Estero en Movimiento by Claudio Talavera-Ballón

 Posted by on May 14, 2023
May 142023
 

Battery Bridge Between Bush and Market


Public Art San Francisco

This street mural is by Peruvian-born, San Francisco artist Claudio Talavera-Ballón.

Talavera-Ballón’s inspiration for his 1,900-square-foot mural is Point Reyes’ Drakes estuary. “I want to celebrate the nature that surrounds us here in the Bay Area, also in hopes the mural can serve as a reminder to protect the richness and fragility of nature.”

The mural depicts the Pacific Ocean as well as the surrounding forests, farmlands, marshes, and shrublands that make up the estuary. Talavera-Ballón calls his work “Estero en Movimiento” (Estuary in Motion).

Estuary Street Mural

At a cost of  $26 thousand, the mural was funded by Downtown SF in partnership with Tishman Speyer, San Francisco Public Works, and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Mining Exchange

 Posted by on September 9, 2018
Sep 092018
 
Mining Exchange

350 Bush Financial District The history of the Mining Exchange can be read here, as this is a follow up post regarding the “historic restoration” of the building that took place in 2018. The City of San Francisco has a policy that allows developers to put up a history vignette in place of actual historical restoration.  Walking into the building, in the left hand wing is a television screen with lovely photos of San Francisco and an attempt at an artful history review.  It fails. * The most important aspect of the restoration was the the terra-cotta facade, the missing Continue Reading

Murals of the Merchant Exchange Building

 Posted by on January 25, 2016
Jan 252016
 
Murals of the Merchant Exchange Building

465 California Street Financial District Julia Morgan was responsible for the artistic elements, under architect Willis Polk, in the Merchant Exchange Building. Miss Morgan chose William A. Coulter, the leading marine artist of his time to fill the bays between the marble and bronze columns in what is now a bank lobby. William Alexander Coulter, (March 7, 1849 – March 13, 1936) was a native of Glenariff, County Antrim, in what is today Northern Ireland. He became an apprentice seaman at the age of 13, and after seven years at sea, came to settle in San Francisco in 1869.  A Continue Reading

Art at the Merchant Exchange Building

 Posted by on January 20, 2016
Jan 202016
 
Art at the Merchant Exchange Building

465 California Street Financial District As you enter the lobby from the California Street side of the Merchant’s Exchange Building you will be greeted by many of San Francisco’s founders. These ceramic/clay sculptures are each about 36″ x 24″ and were sculpted by Mark Jaeger of Marin County. Mark was born in San Francisco and received a BA in Art Studio from UC Davis where he was influenced by Robert Arneson and Wayne Thiebaud. Mark currently lives in Marin where he teaches full time and operates his own studio in San Anselmo.  William Heath Davis was born in 1822, in Honolulu in Continue Reading

155 Sansome Street

 Posted by on November 10, 2014
Nov 102014
 
155 Sansome Street

155 Sansome Street Financial District The sculptures over the Sansome Street entrance to the Pacific Stock Exchange, now the City Club, were done in 1929-1930 by Ralph Stackpole. Stackpole has been in this website many times before and you can read about him and his work here. On January 18, 1930 Junius Cravens of the Argonaut wrote of this piece: “As one studies Stackpole’s fine decorative sculpture group, ‘Progress,’ which overhangs the east entrance to the office building, one finds in it a symbol,whether employed conscious­ly or not, of the aforesaid future. A huge nude male figure, in high relief, dominates Continue Reading

Whispering Dishes

 Posted by on January 28, 2014
Jan 282014
 
Whispering Dishes

Market Street and Yerba Buena Lane Financial District   This exhibit is the first of  a series titled Living Innovation Zones.  Living Innovation Zones (LIZ) are new public spaces opening up along Market Street between Octavia and The Embarcadero.  The LIZ’s  are collaborationa between the community, innovators, and the City to enhance the public good, foster learning and sharing, and showcase innovation.  The City plans to streamline permitting in order to boost participation in the program and bring more projects to sidewalks. “Whispering Dishes” is the first exhibit, and is a partnership between the Exploratorium and Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.  It features Continue Reading

Caduceus

 Posted by on November 25, 2013
Nov 252013
 
Caduceus

110 Sutter Street Financial District This was originally designed in a skeletal Chicago School manner by the important but little-known firm of Hemenway and Miller and remodeled with an overlay of Beaux-Arts details by architect E. A. Bozio. **** This slightly stuffy, but excellent article, written in 1979, explains the building and its environs perfectly. In 1902, the architectural supplement to the San Francisco periodical Town Talk called the original design “A modern, superbly appointed, fire-proof building, now in the course of construction.” It was designed for the Bullock and Jones Co., who occupied the lower two floors, with offices above. At Continue Reading

