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

Search Results : mary fuller

Dos Leones at SFGH

Posted by Cindy on March 16, 2013

Mar 162013

1001 Potrero
San Francisco General Hospital

So much of the collection paid for by the San Francisco Art Commission is not readily available to the general public. This piece is no exception. On the patio of the 3rd floor of SFGH, the doors were locked, however, you can see the sculpture through the window.

Titled Dos Liones, this sculpture, done in 1974, is by Mary Fuller. Mary Fuller has many pieces of public art work around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mary Fuller was born in Wichita, Kansas on October 20, 1922. Creating totemic figures, playful animals and dancing goddesses (to honor older women and their fiery spirit), she is also an author with one major art historical work, three mystery novels, and a host of short fiction and art reviews to her credit. Fullers family moved fom Kansas to California in 1924.

She grew up in the farm country of California’s Central Valley. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1940’s, working as a welder in the Richmond shipyards in 1943 during World War II.

Mostly a self-taught artist, she apprenticed in ceramics at the California Faience Company in the 1940s and began to exhibit in 1947, wining first prize at the 6th and 8th Annual Pacific Coast Ceramic Show, 1947 and 1949. In 1949 she married the painter Robert McChesney, and many of her subsequent writings are published under the “Mary McChesney” name. As a mystery writer in the 1950s, however, she used the pseudonym “Joe Rayter” to publish The Victim Was Important; Asking for Trouble and Stab in the Dark. Fuller began to construct concrete sculpture in the 1950s while pursuing her writing career. She free-lanced for major art journals, including Art in America and Art-forum, throughout the 1960s, while also conducting research on 1930s Works Progress Administration artists for the Archives of American Art. A Ford Foundation fellow in 1965, she conducted research on modernist art in the Bay Area that culminated in A Period of Exploration, San Francisco 1945-1950, termed one of the key documentary works in the field of modern California art history.

Beginning in 1974, she was awarded the first of many public art commissions, including Dos Leones.

The above is excerpted from Women Artists of the American West by Susan Ressler.

Earth Air and Sea on the Great Highway

Posted by Cindy on July 15, 2012

Jul 152012

Ocean Beach

Sloat and The Great Highway

West Side Pump Station

Earth Air Sea – 1986 – by Mary Fuller

Mary Fuller, along with her husband Robert McChesney, has been in this site before.

Mary Fuller McChesney, a California sculptor, has been carving “giant totems and goddesses” for nearly 50 years. Her artwork embodies numerous sources – Native American, Pre-Columbian, African, ancient matriarchal cultures – and like the sacred totems of the Pacific Northwest coastal tribes, honors her ancestral ties to family, both animal and human. Her art is shared and openly accessible, as public commissions have ensured that it is visible to a wide audience.

Earth – Air – Sea is sited in close proximity to the ocean and the San Francisco Zoo, and like many of Fuller’s works,the animal figures (in this case a lion, bird, and fish) were chosen to relate to their environment and engage a broad audience.

Born in 1922, Fuller has lived in California all but the first two years of her life. She studied philosophy at Berkeley, and discovered she loved to work with metal and stone while welding in a Richmond, California shipyard during World War II. In 1949 she married Robert McChesney, and much of her writing, including the book A Period of Exploration: San Francisco 1945-1950 (which has been called “one of the key documentary works in the field of modern California art history”) has been published under the Mary Fuller McChesney name.

An ardent feminist who makes art that is consciously “anti-patriarchal,” Fuller found that in the 1950’s, women artists, as well as west coast artists, were not taken seriously. More recently she has said that “women artists [. . .] are often viewed as eccentrics, or perhaps merely quaint, or worse, plain uninteresting, depending upon husbands to support them, and painting privately for themselves.”

Earth Air Sea was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the San Francisco Clean Water Program.

Portmouth Square Tot Park

Posted by Cindy on November 25, 2011

Nov 252011

Chinatown

Portsmouth Square

Tot Park

Untitled by Mary Fuller McChesney and Robert McChesney

In researching the artists I found this 2002 article in the San Francisco Chronicle by M. V. Wood. I loved it so much I thought I would just reproduce it here for all to enjoy.

