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

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Paul Selinger piece is gone

Posted by Cindy on January 26, 2019

Jan 262019

This piece once stood in the Broderick and Bush Mini Park

Untitled by Paul Selinger – Photo from the San Francisco Parks Department

In 2010 the SFAC de-accessed this piece due to damage, one can assume it was destroyed. “Civic Art Collection Senior Registrar Allison Cummings informed the Committee of the need to remove Paul Selinger’s sculpture Untitled, 1971 (Accession #1971.44) from its current location at Broderick and Bush Mini Park due to the artwork’s advanced deterioration. Ms. Cummings stressed that as assessed by a Recreation and Parks Department structural engineer, the sculpture should be considered a threat to public safety and will need to be dismantled and stored on site while Arts Commission staff completes the formal deaccessioning process. Upon Ms. Manton’s suggestion, Ms. Cummings agreed that public notice of the artwork’s removal will need to be posted within the park.” SFAC February 17, 2010 meeting.

The untitled sculpture was created by Paul Selinger (1935-2015) with funds donated by the Levi Strauss Company, for the garden.

Paul Selinger was born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 12, his family moved to Mill Valley, California. In 1958, Paul completed his undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, then followed with a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. Shortly after completing his master’s degree, he traveled to South Korea and began his lifelong love affair with Asia, living in Korea, then Hong Kong, for the next ten years. Paul taught sculpture at the University of Hong Kong and became an internationally recognized artist in 1969 when he created massive public sculpture installations and designed and built a playground filled with abstract sculptures — believed to be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia — in Hong Kong’s Shek Lei resettlement estate. After returning to the U.S. he continued to work in metal, plastic, wood, and other media, producing small pieces for homes and gardens, and large pieces for public display

Paul established his last studio in Petaluma in 1998, creating lyrical yet dynamic wall sculptures imbued with his love of nature, movement, poetry, and calligraphy.

This piece is still listed in the San Francisco Art Commission’s Data Base as existing.

Richmond District Police Station

Posted by Cindy on June 19, 2013

Jun 192013

461 6th Avenue
Richmond Police Station
Richmond District

The Richmond District Police Station was built in 1927 in a red-brick Romanesque Revival style.

The Horse Barn

Behind the police station this brick building housed horses with a loft to hold their feed in the back. Both buildings were renovated in 1990 and the horse building now houses offices as well as a neighborhood community room.

I had come to the Police Station to photograph and write about the glass entry door by Shelly Jurs.

Shelly Jurs trained in architectural glass techniques at the Cummings Studio in San Rafael, California (1973-74) and the Swansea College of Art, South Wales, Great Britain, in 1975. She did a formal apprenticeship training at the Willets Stained Glass Studio, Philadelphia, PA, 1976-77. She served as personal Assistant to Ludwig Schaffrath, a major figure in the glass art renaissance of post-war Germany and a world-renowned architectural glass designer. In October of 1978 she opened her own architectural glass studio in Oakland, California and has since completed well over 200 custom architectural glass works.

A delightful policeman invited me in to see the rest of the station. This Bronze, Granite and Marble piece in the lobby of the Police Station is by Jaap (Jacob) Bong. Bong has a piece on Fire Station #24 that you can see here. Jaap Bongers was born in Stein, Holland and studied at the Jan Van Eyck Academie of Fine Arts and the Stadsacademie of Fine Arts, both in Maastricht, Holland. In addition to his travels to Africa, Bongers also visited the United States for the first time in 1985 and settled permanently in San Jose in 1987.

On the wall behind this mosaic were these lovely framed originals of the police station’s blueprints.

Lions and Bears in the Park

Posted by Cindy on May 23, 2013

May 232013

The Brown Gate
8th and Fulton Street

This bear and lion that grace the pillars when you enter the park at 8th and Fulton are by M. Earl Cummings. Cummings has been in this website many, many times, he also has quite a few sculptures within Golden Gate Park.

These sculptures were a gift of Susanna Brown, a one time resident of San Francisco. Ms. Brown gave $5000 to create the animals which were installed in 1908 to honor her late husband.

Gustave Albert Lansburgh of Lansburgh and Joseph, a firm noted for its movie theater design, is responsible for the stonework.