Old Chamber of Commerce Building

 Posted by on October 23, 2013
Oct 232013
 
Old Chamber of Commerce Building

333 Pine Street Financial District / Downtown ** From Men Who Made San Francisco  1912 There is not much left to say about McDougall other than he was educated at the California School of Design.  As stated, his work covered a wide range of building types, including churches, schools, apartment houses, commercial buildings, hotels, and private residences. Among his better known commissions were the Sheldon Building (1907) in San Francisco, the Standard Oil Building (1910) in San Francisco, an office building at 353 Sacramento Street (1922) in San Francisco, and the Federal Realty Building (1913-14) in Oakland, the West Coast’s first Gothic Continue Reading

Hotaling Place

 Posted by on October 22, 2013
Oct 222013
 
Hotaling Place

27 Hotaling Financial District Jackson Square The center building is the Villa Taverna, it sits on Hotaling Place in the Financial District of San Francisco. This is one of many charming San Francisco alleyways. Hotaling Place is named for businessman Anson Parson Hotaling, best known for his 19th century whiskey trade. Hotaling Place leads from Washington Street to Jackson, the hub of the Jackson Square Historic District.   Hotaling Place originally housed stables, (at 32-34) which accounts for the horse-head hitching posts you’ll see in the area. Hotaling Stables are registered as San Francisco Landmark #11. Hotaling Place in 1964 – Continue Reading

William Alexander Leidesdorff

 Posted by on September 14, 2013
Sep 142013
 
William Alexander Leidesdorff

One Leidesdorff Financial District The plaque outside this building celebrates the architect, leaving one to assume that that is who this person is.  However, this is William Alexander Leidesdorff Jr. Leidesdorff was born to a Dane and a Creole in the Virgin Islands in 1812. Legally recognized by his Danish father, Leidesdorff came under the wing of a British planter who taught him business skills. The planter sent him to New Orleans to work with a cotton broker with business ties to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Although neither the planter nor the broker was a blood relation, both died in Continue Reading

U.S. Custom House Sculpture

 Posted by on August 1, 2013
Aug 012013
 
U.S. Custom House Sculpture

555 Battery Street Financial District U.S. Customs House Most of the granite sculptures on the U.S. Custom house were done in-situ by unknown artists. The roof top sculpture, however, was done by Alice Cooper.  Alice Cooper (April 8, 1875 – 1937) was an American sculptor. Born in Glenwood, Iowa, and based in Denver, Colorado, Cooper studied under Preston Powers (son of the well known sculptor Hiram Powers,) then at the Art Institute of Chicago with Lorado Taft and the Art Students League of New York through about 1901. Cooper is best known for her bronze figure of Sacajawea originally produced as the centerpiece for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, 1905, unveiled in Continue Reading

U.S. Custom House

 Posted by on July 31, 2013
Jul 312013
 
U.S. Custom House

555 Battery Street Financial District The first United States Congress established the U.S. Customs Service in 1789 to collect duties and taxes on imported goods, control carriers of imports and exports, and combat smuggling and revenue fraud. Until the federal income tax was created in 1913, customs funded virtually the entire government. Possessing an extraordinary natural harbor and one of the country’s finest ports, San Francisco rapidly expanded during the nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, construction of the Panama Canal, which would dramatically shorten trade routes between the Atlantic and Pacific, had begun. City officials likely Continue Reading

The Hayward/Kohl Building

 Posted by on July 30, 2013
Jul 302013
 
The Hayward/Kohl Building

400 Montgomery Street Financial District The Hayward/Kohl Building was designed by Percy & Polk (George Percy and Willis Polk both of whom have been written about on this site many times before) for Alvinza Hayward. Hayward made his fortune from the Eureka Gold Mine in California and the Comstock Silver Mine in Nevada as well as investments in timber, coal, railroads, real estate, and banking. He was a director of the Bank of California and one of the original investors in the San Francisco City Gas Company which become the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Hayward was in his late seventies when he commissioned the partners Percy and Continue Reading

Leo Lentelli and his San Francisco Work

 Posted by on July 1, 2013
Jul 012013
 
Leo Lentelli and his San Francisco Work

Hunter Dunlin Building 111 Sutter Street Financial District The Hunter Dunlin Building is one of San Francisco’s gems.  Restored in the late 1990’s to its former glory, it has ornamentation throughout its lobby and everywhere you look on the exterior. There are six plaques on the Northern and Eastern facades called The Seasons.  They are by Leo Lentelli.  They are allegorical representations of the seasons, and while there are six plaques there are only two different sculptures. Leo Lentelli is best known in San Francisco for designing the tops of the street lights on Market known as the Path of Continue Reading

