A NEW AGE FORARTISTS: THE BIRTH OF THE NEW DEAL ART MOVEMENT AND THE POLITICAL CONNOTATIONS OF THE COlT TOWER MURALS
Timothy Rottenberg
Prior to 1934, public art did not exist in the United States ofAmerica. Occasionally, paintings by individual artists would achieve success and break out of the art gallery and private commission sphere into the public eye, but visibility was not widespread. With the construction of Coit Tower in San Francisco, the creation of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in ‘934, and the unemployment of artists due to the Great Depression, a unique synchronistic moment came about when the birth of public art in America was forged. For the first time in American history, the PWAP gave artists the opportunity to reflect local and national politics through their own political lens using a medium that was meant for mass consumption by the public.i In January of there was nothing exciting about the San Fran cisco skyline. The city’s two tallest buildings stood at a stout 435 feet, and lay inconspicuously in the valley of the financial district, dwarfed even by the seven natural hills of San Francisco that surrounded them. With the Golden Gate and Bay bridges only in the earliest stages of construction, San Francisco lacked architectural individuality. Appropriately, Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy and eccentric San Francisco resident, desired beautification for the city she so admired. Despite having been born in Maryland and living in France for a number of years, the allure of the
I believe this thesis to be wholly original in the field of historical study on the Public Works Administration as it related to the field of public art in America. Although its conclusions can at times seem like common and previously established theories relating to Depression era art, no study as in depth and specific has been done that I was able to uncover in my research. I have attempted to take the history surrounding a minor monument in San Francisco and apply it to the broader historical themes of the rise of the working class and the evolution of the rights and abilities of mankind. 170 Timothy Rottenberg
City by the Bay led Coit to refer to it as her “soul city.”2 Upon her death in 1929, she left one third of her fortune, an amount totaling $u8,ooo to the city of San Francisco, specifically for “the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved.”3 The city’s board of supervisors first met in early 1931 to decide what to do with the newly bequeathed sum of money. Not surprisingly, the bureaucratic minded group of officials proposed the use of the funds for the construction of a roadway around Lake Merced.4 After protests from the executors of Coit’s estate, the city agreed to create a Coit Advisory Committee, which conspired to find a use for the funds more in accordance with Coit’s intentions. Citing Coit’s attempted purchase of Pioneer Park earlier in her life, the committee agreed to set aside the open space on top of Telegraph Hill for the construction of a memorial. Arthur Brown Jr. was selected as the architect and told to work within the confines of a $125,000 budget. In an attempt to craft the greatest memorial possible with such limited funds, Brown Jr. drew up plans for a “simple fluted shaft” using the relatively inexpensive building material of reinforced concrete. During this planning phase, an election year in San Francisco brought a new mayor and new legislation that transferred control of the tower project back under bureaucratic control. Brown re-modeled his tower into an even simpler form of shaft, making it “stronger, more massive, and more primitive,” all while cutting costs.6 Strong support from the former advisory committee, which still main tained the final say on how Coit’s funds were spent, kept the concept of the tower alive. It may or may not be coincidental that businessman Herbert Fleishhacker, instrumental in creating the Coit Advisory Committee, chair of the committee himself, as well as personal friend of architect Arthur Brown Jr., had a “considerable financial interest” in the Portland Cement Association, which supplied the 5,000 barrels of cement and 3,200 cubic yards of concrete for the project. 7 By 1938 Fleishhacker’s shady dealings in other fields were uncovered and brought to trial, and he finished the year bankrupt and disgraced.8 Having finally traversed the winding road of bureaucracy, design, and preparation, construction of the Telegraph Hill memorial, known henceforth as Coit
Masha Zakheim, Colt Tower Son Froncisco: Its History ond Art. (Volcano: Volcano Press, 2009), 5. Ibid. Ibid. Brown and Jeffrey T. Tilman, Arthur Brown Jr.: Progressive Clossicist (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.), 2. 6 Ibid. 7Zakheim, Colt Tower, io. “Finished Fleishhacker,” Time, November 7, 1938.
