This is titled Up-Tight #1 by Jaques Overhoff. Mr. Overhoff has been in this blog before with a piece on SF City College campus. Up-Tight #1 is painted concrete. The name was to symbolize the stabilizing effects of the tension cables. That made absolutely no sense to me until I found an earlier photo of the piece.
Obviously some restoration is in order for this piece that was installed in 1977.
Ingleside San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus * * Sentinels by Aristides Demetrios This one piece is titled Sentinels. It is by Aristides Demetrios who has been in this site before with his aeolian harp. This piece of welded bronze plates is titled sentinels and was done in 1973. The piece is on permanent loan from the SF Arts Commission. In May 2010 the SFAC acknowledge that there was need for a complete conservation assessment as the piece was showing significant corrosion at the seams due to trapped moisture. It was assumed at that time that the work Continue Reading
San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus This piece at City College San Francisco, Ocean campus, is titled “Wyoming Coup” by William Wareham. It was installed in 1972 on the West Lawn of the Science Building. William Wareham graduated with an MA and MFA from UC Berkeley in 1971, he did his undergraduate at the Philadelphia College of Art. He has always had a strong metal theme in his work. Since his stint as the first Artist in Residence at the Norcal Solid Waste Systems facility in 1990, where he set up the studio and wrote the safety manual, Wareham Continue Reading
Two polished marble mosaics stand at either end of the Science Hall on the City College of San Francisco Campus. These mosaics are by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz and represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in tiny tiles. Completed on site, the mosaics took two years to install with a staff of eight workmen. Each tile is of varying thickness, resulting in shadows that emphasize their shape. Each marble tile was carefully polished, cemented onto the façade of the building, and then polished again. Begun during “Art in Action” at the Golden Gate International Exhibition (1939-1940), Continue Reading
San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus Frida Kahlo Garden The giant Olmec head, “El Rey,” San Lorenzo #1 was carved by Ignacio Perez Solano, also know as “il Maestro.” The head is an accurate reproduction of the original piece from San Lorenzo in Veracruz, Mexico. The 3,000 year old original basalt head is believed to be a portrait of a ruler from this ancient civilization. The stone originated some 50 miles from where the statue was discovered. The piece was given to City College of San Francisco in 2004 by then Vera Cruz Governor Miguel Alemán Velazco in Continue Reading
This statue of “Pacifica” is in the courtyard of the Diego Rivera Theater on the City College of San Francisco Ocean Avenue Campus. Originally, an 80 foot tall sculpture of Pacifica graced the Golden Gate International Exhibition on Treasure Island, she was destroyed by the Navy in 1941 when they took possession of the island. Sal Daguarda undertook the project of reproducing a smaller version of Pacifica because of his ties to the long ago event. DeGuarda was a swimmer and performer for the Billy Rose Aquacade, entertaining the crowds during the 1939-1940 Exhibition. One day a photographer took his picture Continue Reading
San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus This is called “Sculptural deck and Bicentennial Wings” by Jacques Overhoff. It was done in 1979. It is typical of Overhoff work, cast concrete with ceramic tile. Jacques Overhoff was born in 1933 in the Netherlands and studied at the Graphics School of Design and the University of Oregon. He moved to San Francisco in the 1950’s. His civic sculptures range in style from symbolic figures to structural abstractions, as well as, in this case, entire sculptural plazas. This particular piece has suffered from abuse by skate boarders and taggers and was restored Continue Reading
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 Continue Reading