The King of Beasts in Golden Gate Park

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2013

May 112013

Golden Gate Park
Music Concourse

This lion sits outside of the new DeYoung Museum near the Pool of Enchantment. It is by Roland Hinton Perry. Created in 1898 it was given to the City of San Francisco in 1906 by San Francisco jeweler Shreve and Company. The sculpture survived a fire in Shreve’s showroom caused by the ’06 earthquake.

The red stone the sculpture sits on was donated by John D. McGilvray. John D. McGilvray Jr. and Sr. worked in the stone and masonry contracting business in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto, California. ( McGilvray-Raymond Granite Company) Together they helped build many of San Francisco’s best known buildings including the City Hall, the Civic Auditorium, the Public Library, the State Building, the St. Francis Hotel, the Emporium, the Flood Building, the Stanford University Chapel and the original buildings on the Stanford campus.

Roland Hinton Perry was born in New York City to George and Ione Hinton Perry January 25, 1870. He entered the École des Beaux Arts in 1890 at the age of 19. At 21, he studied at the Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris and focused on sculpture, the medium in which he would achieve the most artistic success.

After returning to the United States, Perry received a commission to sculpt a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress inWashington, D.C. in 1894. The following year, he was commissioned to create the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the Library’s main building, now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. He died October 28, 1941.

Carl G. Larsen. Chickens to Jet Fighters

Posted by Cindy on May 2, 2013

May 022013

Larsen Park
19th Avenue at Ulloa
Sunset District

This plaque can be found on the corner of 19th Avenue and Ulloa. The plaque was done by M. Earl Cummings in 1913 of Carl G. Larsen.

Cummings has appeared prominently in this website for the many sculptures he has done around town.

“In the late 1800s, many speculators began buying land in the Sunset District. By the early twentieth century, landowners in the area included Michael deYoung, Fernando Nelson, and Adolph Sutro. But one of the largest land owners, Carl Larsen, also had other ties to the district.

Larsen did not live in the Sunset District, but he owned a business and a lot of land in the area. Sometimes called the “Gentle Dane,” he donated land for parks in the Sunset and probably would have given more to his city, but underhandedness after his death prevented any further gifts.

Carl Gustave Larsen was born in 1844 in Odense, Denmark. He came to San Francisco in his late 20s and worked as a carpenter. In 1879, he started the Tivoli Café downtown at 18 Eddy Street. In 1905, he moved across the street, constructing his own building at 50 Eddy Street. A popular restaurant, the Tivoli Café was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Undaunted, Larsen rebuilt and opened the Tivoli Café and Hotel Larsen.

Plenty of land was available in the Outside Lands in the late 1800s. Larsen’s first venture into real estate was in 1888, when he bought one block in the Sunset at an auction. He continued to buy land in the area, and by 1910 he owned fourteen entire city blocks and lots that totaled about nine more blocks. At this time, all of the land was sand dunes. Few of the streets were cut through, and accessibility was difficult.

As time passed, Larsen sold or donated parts of his holdings. Well-known structures that sit on land once owned by Carl Larsen include St. Cecilia’s Church on Vicente Street and the (former) Shriner’s Hospital on Nineteenth Avenue.

Larsen’s Chicken Ranch

Larsen operated a chicken ranch on one square block bounded by Moraga and Noreiga streets, Sixteenth and Seventeenth avenues. Each morning, a horse-drawn carriage took eggs from the chicken ranch to the Tivoli Café downtown, probably along the only through road in the Sunset, the Central Ocean Road. Tivoli Café ads boasted, “Fresh eggs from Sunset Ranch EVERY DAY.”

Once a year, at Easter, the Larsen chicken ranch hosted a large party for the neighborhood, with open bars and tables of food. Some reports say that these annual parties got out of hand and were discontinued in 1913.

Local Activism

Larsen lived downtown, but he was very involved in the Sunset neighborhood. He was a member of the Sunset Improvement Club and the Nineteenth Avenue Boulevard Club, a group that lobbied for a macadamized road and beautification along today’s Nineteenth Avenue, from Golden Gate Park toIngleside. In 1900, this group raised money to plant “bunch grass” on the west side of the newly macadamized Nineteenth Avenue.

