Robert Pruzan Papers, 1950-1992 (Bulk Dates 1966-1991)

http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf15800113 No online items Guide to the Robert Pruzan Papers, 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) Processed by ORIGINAL INVENTORY BY: Lynn Pruzan, PROCESSED BY: Willie Walker; machine-readable finding aid created by Xiuzhi Zhou Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California P.O. Box 424280 San Francisco, California 94142 Phone: (415) 777-5455, #2 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.glhs.org/collectn/glhsmss.htm © 1999 The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. All rights reserved. Guide to the Robert Pruzan 98-36 1 Papers, 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) Guide to the Robert Pruzan Papers, 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) Accession number: 98-36 Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California San Francisco, California Contact Information: Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California P.O. Box 424280 San Francisco, California 94142 Phone: (415) 777-5455, #2 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.glhs.org/collectn/glhsmss.htm Original Inventory By: Lynn Pruzan Processed by: Willie Walker Date Completed: 1998 Encoded by: Xiuzhi Zhou © 1999 The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. All rights reserved. Descriptive Summary Title: Robert Pruzan Papers, Date (inclusive): 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) Accession number: 98-36 Creator: Pruzan, Robert Extent: 25 linear feet in 3 cartons and 61 boxes Repository: The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. San Francisco, California. Language: English. Acquisition The Robert Pruzan Papers (# 98-36) were donated to GLHS in the Fall of 1998. Access Collection is open for research. Publication Rights Copyright to unpublished manuscript materials has been transferred to the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Audio-Visual Materials The bulk of this collection consists of photographic images Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Robert Pruzan Papers, 98-36, The Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California. Biographical Sketch There's a gold mine of material out there that will be of benefit to someone someday. Piece by piece, we have built a body of work of terrific character and density. Guide to the Robert Pruzan 98-36 2 Papers, 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) There really is a spirit in the community, and we captured some of that. I'd hate to see it all mold away in boxes stored in apartments like my own. If future generations could experience some of what we felt from the pictures we took that would be payment enough. Robert Pruzan, 1991 A longtime photographer and photojournalist, Robert M. Pruzan made a strong mark in San Francisco, both within and outside the city's gay world. Pruzan's work was published in Drummer, Manifest, Sports Illustrated, and the San Francisco Examiner's Image magazine, as well as in Geoff Mains' book Urban Aboriginals, and were run regularly in the gay newspaper Bay Area Reporter. His accumulated images document much of the history of San Francisco and its gay life during the halcyon period of the 1970s and its darkest days during the 1980s. Robert was born in Seattle on September 12, 1946, the son of Marion and Carl Pruzan. He had one sibling, his older sister Lynn. All three currently live in Seattle, where Carl is retired from a distinguished career as a lawyer. After graduating from Seattle's Roosevelt High School in 1964, Pruzan almost immediately left for New York City, where he attended Columbia University on and off over a four year period. He also attended Sterling Jensen's Ecolé de Mime of New York for a time before traveling to Paris to train with the master himself, Ettiene Decroux, at his Ecolé de Mime de Paris. He worked with several classes of students at the school, becoming Decroux's first assistant. He even taught mime to some of the great practitioners, among them: Bill Irwin, Geoff Hoyle, Leonard Pitt, and Bert Houle. He also studied diction with Decroux, and translated at least one of his books, Etienne Decroux Speaks with You (1968) before leaving for the United States in 1967. The intricate knowledge of movement and form he learned as a mime student deepened his visual sensibility, which also served him in his photographic art. While he was in Paris, he also trained with Wolfram Mehring at \/ieux Colombier Atilier. Moving back to New York in 1967, for the next two years Pruzan attended classes at Columbia, studied Japanese ikebana floral arrangement, and worked professionally as a florist for a time, but his main interest was the Ecole de Mime of New York, where he became an instructor under Sterling Jensen. He also used the camera his father had bought him when he left for Paris in 