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.