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San Francisco Art Association

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The San Francisco Art Association was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established the first art school west of Chicago, now the San Francisco Art Institute, as well as the predecessor of the San Francisco Museum of Art.

Early history

SFAA was founded on March 28, 1871 by a group of artists and "literary men" with the goals of establishing an art gallery, art library, and eventually a school of art. Painter Juan B. Wandesforde hosted the organizational meeting and was elected its first president. Among the early artist members were George Henry Burgess, Gideon Jacques Denny, Andrew P. Hill, Thomas Hill, William Keith, Charles Christian Nahl, Ernest Narjot, and Virgil Williams.[1]

Within a few months, SFAA had elected its first honorary member: Albert Bierstadt, the financially successful landscape painter from New York who was at that time sojourning in California. By 1874, SFAA had 700 regular members and 100 life members, the latter paying $100 for the privilege.[2] The quarterly receptions were attracting some 1000 people and the semi-annual exhibitions, running for two months each, brought over 7000 viewers.[2] In 1874, there were similar public art institutions in only three other United States cities: New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.[2]

From the beginning of the Bohemian Club in 1872, a web of interconnections between it and SFAA was apparent.[1] [3] Many artists were members of both organizations, and art patronage from well-to-do Bohemians helped provide a living for the all-male artists who were invited to join the Bohemian Club. SFAA exhibits in the late 19th century were very successful—many of the participating artists sold a year's worth of production to wealthy Bohemian and society patrons.[3]

School of art

In February 1874, SFAA founded the California School of Design, installing Virgil Macey Williams as director. Subsequent directors included Emil Carlsen and Arthur Mathews. In 1893, the institution moved into the former Mark Hopkins mansion on Nob Hill, using the name Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (for the building but not the School of Design), and became affiliated with the University of California. In 1906, the devastating fire following the earthquake destroyed the school. A simpler replacement was built in one year, using the name San Francisco Institute of Art.

In 1916, Pedro Lemos was let go as the school's director and France-trained Lee Randolph took the lead. The school's name was changed to the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA). In 1926 it moved into a new building on Chestnut Street, still the main campus of the San Francisco Art Institute.

Museum of art

An art collection existed at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and could be visited by the public, but it did not take on the identity of a museum. Accounts differ regarding how much of the collection was saved from the 1906 fire. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in 1915 increased local public interest in art and calls for San Francisco to have a permanent art museum.[4] The exposition organizers offered to give the Palace of Fine Arts building to SFAA if $30,000 in operating expenses could be raised by May 1, 1916.[5] The building, which had been intended only for temporary use, was deeded to SFAA and the land it was on, formerly part of the Presidio, was deeded to the City of San Francisco by an act of Congress, contingent on the federal government being granted the right to operate a spur railroad line from Fort Mason to the Presidio.[6]

To direct the museum, the association hired J. Nilsen Laurvik, a New York art critic who had written a book on modern art in 1913 and co-edited the Catalogue de Luxe of the PPIE Department of Fine Arts. SFAA printed letterhead bearing the title "San Francisco Museum of Art" and in November 1916 began publishing the San Francisco Art Association Bulletin. The museum operated in the Palace of Fine Arts until 1925, when SFAA decided it was not financially viable to continue in that deteriorating building. After much fundraising and a bond measure, the San Francisco Museum of Art reopened in the War Memorial Veterans Building in the Civic Center in January 1935. The opening exhibitions included the SFAA Annual; Gothic and Renaissance tapestries from the collection of Mrs. William H. Crocker; forty-six examples of “Modern French Painting” that included Cézannes and Renoirs; and Chinese sculpture, which was “to remain at the museum as the nucleus of a permanent display of Oriental art.”[7] [Albert M. Bender] was a member of the Board of Trustees at the time and is said to have donated some 1100 of the first 1200 objects in the collection. The museum's governance was separate from that of SFAA, but a cooperative relationship between the two entities continued for years.

Merger and dissolution

In 1961, SFAA merged with CSFA, and the art school took its modern name, the San Francisco Art Institute. The SFAA was officially dissolved in 1966.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Karlstrom, Paul in San Francisco Art Institute: Illustrious History, 1871-Present(exhibition catalog, San Francisco Art Institute, 1996), pp. 7-10.
  2. ^ a b c United States Bureau of Education. Circular of Information of the Bureau of Education, United States Government Printing Office, 1874, pp. 49–51.
  3. ^ a b Lee, Anthony W. Painting on the Left: Diego Rivera, radical politics, and San Francisco's public murals, University of California Press, 1999, pp. 30–35. ISBN 0520219775
  4. ^ Ben Macomber, The Jewel City, San Francisco: Newbegin, 1915 http://www.books-about-california.com/Pages/The_Jewel_City/The_Jewel_City_Chap_12.html
  5. ^ San Francisco Examiner, 28-30 April 1916.
  6. ^ Oakland Tribune, 1 March 1925, p. 80.
  7. ^ San Francisco Art Association Bulletin, January 1935.
  8. ^ San Francisco Art Association|Smithsonian Archives of American Art
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