Ex POST FACTO 171
Tower, began in January ‘933, four years after the death of Lillie Hitch cock Colt. Despite its beginnings as a purely architectural work, those most greatly affected by the construction of Colt Tower were the local artists of San Francisco. From the moment ground broke on the construction site at Pioneer Park, the sleepy artists’ community, historically around Telegraph Hill, was given a huge and rude awakening. The planned 210- foot tower, combined with the 288-foot elevation of Telegraph Hill itself, was to be an imposing landmark towering over everything in its vicinity. This of course was exactly what the planners had in mind. The pleas of the local artists, including a petition ironically signed by many of the painters who later worked in the tower’s lobby, did nothing to halt the construction of the looming monument. The socio-economic change brought to the neighborhoods surrounding Telegraph Hill by the coming of the tower is best summed up in this passage from artist Eleanor Sully’s memoir, “Remembering Telegraph Hill”:
The Hill as we used to call it (some people still do) was our private is land, lapped by the currents ofthe citybut remote fromthem. We were a small, self-sufficientsocietybound together byloveofeach other and ofpainting, sculpture, literature, theater and the views. .. No one had much money, but foodwas cheap and Spediacci’sgroceryat the top of Union Street carried customers on credit until somebody sold some thing or went to work for the WPA.9
The coming of the tower completely transformed these artists’ idyllic lifestyle. By turning their pseudo-communal paradise into a tourist attraction, Coit Tower drove local housing costs through the roof and forced the artists to start working or move out. One visionary woman, Mrs. Cecilia Bowlby-Gledhill, owner of the local “Dead Fish Café,” wandered out drunk and alone to express her feelings for the newly completed tower with a loaded weapon.ro While Sully remembered it as a shotgun, the Los Angeles Times declared it differently in the following statement, “Mrs. Honore Cecilia Bowlby-Gledhill, daughter of an English admiral and kin of British nobility, was given a thirty-day suspended sentence in municipal court today for having fired a pistol at the new Coit memorial tower.”u Either way, the distaste of the local community for the new behemoth in the neighborhood was adequately expressed. Both aesthetically and economically, the local artists were strangled by
Eleanor Sully, “Remembering Telegraph Hill,” The North American Review268 (1983): 15-17. °lbid. “Kin of Nobility in Court for Pot Shot at Tower,” LosAngeles Times, November 23,1933.
VOLUMEXX 2011 172 Timothy Rottenberg
the arrival of the tower in their neighborhood. Like any liberal-leaning and activist-oriented social circle, the artists of Telegraph Hill chose to put up a fight before being run out of their homes, and organized for the purpose of obtaining work from the government. Headed by Bernard B. Zakheim, a Jewish-American artist who had just returned to San Francisco from working in Paris, the artists of the city corralled each other’s support, and pocket change, with the inten tion of sending a letter to Washington informing them of the desperate state of the artist in San Francisco. Much to their surprise, the artists received a positive and detailed response from the White House in only four days. Unbeknownst to them, Washington was already at work creating jobs for artists not only in San Francisco, but across America. In one of the truly synchronistic moments in history, forces in Washington had already worked for a few months to outline a plan for artist relief across the Nation. Inspired equally by the burgeoning New Deal and the 19205 public art movement in Mexico, artist George Biddle wrote to his old college friend President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and implored him to support public art in America. With Roosevelt’s nod of approval, Edward Bruce, a lawyer/businessman/painter who also happened to be a lobbyist in Washington, took up the mantle of forging an American public art renaissance. His realistic business sense and strong personal drive to assist the arts led to the creation of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The PWAP, which took place a full year and a half before the famed and massive Works Progress Administration (WPA), was an experimental pilot program that tested the waters for federal support of the arts in America. Despite only existing from December1933 until June1934, Bruce’s PWAP employed hundreds of artists around the country, as well as administered the massive undertaking that became the murals of Coit Tower. Essentially, a perfect storm had brewed in San Francisco in early 1934. A collection of artists demanded work, a federal agency looked for artists to employ, and a newly constructed monument sat atop Telegraph Hill with a bare lobby. The stage for painting the Coit Tower murals was set. With a place to paint and a commission to do it, the experimental PWAP gave artists the opportunity to reflect local and national politics through their own political lens in the newly constructed Coit Tower. Tasked with portraying scenes of life in California, the twenty-six artists, both male and female, went to worlc in Coit Tower painting California as they saw it in early 1934, grasped in the jaws of the Great Depression. Depictions ranged from cheerfully defiant of the ensuing gloom to downright discouraging, each an indicator of the artists’ feelings on the hot political issues of the day. With a cast of artists who reported in from all over the political spectrum, it is no surprise that a select few labor
Ex POST FACTO
a
be
be
in
on
to In
173 2011
San
the
had
and
city.
that
saw,
anti-
fifth,
West
to
to
tower
under
labor-
of
candi
With
by
chance
later
tycoons
the
a
and
sec
election
the
commu
a
employ
election.
