Marriott Marquis Hotel

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was built 1995 but is already expanding with a new wing along Howard street. Its a good thing too with its recent acquisition of the Fisher collection and some 175 other works by big name artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, Bacon and others.

While visiting the Museum I found a deck with a great view on one of the upper floors looking west along Mission st. I pulled out my sketchbook and drew the Marriott Marquis Hotel at 4th street, not far from the museum. When I first moved to San Francisco just over 20 years ago, this hotel was the newest addition to the San Francisco Skyline and I always appreciated the art deco style.

The Little Shamrock Pub

Intersection of 9th Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, San Francisco.

I lived in San Francisco for ten years throughout the 90’s mainly in the Inner Sunset District. For a while I lived at Ninth and Irving with my girlfriend at the time, Bernadette. From our bay window in our living room we had an terrific view of Golden Gate Park just across the street (our apartment is hidden behind the tree in the drawing and to the right of the Little Shamrock Pub). I spent more than a few nights drinking Guinness at the Shamrock pub that’s well over 100 years old.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco

In celebration of moving to the Bay Area twenty years ago this month, (has it really been that long?) I thought I’d pull out this drawing I did last year of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Built for the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915, the Palace of Fine Arts was dedicated to progress and a celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal. The Exposition also signified a rebirth of San Francisco following the destructive 1906 earthquake.

I visited San Francisco in 1989 as a prospective student to the Academy of Art College (it was a college back then). A friend of mine who already lived in the area, showed me around the city and one of the places we visited was the Palace of Fine Arts. Wow, was I impressed. San Francisco felt like the most European of American Cities. Just a few years before, I had lived in London and I still longed for a cross cultural experience.

Coincidentally, one month after my visit, the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco destroying houses, bridges, and even damaging the Palace of Fine Arts. But needless to say, Earthquakes didn’t keep me away from this beautiful, eclectic city and I chose The Academy of Art to study illustration.

Internet Archives Building in San Francisco

It’s easy for me to forget how cold San Francisco can be in the summer. Mark Twain famously said “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” I believe it. I live about an hour’s drive from the city but with a distance of only 55 miles, San Francisco can still be up to 40° cooler. As I drive south, especially in late summer, I see the blanket of fog rolling over the Marin headlands welcoming me to the City by the Bay. This morning was no exception as I shivered in the cold with fog misting me and my Moleskine sketchbook as I drew.

This is a drawing of the Internet Archives building (the Archive is an organization advocating for a free and open Internet.) in the Presidio. I set up my folding chair across the street on a man hole cover in an effort to keep the feet of the stool from sinking into the soft dirt. This was working fine until I dropped my pen cap down the tiny hole of the man hole cover and into the darkness.

Birth of Impressionism Exhibit

 

My wife Marilyn and I had a great time at the Birth of Impressionism show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco yesterday. The exhibit, containing paintings from the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, travels in the footsteps of one of the most celebrated art movements in history, Impressionism. Included in the show are paintings by Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Monet, Sisley and many others. It was interesting to see the transformation of the art world from the classical style of Bouguereau to the modern style developed by Degas, Monet and the others.

We also saw a companion exhibit at the Legion of Honor called Impressionist Paris: City of Light. This show mainly focuses on the graphic arts in the form of etchings, lithographs, and wood engravings from artists Gauguin, Degas, Daumia Mary Cassatt, Loutrec. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of etchings in the show and being an etcher myself, delighted in the detail and craftsmanship of the prints. Some of the best prints highlighted the narrow city street of Paris lit up with eclectic gas lamps. But one of my favorite pieces in the show was a small oil painting by Renoir called “La Loge,” which portrays a fashionable Parisian couple sitting in a theater box. It depicts a lavishly dressed young woman gazing at the viewer while a gentleman in the background looks through binoculars at another balcony above. By the end of the show I felt like running off to Paris for an extended vacation or more likely, snuggling up at home on the couch watching old black and white french movies wishing I was in Paris drawing and painting the narrow city streets.

Another special exhibit we saw was Paris sans fin: Alberto Giacometti’s Paris. These lithographic sketches of Paris’ city streets were especially inspiring for their looseness and lively impressions modern Paris of the mid twentieth century.

After viewing the special exhibits, Marilyn and I breezed through the permanent collection and another exhibit called Very Postmortem: Mummies and Medicine. This is where I finally had a moment to park myself on a bench and do a quick drawing of a sculpture called Saint James the Less. Although I didn’t get to draw much today, it was inspiring to see the work of the Impressionist movement.


Golden Gate Bridge

Every year in February I attend a print show at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Print dealers from all over the world showcase etchings, mezzotints, and other types prints for purchase. It truly is a great place not only to see, but to buy work from up and coming artists, established artists, and the famous (Renoir and Goya et al.). Prices for prints are a fraction of the cost of oil paintings and leaves the possibility open for most anyone to become a collector. On the way to the show, I pulled off Highway One to paint the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve crossed this bridge hundreds of times over the years, and it always demands my attention. This is not the first time I’ve painted the bridge and its not likely to be the last.