Although he worked for civic improvements and streetcar service to the area, Larsen was not completely happy when his efforts were successful. To help pay for the Twin Peaks Tunnel, a tax assessment was made of Sunset landowners, who would benefit the most from the tunnel’s construction. What happened at this point is not clear. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Larsen owed about $60,000 and filed an unsucessful protest with the city. The newpaper said that to pay his assessment, Larsen sold many of his lots to the city and to private bidders on May 22, 1914. However, Block Books from 1915 and 1920 show Larsen owning most of the same Sunset land he owned in 1910. In More Parkside Pranks and Sunset Stunts, George Stanton wrote that Larsen did not have enough money to pay the tunnel assessment and “died a broken hearted man.” However, according to the Chronicle, the Larsen estate was worth close to $800,000 when he died.

Navy Jet – 1960’s Photo:Richard Lim F-8 in 1975 Larsen Park Photo: Gary Fong

Land Donation

Larsen is best remembered as the donor of Larsen Park, two blocks between Nineteenth and Twentieth avenues, between Ulloa and Wawona streets. Current Sunset residents know the green lawns, baseball diamond, tennis court, basketball court, and Charlie Sava Pool. Sunset residents in the 1950s and 1960s swam in the “modern” Larsen Pool, and remember the military airplanes that sat on the land, one at a time, for years, unique life-sized toys for children to climb over and sit in.

In 1926, when Larsen donated this park to the city, Mayor James (“Sunny Jim”) Rolph thanked him on the steps of City Hall proclaiming that Larsen would “be remembered in company with other benefactors, who have accumulated great wealth within our boundaries and were inspired to reciprocate with gifts to the commonwealth.”

Larsen Park was unique in that two spaces were set aside as “out-of-door card rooms,” one for men and the other for women. The outside card rooms and soccer field are long gone, but the tennis court and baseball diamond remain, now accompanied by a basketball court and an indoor swimming pool.

A memorial to Larsen stands at the Nineteenth Avenue and Ulloa Street corner of Larsen Park. The bronze plaque, mounted on a large stone, displays a bust of Carl Larsen sculpted by Melvin Earl Cummings, who also sculpted Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. Below the sculpture, the plaque reads, “Carl G. Larsen has generously given these two blocks to the city of San Francisco for park pleasure purposes.”

Larsen also donated land at the southern edge of Golden Gate Heights. Golden Gate Heights Park (or “Larsen’s Peak”) rises 725 feet above sea level, one of the city’s highest hills.

Larsen’s Death and Disputed Will

Carl Larsen died on November 5, 1928. He was remembered as generous both to the City of San Francisco and to his employees at the Tivoli Café. Newspapers reported that the Tivoli Café had been losing money for years before Larsen’s death but that he would not close it or terminate any workers.

Evidence indicates Larsen wanted to leave some of his estate to San Francisco. A handwritten will, dated July 27, 1909 and found after his death, gave $10,000 to a brother, $5,000 each to his other brothers and a sister, $25,000 to a friend, $25,000 to the Danish Ladies’ Relief Society of San Francisco, and $5,000 to the Boys and Girls’ Aid Society of San Francisco. The remainder, estimated at more than $500,000, was given to San Francisco for a museum in Golden Gate Park.

Some people listed in the will never saw those funds. When the will was discovered, Larsen’s signature and the signature of a witness had been “cut off.” Larsen’s relatives (22 of them, some living in Denmark) disputed the will and, in 1931, Superior Court Judge Dunne declared the will invalid. The friend mentioned in the will received a settlement; the rest of the estate was divided among Larsen’s relatives.

Larsen’s museum was never built in Golden Gate Park, but two Sunset parks—Golden Gate Heights Park and Carl G. Larsen Park—remain as reminders of the Gentle Dane.”

Lorri Ungaretti, is the author of the above history.

As a child I was fascinated with the airplanes that sat in Larsen park. There were three planes in the park over time. The first was a WWII recon camera plane that sat in the park from 1959 to the mid 1960’s. The jet was hauled to the park by G.W. Thomas Drayage and Rigging Company then the Russell Hinton Painting Company and the District Council of Painters Repainted it.

The second plane was a Navy FJ-Fury fighter that sat in the park from 1967 to the 1970’s.

In 1975 an old F-8 Crusader replaced the fighter plane. The F-8 was slung on a Marine Helicopter and flown under the Bay Bridge, a sight that must have been something to behold. From there it was taken to the San Francisco Zoo and trucked to the park. The F-8 was removed on orders from the City as there was not enough money to do lead-paint abatement. That plane was eventually moved to Santa Rosa and restored.

There is an effort to bring back a play structure that mimics an old military jet, donations are being taken at the Larsen Park Jet Organization.