(E.P.I.C.)
the
power
July
the
capitalist
state
they
was
project
had
American
in
be
capitalism.
an
from
art;
port
produce
of
in
on
threaten
major
them.
symbols
to
the
to
have
from
the
customer.”
the
high
out
their
was
the
what
art
PWA?
of
(i.e.,
nomination
the
painted
VOLUMEXX
part
Tower
for
business
It
discussed
the political
construed
generated;
quality
time
by
of
California
opening
the
as
without
among
be
spared
erupted
be
that
their
in
painted
actually
Coit
and
thus
gubernatorial
one
to all-time
create
artist.
of good
painted
“goodbye”
of
was
red
“please
addition,
art
working
directives
traditions
an
economies
throughout
an
are
could
say
to
might
In
democratic
just
summer
art
at
offensive
featured
art
start
the
Poverty
established was
.12
government.
thereby
he
less
history,
Thursday”
things
purposely
Government)
major
who
surrounding
the
that
he
the
the
mid-summer
and that
California
End truly
1934.
vibrant
and
all
republicans
California
that
at
particularly
U.S.
network
Sinclair
his in
that
States
much
a
three
in
that
deemed
won
California
on
1934
appreciate
the
artists,
variety
down
accordingly
most
“Bloody
Some
artists
of
money
themes
the
California
conventional
not
artist
left-leaning)
to
with
one
with
management planned
the
of
(i.e.,
aware
leading
in
or
four
United
believing no
shut
support
Controversy
assault
its
paint
was
images in
climate
Sinclair
State
evil,
and
strike.
every
leftist.
Francisco,
public
well
the
the
Nation’s time
13.
all
into
propaganda
patron
the
outlined
violating
painters: as
1934
incendiary
by
that
the
amount of
professional
San
labor
was
of
or
the
player
public.
the
should
of
Upton
incorporate
first
warning,
Californians
strength
that
painted upset such,
of
Tower,
famously
political
avant-garde
of
read
scared
Bruce
to
more
the
the
and
public
fair slew
artist
strong
full
As
source
too Colt
please
and
educate
conservatism,
support
endless
major
was
this
one
wide-ranging
by
a
employed
the
for
to
author between
so
to
of
a
to
summer
artists letter
citizen
this
the
seduced
in
patriotism
Each
chose
of
longshoreman’s
his
feet.
Edward
proposed
as
and
side
The
ing nothing
third,
ond,
First,
newly
was
open
‘Zakheim,
pulling
It
brewed
Coast absorbed
Francisco
tensions
communist
the
seemingly
nists
conservatives launched
their
at
Having
Socialist plan,
became
dates
challenged
friendly
year,
Despite others
mainstream
detail,
ment, his
government,
an
bosses. friendly
Ex accessed
cisco’s
including
local artists
support tion
attended
with
ating
Several
be
artist
Anthony
medium
Franciscans
now
thought
murals,
Mexican
the
twentieth
Diego of
labors
pushed
removed.
174
‘3Betty
PosT
overstated.
Anthony
fresco
The
at
looked
lowed,
tension
of narrative
unwieldy
rals
Under synecdochically
Mexican
In
Another
action
Rivera, vibrant,
Public
the to
one
of
April
left-leaning
Rivera,
the
was
Botis,
of
since
FACTO
for
paint
importance
of
creating
back
and
of
work
Coit
the
the history,
W.
Murals,
with
(i.e.,
context
of the
like.14
W.
century
the
with
as the
29,
was
fresco,
Diego
and
in
and
the
components
fresh,
Rivera’s
worked
art
painters
element
the
passage within
Lee, José
2010,
Lee
Tower
proddings
very
repeated
until
Mexican
By
the
of
painting
the
taken
first
for
compositional
Rivera’s
‘renaissance’
ied.
antiquated
Painting
of
the
a
murals,
modern
any
and
http://www.diego-rivera.org/article4-mexican-muralism.html.
Orozco
had
sums
early
modern,
threat
medium
with
the
arrival
public
new
of
the
October
(Berkeley:
murals
on
demonstrated
leading
working
had
during
of
been
accounts,
how
Powerftul
practice,
Diego
twenty-six
muralist.
of
thirties:
his
tower.
and
on
a
on
of
the
up
art
how
of
even
Timothy
painting
and
resolution
communist
day
conditioned
radical
the
the
and
in
Rivera. wet
at artistic
beckoned
how
the
growing
University
form
Rivera
breakdown,
artist
of
Messages
20,
Left:
which
David
against
to
Rockefeller
San
visited
medium
Every
Marxism,
most
the
plaster)
summer he
According
recognize
activism.
the paintings
once
Diego fresco in
Franciscans
It
Rottenberg
the
in medium
an
1920S
was
to
was
San
Siqueiros.
they
importantly,
artist
from
artists,
in attention
of
the
popularity
by
Mexico
the
Mexican
the
acute world
Mexican
Rivera,
California
was
a
he
had
Francisco,
the
a
artists
took
months
and
painted.
public
synthesized
In
Center
certain
field
artists
who
massive
the
in
what
in
to
practice
likely
the incoherence,
been
of
had
Radical and
the
to
had
America.