They were hip.

They were young and beautiful. And they were both artists living in San Francisco in the 1940s, when the city was already romantic, and the cars and tourists were still scarce. Their crowd ruled the scene long before the Beats bought their bongos. They were the countercultural kings when Jerry Garcia was a toddler playing somewhere along the city’s streets.

Years later, Robert McChesney would become recognized as one of the leading figures of American Modernism. His works would be in numerous museum collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And Mary Fuller would become a well-known sculptor and writer, awarded public art commissions throughout the Bay Area.

But back then, McChesney was an emerging, hotshot artist, and Fuller was a successful potter. They kept bumping into each other in artsy North Beach. Finally, during a gallery exhibition of his work, McChesney drew Fuller into a closet and kissed her.

Since that kiss, more than a half-century ago, the Beats had come and gone. Garcia grew up and died. The Berlin Wall went up and came down. So did the World Trade Center. And through it all, McChesney and Fuller continued creating art.

On Saturday, the couple, who moved to the North Bay in the mid-1950s, will return to their old stomping grounds in San Francisco for the opening of the Art Exchange Gallery’s show of his paintings and her sculptures.

A lot has changed in the world and in the city since they were young, McChesney says. “And all of that goes into the art,” he adds. “Everything about life influences your art.”

While 89-year-old McChesney tells the story of their early years and that first kiss, Fuller, 79, smiles. Her husband gives her a sly grin and sidelong glance, probably much like the look he gave her in that closet long ago.

Older couples who give each other that look tend to elicit a characteristic response from younger people: to cock one’s head to the side and whisper, “Oh, aren’t they cute?” It’s the same kind of endearment bestowed upon puppies and other sweet, benign creatures.

McChesney and Fuller do not elicit that sort of behavior. They’re still too wild, too passionate, too fierce to be cute.

They’re still hip.

Robert died in 2008 at 95 years of age.

The sculpture, done in 1984, is cast cement. It represents the symbols of the Chinese Zodiac.

Detroit’s Renaissance

Posted by Cindy on August 1, 2017

Aug 012017

The Book Building at 1249 Washington Blvd, Downtown Detroit

So much has been written about Detroit’s decline, and yet so little has been written about its renaissance. Yes, the outlying areas have a long way to go, but the new construction and renovations happening in the downtown area are staggering. This post by no means covers the enormous amount of renovation occurring, these are just a few of this author’s favorite buildings.

The Book Building, designed by Louis Kamper for the Book brothers, was built in 1917, the tower was added in 1926. There was considerable criticism about the building looking more like a wedding cake than an office building when it was erected, this author, however, has a fondness for caryatids and found the building charming. The building is undergoing a projected $400 million renovation by Bedrock Real Estate Services.

The Grand Army of the Republic Hall at 1942 Grand River Avenue in the West Necklace neighborhood

The Grand Army of the Republic Building was designed by architect Julius Hess and constructed in 1887 as a structure for meetings and other GAR related activities. The cost was split between the Grand Army of the Republic ( $6000 of the cost) and the city of Detroit (the remainder of the $44,000 total cost).

State Savings Bank at 151 West Fort Street and Shelby.

This is the only building in Detroit designed by McKim, Mead, and White, it was built in 1900.

Photo from Wikipedia

Slated for demolition in 2014, the building was purchased by a private investor. The owner did not disclose the purchase price or possible plans, however, one rumored use could be an auto museum.

The Fisher Building at 3011 West Grand Avenue.

The interior of the Fisher Building is a wonder to behold and a stroll through the enormous lobby is not to be missed. Named the “Building of the Century” by Detroit AIA this 1927 building, commissioned by the Fisher Brothers, was designed by eminent Detroit architect Albert Kahn. The Fisher family financed the building with proceeds from the sale of Fisher Body to General Motors

The attention to detail on the exterior of the building is also worth noting.