The City in Bronze

 Posted by on June 29, 2013
Jun 292013
 
The City in Bronze

275 Sacramento Street Financial District These three whimsical buildings, titled The City, are by Alexander MacLeitch.  They are bronze and were installed in 2009 by the owners of the Patson Building at 275 Sacramento Street.  This is part of the percent for Art Program in San Francisco. According to MacLeitch’s website: I create art using various metal manipulation art fabrication techniques.   My interest in metal sculpture developed while attending college in Northern California.  I was quickly drawn to the industrial processes involved and decided to have two fields of study: biology and art. It is a particularly exciting time to Continue Reading

Fort Gunnybags

 Posted by on June 28, 2013
Jun 282013
 
Fort Gunnybags

Sacramento and Front Streets Financial District The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco. It was one of the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West. *** From Found SF May 14, 1856: The nation was gearing up for the Civil War, and San Francisco was divided between the secessionist and unionist factions. James King of William, editor of the Daily Evening Bulletin and a Union loyalist, wrote an editorial condemning James Casey, rival editor of Continue Reading

Systematic Saving is the Key to Success

 Posted by on June 25, 2013
Jun 252013
 
Systematic Saving is the Key to Success

1 Montgomery Street Financial District This pressed copper decorative marquee graces the side entrance to the First National Bank, now Wells Fargo. There are two figures, one on each side of the marquee that stand and serve as supports. Cornucopias are placed at their feet. A nude male and female figure recline on either side of a medallion that is repeated on both sides of the marquee. Fruit, leaves, wheat, and a griffin are used as decorations. The medallion reads Systematic Saving is the Key to Success. The marquee is the work of Emily Michals and was done in 1924. Information about Continue Reading

The First National Bank Building

 Posted by on June 24, 2013
Jun 242013
 
The First National Bank Building

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 Continue Reading

350 Bush Street

 Posted by on May 10, 2013
May 102013
 
350 Bush Street

San Francisco Mining Exchange 350 Bush Street Financial District The San Francisco Mining Exchange, the second oldest exchange in the United States after the New York Stock Exchange, was formed in 1862 to trade mining stocks.  It is San Francisco Landmark #113. When trading in mining stocks surged in the early 1920s, the Mining Exchange hired the firm Miller & Pflueger, whose work can be found all over San Francisco,  to design this Beaux Arts building. 350 Bush is an adaptation of the classical temple form much favored by financial institutions in the period, the building’s pediment and four pairs of fluted columns recall the Continue Reading

Tut-mania

 Posted by on May 9, 2013
May 092013
 
Tut-mania

Originally the Title Insurance Company Building 130 Montgomery Financial District This lovely Art Deco building was built in 1930 by the O’Brien Brothers along with Wilbur D. Peugh. O’Brien Brothers consisted of Walter J., Albert L. and Arthur T. O’Brien, and practiced in San Francisco from 1907 through 1935. They were architects with the Pickwick Corporation. In 1925, after the deaths of his brothers, Walter J. O’Brien began working with Wilbur D. Peugh; the firm ultimately became known as “O’Brien Brothers and Wilbur D. Peugh.” Wilbur D. Peugh was born January 9, 1897 in Kelseyville, California. He attended High School Continue Reading

The Insurance Exchange

 Posted by on May 4, 2013
May 042013
 
The Insurance Exchange

Insurance Exchange Building 433 California Street Financial District Turning 100 years old this year, the Insurance Exchange was designed by Willis Polk.  This highly ornamented building is complimented by its sister building the Merchant’s Exchange next  door.  The highly decorated exterior of the building, flanked with majestic Corinthian columns and topped with a very detailed cornice simply commands attention. The ornamentation is derived from Renaissance/Baroque sources. The building exemplifies the City Beautiful Movement in its simultaneous success as urban architecture, achieved through form and composition, and as an individual building, achieved in the quality of its details. Insurance Exchange Cornice Continue Reading

Torso With Arm Raised II by De Staebler

 Posted by on April 17, 2013
Apr 172013
 
Torso With Arm Raised II by De Staebler

475 Sacramento Street Financial District De Staebler has appeared on this website before.  Stephen De Staebler, a sculptor whose fractured, dislocated human figures gave a modern voice and a sense of mystery to traditional realist forms, died on May 13 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 78. This bronze sculpture is an abstract figure of a human torso with an arm partially raised. The arm is incomplete.  The sculpture was purchased for the Embarcadero Art in Public Places project.

