Art in the San Francisco Bay 1945–1980: An Illustrated History

368 Pages·1985·67.42 MB·english

by  Thomas Albright

ART™ SAN FRANCISCO
BAY AREA
1945 = 1980
Frontispiece. David Park, Four
Men, 1958. Oil on canvas, 57" X
92".
ART™. SAN FRANCISCO
BAY AREA
1 9 45 " 1 9 80 An Illustrated History
THOMAS ALBRIGHT
University of California Press
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1985 by
The Regents of the University of California
Printed in Japan
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 89
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Albright, Thomas.
Art in the San Francisco Bay area, 1945-1980.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
i. Art, American—California—San Francisco Bay
Area, 2. Art, Modern—20th century—California—San
Francisco Bay Area. I. Title.
N6535.S3A43 1985 709'.794'6 84-24112
ISBN 0-520-05193-9
ISBN 0-520-05518-7 (pbk.)
To my mother, Ruth Albright;
to the memory of my father, James Albright;
to my daughter, Sylvia Albright;
and to my dearest friend, Beverly Lohwasser.

Acknowledgments xì
Preface xiii
Introduction xv
Before the Storm: The Modernist Foundation I
The Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Society of Six. The San
Francisco Institute of Art: Gottardo Piazzoni, Beniamino Bufano,
Ralph Stackpole. Diego Rivera and Social Realism. Hans Hofmann
and the "Berkeley school." Charles Howard and Surrealism. Clay
Spohn and the Dada strain.
Clyfford Still and the Explosion of Abstract Expressionism 15
Douglas and Jermayne MacAgy and the California School of Fine
Arts. New teachers: David Park, Hassel Smith, Elmer Bischoff,
Edward Corbett. The G.I. Bill. Clyfford Still. Mark Rothko and
Ad Reinhardt in San Francisco. The Metart Galleries.
The Golden Years of Abstract Expressionism 37
Richard Diebenkorn and Sam Francis. Abstract Expressionism at
the California School of Fine Arts. Dynaton. The Museum of
Unknown and Little Known Objects. "The San Francisco school."
Frank Lobdell. Hassel Smith. Jack Jefferson and Alvin Light. The
action painters. James Budd Dixon.
"Back to Nature": The Bay Area Figurative School 57
A retreat from "revolution." David Park. Elmer Bischoff. Richard
Diebenkorn. James Weeks. Paul Wonner. Nathan Oliveira. Manuel
Neri. Joan Brown.
The Beat Era: Bay Area "funk" 81
North Beach and the Beat movement. Jess. Wally Hedrick.
Jay De Feo. Wallace Berman. Bruce Conner. George Hcrms. Keith
Sanzenbach. Arthur Monroe, Aaron Miller, Fredric Hobbs.
The Watershed: Funk, Pop, and Formalism n 1
The 1960s and the growth of an "art world." Neo-Dada, Formalist
abstraction, and Pop art. William T. Wiley and "Dude Ranch
Dada." Wayne Thiebaud. Robert Arneson and the ceramics
movement. Funk Art and the Slant Step Show. Bay Area
Formalism: David Simpson, Sam Tchakalian. Bay Area Pop: Mel
Ramos, Peter Saul, Gerald Gooch.
Sculpture of the Sixties 135
The rush into the third dimension. Peter Voulkos and the ceramic
"pot palace" at U.C. Berkeley: Stephen De Staebler, James
Melchert, Ron Nagle, Harold Paris. The San Francisco Art Institute
"polychrome movement": Jeremy Anderson, Robert Hudson,
William Geis, William T. Wiley, Arlo Acton. Bronze casting and
The Garbanzo Works. High tech: Don Potts, Fletcher Benton,
Bruce Beasley and plastics. Sculptors outside the mainstream.
The Utopian Vision 165
The counterculture and the Haight-Ashbury. Psychedelic art: light
shows and posters. Experiments in art and technology. The
underground "comix." Visionary art: Robert Comings, Norman
Stiegelmeyer, Bill Martin, Gage Taylor, Wilfried Sätty. Political art
and murals in the neighborhoods.
Conceptualism 187
The idea as art. Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim.
Conceptualism as public spectacle: Fluxfest, the Dilexi Foundation,
portable parks. Terry Fox. Tom Marioni. Paul Kos. Lynn
Hershman. Conceptualist photography and correspondence art.
The Object Reaffirmed: Photo Realism and the New Abstraction 209
Contemporary art as a growth industry. Photo Realism,
process-and-materials abstraction, and the esthctic of the
impersonal. Bay Area Photo Realists: Robert Bechtle, Richard
McLean, Ralph Goings. Joseph Raffael. The New Abstraction:
Tom Holland, Gregg Renfrow, David Mackenzie, David Maclay,
Cherie Raciti. Neo-constructivist sculpture and personal fetishes.
David Ireland: the home as art.
Ii Personal Mythologies 231 ix
Dr. Gladstone's Wonders of the World, and art as personal
mythology. Fred Martin, Jeremy Anderson, and the mythical map.
William T. Wiley. Robert Arneson. Joan Brown. Roy De Forest.
Third World and feminist myths. The frog world of David
Gilhooly. "Dude Ranch Dada" and the Super-Object school of
ceramic making. Pluralism in art.
Epilogue 253
Appendix: Bay Area Artists 257
Notes 325
List of Illustrations 331
Index 339