San Francisco’s Fire Chiefs House

Posted by Cindy on August 23, 2012

Aug 232012

870 Bush Street

In Memorium

Dennis T Sullivan

1838-1906

By fire shall hearts be proven, lest virtue’s gold grow dim, and his by fire was tested, in life’s ordeal of him. Now California renders the laurels that we won “dead on the field of Honor” her hero and her son.

Dennis T. Sullivan was the revered chief engineer of the San Francisco Fire Department at the time of the Great Earthquake and Fire. He was at the Chief’s Quarters, 410 Bush Street, during the disaster, and was mortally injured when he fell through the floor and into the cellar. According to eyewitnesses, brick chimneys and the dome of the California Hotel crashed 60 feet through the adjoining fire station, which housed Chemical Company No. 3, as well as Chief Engineer Sullivan and his wife Margaret.

Sullivan lingered near death for four days and finally died at the Presidio’s U.S. Army General Hospital, where he was taken when the Southern Pacific Company Hospital at Fourteenth and Mission streets was evacuated because of the fire.

City Architect John Reid Jr. designed the new Fire Chief’s residence in the 1920’s to look like a firehouse. San Francisco was the country’s first city to have a separate building for its chief. It is now Official City Landmark No. 42.

According to the San Francisco Municipal Record of October 1925:

Some time after Chief Sullivan’s death a fund of more than $15,000 was raised by subscription to build some sort of a memorial to his memory. It was placed out at interest owing to the fact that the trustees of the fund were unable to agree upon what sort of a memorial should be built.

For several years the matter of building a home for the Fire Chief in the place of temporary shack that had been provided after the fire of 1906 by the City on Willow avenue, an alley west of Van Ness avenue, had been under discussion. The matter had been delayed owing to differences of opinion as to a location for the home, and the further fact that, owing to the very great advance in the cost of building material, an appropriation of $15,000, provided by the Supervisors, had become wholly inadequate for a building in this district, which was within the fire limits and was required to be of fire-proof construction.

At this juncture and after two appropriations had been made for two succeeding years in the annual budgets, and when hope that the building would ever be erected was almost despaired of, the trustees of the Sullivan Memorial Fund decided to assist in the building of the home and that is should be known as the Sullivan Memorial. The original amount of the Sullivan subscription had been increased, through the interest earned, to almost $20,000 and, together with the $15,000 provided by the Supervisors, was sufficient to build the home shown in the accompanying picture.

The plaque was designed by M. Earl Cummings whose work can be found all over San Francisco.

San Francisco Municipal Record:

On either side are two bronze doors which swing open and which enclose the garage in which the automobiles of the Chief stand always in readiness. The door to the right of the picture is the entrance leading up to the home itself, which is located on the second and third stories. On the ground floor at the left of the building is a window of the room for the Fire Chief’s operators. There are three beds in the room, and other conveniences for the men, who sleep there, one man always being on duty. The house is connected directly with the Central Fire Alarm Station.

The present fire chief does not occupy the house.

Golden Gate Park – John McClaren

Posted by Cindy on March 8, 2012

Mar 082012

Golden Gate Park

Rhododendron Grove

John McLaren, Supervisor of Golden Gate Park from 1890 until his death in 1943, detested statues. He hated them with such a passion that he defied the City authorities and persisted in his lifelong crusade to keep Golden Gate Park statue-free. It is fitting, then, that for his efforts McLaren was immortalized in the form of–what else? –a statue, which may be found near the entrance to the Rhododendron Dell that bears his name. Interestingly, the McLaren statue is placed at the very back of a hedged-off grassy space, far from the gaze of visitors. Perhaps those responsible for the statue felt a tinge of guilt. By attempting to conceal the McLaren statue, they were following McLaren’s own policy of “if you can’t beat ’em, hide ’em.” When McLaren lost his battles against those who wanted to erect a statue, he exacted revenge by re-arranging the park to make the statue as unobtrusive as possible. Usually he did so by planting trees, shrubs, and assorted verdant objects on all sides of the offending idol. To this day, most of the dozens of statues that grace (or deface) Golden Gate Park are so well-concealed by McLaren’s greenery that few visitors even suspect their existence.
-Dr. Weirde of FoundSF.com

In this statue McClaren is holding a pinecone and stands directly on the soil, rather than a pediment. The statue was sculpted by M. Earl Cummings, (Cummings is responsible for many of the statues in Golden Gate Park) around 1911. It was refused by McClaren when it was presented as a gift by Adolph Bernard Spreckels. One story says it sat on McClaren’s porch for years.