The three-story vaulted arcade is finished with forty different varieties of marble and ornamentation extolling the virtues of commerce, industry, and arts.

It is almost impossible to explain the interior ceiling murals.

The eagles with their wings slightly open, ready to take flight, symbolize an America ready to advance to greater things. Other eagles in and on the Fisher have their wings outstretched, symbolizing the power of the United States. Those with their wings tucked in, in a sheltering manner, show the nation’s strength and that it is sound.

The frescos, mosaics, and sculpture were designed by Geza R. Maroti, an artist from Budapest, Hungary. The artwork represents two major ideas: the wealth and power of the U.S. expressed through commerce and transportation, and American culture and civilization through music and drama.

Artists from Detroit’s Cranbrook School and an army of European artists worked on the interiors.

Set into the floor, is a large bronze shield in low relief. It featured a semi-nude figure of Mercury — the god of transportation and bearer of messages. Sadly, the details have been mostly eroded by decades of Detroiters walking over it. It has been roped off to prevent further damage.

Along the walls of the arcade are 26 lunettes with symbolical designs and subjects such as Agriculture, Art, Justice, Knowledge, Music, Navigation, Peace, and Thrift.

The elaborate frescoes were also designed by Maroti but carried out by artists Antonio and Tomas de Lorenzo of New York City.

The corridors on every floor are marble-faced with cove ceilings. The window sills are marble.

The Buhl Building at 535 Griswold

The exterior ornamentation of the Buhl Building is what drew me in. Designed by Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls in 1925 it showcases the sculpture of Corrado Parducci and tiles of Mary Chase Perry Stratton, of Pewabic Pottery.

The entryway vaulted ceilings are designed to be the night sky, and the tiles were produced by Pewabic Pottery.

Mies van der Rohe in Lafayette Park

The Mies van der Rohe Residential District is both an outstanding example of Modernist architecture and one of America’s most successful post-World War II urban redevelopment projects. Three distinct sections cover the 46-acre project: 21 multiple-unit townhomes (pictured below) and a high-rise apartment building, 13 acre Lafayette Park consisting of recreation facilities, and a school and finally twin apartment towers and a shopping center. In 1956 developer Herbert Greenwald brought together architect Mies van der Rohe, city planner Ludwig Hilberseimer, and landscape architect Alfred Caldwell to create an “integrated community” that would “attract people back to the heart of the city.”

Michigan Central Train Station in Corktown near the Ambassador Bridge

This Beaux-Arts Classical style train station was designed by the Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem, the same firms who designed New York City’s Grand Central Terminal.

When the 18 stories tall train station opened in 1913, it was the tallest train station in the world and one of the tallest buildings in the city of Detroit. The high-rise part of the building was originally built to house offices; the depot itself is three stories tall. Part of what makes the building so visually striking is the fact that no other tall structures are immediately nearby.

Primarily due to the success of Detroit’s own auto industry the last train to ever leave Michigan Central Station pulled away in January of 1988 and the building has sat unoccupied ever since.

The building is owned by the Moroun family, who also owns the Ambassador Bridge. Neglect has brought this Nationally Registered landmark close to demolition on more than one occasion. It had all 1050 windows replaced in 2015 and hopes are that more will be done to preserve this gem.

Ford Motor Company has purchased the building as of June 2018. Here is a great article with photos of the interior in the New York Times.

The last of the buildings in this strange wanderings is the Dymaxion House at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

This aluminum house, designed by Buckminster Fuller in 1929, was meant to handle the masses of servicemen returning from the war. It was to be mass-produced, easily reused, and completely recyclable.

Built on a central core holding much of the utilities, the house radiated out from there

Market expectations, continual design changes, and other setbacks kept the house from being a reality, but the fact that its hybrid sits in the Ford Museum makes for fun viewing.

There are truly so many fabulous buildings, and history, in Detroit. If you are going, I suggest adding a considerable amount of extra time to explore the many, many office buildings, churches and government buildings that make up this amazingly architectural rich city.