptor Arthur Putnam. He taught sculpture at the Mark Hopkins until 1915 and also was instructor of modeling at University of California Berkeley from 1904-16. He did numerous portrait busts, statues, and public monuments and served on the San Francisco Park Commission for 32 years.

Golden Gate Park – Sphinx

Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2012

Feb 222012

Golden Gate Park

Copies of Sphinx by Arthur Putnam – 1912

These sit to the right of the entry to the new de Young Museum. The plaque on them reads: This pair of concrete sphinxes replaces the original black granite sculptures commissioned from Arthur Putnam for the entrance to the Egyptian revival Fine Arts Building of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. At the fair’s end, this building served as the first incarnation of the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. Sometime between 1905 and 1912, the granite sphinxes were removed. New concrete sphinxes based on Putnam’s initial plaster maquettes were placed at the site. The building was demolished in 1929, but the sphinxes remained. During the construction of the new de Young, the museum’s conservators repositioned the statues on new bases and restored them to their original appearance based on documentary photographs.

As far as the originals, they disappeared sometime after the 1906 earthquake. Stories abound about the fate of the originals, and even the original material. Some say they were granite, and others say they were bronze and melted down. Another memory is that one was stolen and the other destroyed. In any event, the current concrete pieces, similar in concept to the original ones, were created in 1903 and installed in 1928.

Original Sphinx and Dore Vase at the Egyptian revival Fine Arts Building for the California Midwinter International Exhibition

Arthur Putnam (September 6, 1873–1930) was an American sculptor from the turn of the 20th century who is recognized for his bronzes of wild animals and public monuments. He was a well-known Californian and enjoyed a national reputation as well. Putnam was regarded as an artistic genius in San Francisco and his life was chronicled in the San Francisco and East Bay newspapers.

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.*

Path of Gold Street Lamps

Posted by Cindy on March 13, 2001

Mar 132001

Market Street

The Ferry Building to Castro Street

Known as the Path of Gold due to their golden hue which emanates from yellow sodium vapor lamps the 33-foot high lampposts along Market Street were designated historic landmarks in 1991.

The 327 Path of Gold standards are a legacy from the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century, which also gave San Francisco the Civic Center. Their distinctive color and pattern of light identify Market Street from distant viewpoints.
The Winning of the West bases by sculptor Arthur Putnam feature three bands of historical subjects: covered wagons, mountain lions, and alternating prospectors and Indians.

Willis Polk designed the base and pole in 1908 for United Railways’ trolley poles with street lights. The City required the company to provide highly ornamental poles, with lamps and electricity, as the price of permitting the much opposed overhead trolley wires.

The tops were designed in 1916 by sculptor Leo Lentelli and engineer Walter D’Arcy Ryan, whose lighting designs for the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915 had inspired emulation on the City’s principal thoroughfare.

This project was linked to graft payments to Mayor Schmitz, political boss Abe Ruef, and seventeen of the eighteen members of the Board of Supervisors.

A timeline to help simplify things:

1916: The original installation, from the Ferry Building to Seventh Street, was a cooperative effort by private companies including Pacific Gas & Electric. To service the tall poles, PG&E invented an ancestor to the cherry picker.

1920s: Path of Gold tops were added to the Winning of the West bases from Seventh Street to Valencia Street.

1972: As a component of the Market Street Beautification program which followed BART construction, all the poles and ornaments were replaced with replicas and fitted with new high pressure sodium vapor lamps.

1980s: The original Path of Gold standards were used to extend the system out Market Street to just beyond Castro.

Lentelli was born in Bologna, Italy. He studied in both Bologna and Rome and worked as a sculptor in Italy. Immigrating to the United States in 1903 at the age of 24, Lentelli initially assisted in the studios of several established sculptors. In 1911 he entered the Architectural League exhibition and won the Avery Prize. The following year he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Chosen to provide sculptural ornament for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, Lentelli moved to San Francisco in 1914.