John McClaren by M. Earl Cummings

Golden Gate Park – Doughboy

Posted by Cindy on March 6, 2012

Mar 062012

Golden Gate Park

JFK Drive

Heroes Redwood Grove

This grove is dedicated to the memory of the members of the San Francisco Parlors, Native sons of the Golden West who gave their lives in the World’s War I and II.

The meadow adjacent to this grove and the Doughboy Statue with laurel wreath are easy to notice while passing by on JFK Drive, but the redwood grove itself is visited less often. The trees were planted in 1930 in honor of war casualties, and have since grown enough to create a dense, shady grove.

The sculpture was by M. Earl Cummings – whose work is seen throughout the park – it is bronze and originally created in 1928 for the Pan Pacific International Exposition. It was acquired by popular subscription, for $6,000, through the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West and installed in the park in 1930.

A side note: The term “doughboy: was in use in the 1840s. The origins are unclear. The most often cited explanation is that it arose during the Mexican–American War, after observers noticed U.S. infantry forces were constantly covered with chalky dust from marching through the dry terrain of northern Mexico, giving the men the appearance of unbaked dough. Another suggestion is that doughboys were so named because of their method of cooking field rations of the 1840s and 1850s, usually doughy flour and rice concoctions baked in the ashes of a camp fire, although this does not explain why only infantryman received the appellation. Still another explanation involves pipe clay, a substance with the appearance of dough used by pre-Civil War soldiers to clean their white garrison belts. The uniforms that were worn by American soldiers in the World War I era had very large buttons. The soldiers from allied nations suggested that the Americans were dressed like “Gingerbread Men” and then began to refer to the Americans as The Doughboys.

Golden Gate Park – Rideout Memorial Fountain

Posted by Cindy on March 3, 2012

Mar 032012

Golden Gate Park

Music Concourse

Rideout Memorial Fountain

The Rideout Memorial Fountain – 1924

This area was developed for the Midwinter Fair’s Grand Court of Honor. The grounds were sculpted from sand dunes by men using horse-drawn sleds.

The fountain, dedicated in 1924, was made possible with a $10,000 gift from Corrine Rideout. Corrine Rideout was the widow of Norman Rideout, who died in a mining accident in 1896. Mr. Rideout’s father, also Norman, came from Maine to Oroville, California and opened a bank. He successfully opened five more in the central valley of California. After his death in 1907 the banks were sold to A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy later to become the Bank of America. The family surmises that the money to pay for the fountain may have come from the sale of these banks. The Rideouts have given quite a bit to California.

The cast stone pool was designed by architect Herbert A. Schmidt. The statue is by M. Earl Cummings. The original intention was for the statue to be of bronze, but the budget did not allow it.

Golden Gate Park – Robert Burns

Posted by Cindy on February 26, 2012

Feb 262012

Golden Gate Park

The Plaque reads:Robert Burns
1759-1796To a Mountain Daisy 1786

Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow’r,
Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow’r,
Thou bonie gem.

This plaque donated by the Caledonian Club of San Francisco May 1979

A campaign to have a statue of Robert Burns in San Francisco was started by John McGilvray in 1905.

The required cash was raised and Melvin Earl Cummings (whose grandparents were born in Scotland) was commissioned to produce the figure. Cummings modelled a standing figure of the poet which was then sent to the De Rome Foundry in San Francisco for casting. Sadly, the foundry and its entire contents were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and the fire.

The rebuilding of the city took precedence and the project was put on hold until 1907. Cummings had to start from the beginning, however the model and casting were finished by the end of the year and the statue was unveiled in Golden Gate Park on Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1908.

The statue itself is eleven feet high and stands on a pedestal of Californian granite nine feet high. The statue is off JFK Drive near the Rhododendron Grove.

Golden Gate Park – Turtle Sun Dial

Posted by Cindy on February 25, 2012

Feb 252012

Golden Gate Park

In front of the de Young Museum

This sundial by Melvin Earl Cummings was named by the North American Sundial Society ‘Navigator’s Dial’ because on the dial face there are the images of three explorers of the California coastline.

The memorial sun dial was given to San Francisco by the California members of the National Society of Colonial Dames, in honor of the first navigators who approached the Pacific coast. These pioneers were Fortun Jiminiez, who came to the coast in 1533; Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, 1542, and Sir Francis Drake, 1575.