1966. Favorite subjects during the early years of his photography included mime and theatrical performance, flowers and other still life subjects, friends and lovers, and people in the streets and parks of Paris, Seattle, and New York. Seeking to know more about photography, Robert worked as a test model and studio assistant to Ira Mazer at Advertising Images in New York City. For several months in 1968 and 1969, Robert performed in King Lear at Roundabout Theatre with Gene Feist, where he played the Duke of Burgundy and later the Fool. He visited Amsterdam and Paris briefly in 1970, where he further documented Decroux's teaching, and even instructed classes himself at Decroux's school on St. Marks Place. He returned to New York and his circle of friends in that city, but by late 1972 he was ready to leave the east coast for good. Loading a U-Haul van in January of 1973 he moved himself from New York to San Francisco, which he would come to call home for the remainder of his life. He found a nice cheap apartment at 545 Ashbury Street, almost at the corner of Haight & Ashbury, and quickly set out to explore, and photograph, this vibrant neighborhood. He also began meeting local people. Among these was Will Dodger, who had just opened the United States Cafe on Haight Street. With his interest in and experience with plants luring him, Robert offered to help organize a backyard garden for the Café, and he began to advise upon and maintain this tiny oasis of plants through 1975 when United State Café was turned over to its staff and became the Shady Grove. Because they had watched his progress developing the garden, the staff/owners allowed Pruzan free reign, and he continued to work with the garden until Shady Grove closed in 1979. According to Mike Hippler in his Bay Guardian article Photographing Castro Culture (3/13/91) Robert set up his own darkroom in a tiny closet in his apartment in 1974. Not a great deal is known about Pruzan's activities in the mid 1970s, but he did take photos. Hippler quotes him as stating that by 1977, his photographic work was beginning to pay for itself. He photographed the first Haight Street Fair, in May of 1978, and continued to document it, the Castro Street Fair, the Gay Day Parades, and later, the Folsom and Up Your Alley Fairs through 1991. In 1980, Vicki Leidner opened her Involution Gallery at the corner of Page & Ashbury. Although he had exhibited his photographs previously in such local venues as the Shady Grove Café, the Involution Gallery offered an entry to a wider audience, and Robert often showed there until the Gallery closed in 1982. Robert was a true nature lover who loved mountains, vistas, and all living things. Many of his best erotic shoots were taken in natural settings, often on Mount Tam and the Marin Headlands. An avid member of the California Horticultural Society, Pruzan's apartments were filled with rare and exotic plants, his own bonsai creations, rocks, shells, and tropical fish. He was an inspired and knowledgeable horticulturalist who left his touch on numerous gardens in the city. He was also a major inspiration to his friend Nancy McNally when she conceived the idea for the AIDS Memo rial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Many of his most exotic plants were donated to the Strybing Arboretum following his death. Guide to the Robert Pruzan 98-36 3 Papers, 1950-1992 (bulk dates 1966-1991) The majority of his photography after 1980 centered on friends and gay events, especially cultural programs, street fairs and celebrations, the leather world, and attractive men. His photographic forays into the cultural events of the community enabled him to befriend such figures as James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, James Broughton, and Sylvester. Other favorite subjects were famous people visiting San Francisco, local politicians, sailors, leather title contests, cityscapes, clouds, sunsets, and fireworks displays. Pruzan was also a devout Wagnerian and regular at the San Francisco Opera who photographed everyone from Pavarotti and Freni to Sutherland and Kiri Te Kanawa. He had a taste for high art and drama, and this interest carried over into his extensive portraits of San Francisco drag queens. Robert could be an impressive and tenacious political animal. He was a dedicated reforester and was involved in the planting of trees in Buena Vista Park and in opposing defoliation and other programs to "thin out" undergrowth in order to control sexual liaisons in isolated areas of the Park, a practice he saw as sheer mismanagement on the part of the city's Parks & Recreation Department. In 1989, Robert was hospitalized suddenly with breathing problems. He quickly decompensated and was placed on a mechanical ventilator. When he awoke and was taken off the ventilator, he discovered he had been diagnosed with PCP and was HIV positive.

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