L’Octagon by Pol Bury

 Posted by on April 16, 2013
Apr 162013
 
L'Octagon by Pol Bury

353 Sansome Street The Financial District L’Octagon by Pol Bury – Marble and Steel L’Octagon is a result of the 1% for Art program in San Francisco. It is available for viewing between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. M-F This lovely sculpture actually moves. The balls slightly fill with water on the bottom and roll approximately 90 degrees, once the water drains they roll back to their upright position.   Pol Bury was born on April 26, 1922 in Haine-Saint-Pierre, Belgium. In 1939 he met the poets Achille Chavée and Andre Lorent and joined their Groupe de recherches surréalistes (Surrealist Continue Reading

Called to Rise

 Posted by on April 13, 2013
Apr 132013
 
Called to Rise

235 Pine Street Financial District Called to Rise features individuals who have contributed significantly to the history of San Francisco. The figures include, Juan Bautista De Anza, Eadweard Muybridge, Makato Hagiwara, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, Chingwah Lee, Ishi, Alfred Louis Kroeber, Philip Burton, Amadeo Peter Giannini, Benjamin Franklin Norris, Timothy Pflueger, Douglas Tilden, Kurt Herbert Adler, Mary Ann Magnin, Harry Bridges, Robert Dollar, John C. Young, Howard Thurman, John Swett, Charlotte Amanda Blake Brown, Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessey. Done in 1990 the sculptor was Thomas Marsh who has another piece here in San Francisco. This bronze is part of the San Francisco Continue Reading

Tile and Bronze Column

 Posted by on April 10, 2013
Apr 102013
 
Tile and Bronze Column

580 Bush Street Financial District/Union Square/Chinatown This little hidden gem, done in 1992,  is a collaboation of Ruth Asawa, her son Paul Lanier and artist Nancy Thompson. Ruth Asawa has been on this website many times before. I recently found this article by Milton Chen and Ruth Cox at Edutopia that gives a few new details about Asawa that I did not know. “The daughter of truck farmers, Asawa was born in 1926 in Norwalk, in southern California, one of seven children. In 1942, her family was ordered to report to the temporary incarceration center for Japanese Americans at the Santa Continue Reading

The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange

 Posted by on March 12, 2013
Mar 122013
 
The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange

301 Pine Street Financial District 301 Pine Street-one of the historic buildings that comprised our financial system on the West Coast-began its life in 1915 as a sub-treasury building for the United States Treasury. In 1930, when the San Francisco Financial District was fast becoming the Wall Street of the West, the “gentlemen of the tape and ticker” sought a building to express the important financial work they were doing. They chose the San Francisco firm of Miller and Pflueger to remodel the old government building into a new Exchange. Front of the building features a colonnade and granite staircase, Continue Reading

Ed Carpenter Arches the 6th Floor Terrace at 150 California

 Posted by on March 7, 2013
Mar 072013
 
Ed Carpenter Arches the 6th Floor Terrace at 150 California

150 California Street POPOS on the 6th Floor Terrace Open 9 am to 6 pm Ed Carpenter is an artist specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon, Carpenter collaborates with a variety of expert consultants, sub-contractors, and studio assistants. He personally oversees every step of each commission, and installs them himself with a crew of long-time helpers. While an interest in light has been fundamental to virtually all of Carpenter’s work, he also Continue Reading

Star Maiden a relic of the Pan Pacific Exposition

 Posted by on March 6, 2013
Mar 062013
 
Star Maiden a relic of the Pan Pacific Exposition

1 Sansome Street POPOS Open During Business Hours Star Maiden by Stirling Calder (Alexander) Stirling Calder attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in 1885, at the age of 16. Here he studied under Thomas Eakins. He apprenticed as a sculptor the following year, working on his father’s extensive sculpture program for Philadelphia City Hall, and is reported to have modeled the arm of one of the figures. In 1890, he moved to Paris where he studied at the Académie Julian under Henri Michel Chapu, and then was accepted in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he entered the Continue Reading

Core by Charles Arnoldi

 Posted by on February 20, 2013
Feb 202013
 
Core by Charles Arnoldi

101 2nd Street SOMA – Financial District Core by Charles Arnoldi – Acrylic on Canvas Core is a result of the POPOS and 1% for Art programs of San Francisco.  While viewable through the buildings glass it is available for closer viewing from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm M-F. Charles Arnoldi was born April 10, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio. While visiting a girlfriend’s grandmother in New York, he took the opportunity to view works by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Observing their smudges, smears, and imperfections, he sensed that he too was capable of such work, and decided to attend art school. Arnoldi Continue Reading

A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

 Posted by on February 15, 2013
Feb 152013
 
A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

343 Sansome Street The Financial District Four Seasons by Joan Brown This tiled obelisk is by Joan Brown. Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the “second generation” of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. She studied at the California School of Fine Art (now San Francisco Art Institute), where her teachers included Elmer Bischoff.   Her sculpture is not as well known, and yet she did several of these obelisks, there are at least 3 in San Francisco.  These include the Pine Continue Reading

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