The base of the dial is of Utah stone. The dial is bronze in the form of a half globe, resting on the back of the turtle. The inscription on the face translates to “I tell not the hours when the sun will not.” On the outside of the half globe is a relief map of the Western Hemisphere, the cost at the time was about $3000.

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, The Music Concourse and Goethe and Schiller

Posted by Cindy on February 15, 2012

Feb 152012

Golden Gate Park

This is the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. It is flanked by the new Academy of Sciences and the New DeYoung Museum.

A view of the DeYoung

Two important things you should know about Golden Gate Park. It is bigger than Central Park and it was NOT designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

Golden Gate Park is 1017 acres, Central Park is 843 acres. Golden Gate Park was designed primarily by Botanist John McClaren and Engineer William Hammond Hall, Central Park WAS designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

This is the first in a series of the statues of Golden Gate Park. Most of them used to be cleverly hidden in inconspicuous locations because John McLaren, the gardener who tended Golden Gate Park for more than 50 years, did not care for statues. In fact, he hated them so much, it is rumored that he took the one that sculptor Earl Cummings created of McLaren himself and hid it in the stables, where it was not discovered until after his death in 1943.

According to the Golden Gate Park superintendent William Hammond Hall “The value of a park consists of its being a park, and not a catch-all for almost anything which misguided people may wish up.” Hall considered the park to be a place to enjoy nature without the trappings of the city, a place that did not include a lot of structures, particularly ones that did not contribute to the true park experience. Yet in an 1873 report to park commissioners about the state of the park, Hall noted, “Some classes of park scenery are fitting settings for works of art, such as statues, monuments, and architectural decoration.”

The statues often move like chess pieces on a board, however, over the years many have been relocated to central locations. Most can be found, either on John F. Kennedy Drive, or on the Music Concourse.

Dedicated

to the City of San Francisco

by citizens of German descent

of California

in this year Nineteen Hundred and One

Renovated and rededicated

in the year 2001

by the

United German American societies

of San Francisco and Vicinity

Schiller is holding a scroll, and Goethe is holding the wreath. The bronze figures stand on a pedestal of red Missouri granite. The artist was Ernest Friedrick August Reitschel.

Rietschel was born in Pulsnitz, Saxony. At an early age he became an art student at Dresden, and subsequently a pupil of Christian Daniel Rauch in Berlin. In Berlin he earned an art studentship, and studied in Rome in 1827-28. After returning to Saxony, he became noticed by creating a colossal statue of Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony. He was elected a member of the academy of Dresden, and became one of the chief sculptors of his country. In 1832 he was elected to the Dresden Professorship of Sculpture. He died in Dresden in 1861.

The original Goethe–Schiller Monument is in Weimar, Germany. It incorporates Ernst Rietschel’s 1857 bronze double statue of Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), who are probably the two most revered figures in German literature.

Four exact copies of Rietschel’s statue were subsequently commissioned by German-Americans in the United States for Goethe–Schiller monuments in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), Milwaukee (1908), and Syracuse (1911).

North Beach- Marini Plaza

Posted by Cindy on November 7, 2011

Nov 072011

North Beach

Marini Plaza

These are the bears of Marini Plaza at Powell Street. It once was a lone corner of Washington Park. Frank Marini (1862-1952) is mentioned often in Alessandro Baccari’s book, “Saints Peter and Paul: ‘The Italian Cathedral’ of the West, 1884-1984.” Marini was a major civic benefactor, participating in the work of the Salesian groups at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. He was a sponsor of the boys’ club, to help troubled immigrant boys who had little English speaking ability, education or guidance. He was a fundraiser to pay off the debt for building the church and Salesian school. He gave the money to build a gymnasium at St. Francis Church, on Vallejo Street, for the church-sponsored basketball teams.

The bears are gold painted, metal and filled with concrete. I could find no information on the original sculptor, but after a tree limb fell on the walking bear, and it’s paws were damaged by vandals, it was restored by conservator Genevieve Baird.

This is the pose the Golden Bear has on our California State Flag.

Drinking Man

The other statue in the park is “Drinking Man” by M. Earl Cummings. Mr. Cummings, who was a Park Commissioner at the time, donated the statue to the city in 1905. The city then paid $1550 to have it cast in bronze. The model for the piece also posed for St. John the Baptist by Auguste Rodin.