social Muralism.
the
to
up
a
union “The
splintered
was
of
two
muralists
by-gone
Press,
study
reception
a
learned
pictorial
put
business
of
in
of
politically
in
Coit
to
tangible
San
The
new
the
offending
subversive
never
influence
of
decades
New
nearly
Colt
Politics,
three
support Mexican
into
be realism
1999),
of looking
ability
Pro
the
under
ancient
Tower,
Diego
meaning
received
Upon
how
San
murals
Tower
York along
productive
era,
(dis)unity.
seen.;3
ncisco great
influences
was
affected of
223.
and mandatory.
example
that
Rivera
dangerous.
to
to
Francisco
of
at
Rivera,
the
fresco
mural
piece
into
on
muralists
City,
destruc
appreci
San
with
tradition
look
read
familiar
mu
into
ones”
fol
Rivera,
cannot
News,
by
artists’
prints, in
every
Once
Fran
their
the
was
San
was
the
the
or
of
of of 175 artists, as well as a “protest meeting at the Coit Tower.”r5 Thus, another obstacle was set in front of the Coit Tower muralists. In a climate completely opposed to both the subject matter and the medium of their work, they attempted to win over both public opinion and appease their government masters, all while maintaining the personal artistic integrity of their radical political ideals. Four artists in particular caused a disproportionate amount of cha grin with their works inside of Coit Tower. John Langley Howard, Bernard Zalcheim, Victor Arnautoff, and Clifford Wight each painted scenes of stark social reality which proved to be too harsh for acceptance by the general public. Immediately to the right of the entrance inside the lobby lies John Langley Howard’s Ca1fornia Industrial Scenes (fig. i). As described by Masha Zaltheim in her history of Coit Tower, Langley painted “a miner reading The Western Worker, a large group of militant unemployed workers with a black man [and a LatinoJ in the foreground” as well as a harsh juxtaposition between a destitute family mining for scraps of wealth and a visiting group of affluent tourists stepping out of their limousine. Howard got away with these iconic leftist images by painting them amidst scenes of the massive industrial power of Califor nia. When awed by the impressive visual of a huge hydroelectric power plant and dam, as well as the speeding visage of a modern locomotive, the average viewer is not apt to focus in on the scenes of destitution and poverty. Bernard Zakheim, the same man who was influential in organizing the artists of Telegraph Hill to demand work from Washington, filled his Library with a slew of left-of-center headlines, running the gamut from “Local Artists Protest Destruction of Rivera Fresco” to “Thousands Slaughtered in Austria.” Zakheim clearly had a local and national political agenda. The most controversial depiction in his mural was of fellow artist John Langley Howard reaching for a copy of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital with one hand, while crumpling a copy of a newspaper with the other (fig. 2). According to Anica Williams, tour guide and resident expert on the Coit Tower Murals, Zakheim is representing “aman tired of reading depressing headlines and reaching for a new solution. He’s literally throwing away capitalism and reaching upwards towards communism.”i6 Victor Arnautoff, in what many called the premier mural of the tower, depicted his idea of an average day in the financial district of San
‘ “Destruction of Rivera Mural in N.Y.Termed Murder: Capitalism Couldn’t Talce It,’ San Francisco News, February 14, 1934. Page numbers ‘“AnicaWilliams, Interview by author. Personal interview. Coit Tower, Telegraph Hill, April to, zoto.
VOLUME XX 2011 176 Timothy Rotten berg
Francisco in his work, City Life (figs. a and 3b). Included are a number of images, which while not openly leftist, still put an uneasy feeling in the stomach of any staunch conservative. Next to the U.S. mailbox, there is a man waving a red flag in what appears to be a Soviet military uniform from behind. To his right, a man is being robbed at gunpoint, while the crowd around him presses on unnoticing. Nearby there is a policeman doing nothing. Also pictured is a wealthy looking businessman with his head buried in newspapers, too removed from the world to look up at the street around him. Most often cited by the press are Arnautoffs inclusion of both New Masses and the Daily Worker on the newspaper stand, but the omission of the San Francisco Chronicle. All things considered, there is not enough hard evidence to indict Arnautoff as a card-carrying communist, but his artworlc succeeded in making his political agenda obvious enough to be clear to the informed viewer. While the works of Arnautoff, Zaclcheim, and Howard required in terpretation by the viewer to arrive at leftist ideologies, Clifford Wight took one step too far by painting a full-fledged hammer and sickle, surrounded by the slogan “Workers of the World Unite.”17 Part of a series of three symbolic emblems painted above windows, the hammer and sickle stood over the far left window, with the blue eagle of the NRA emblazoning the space over the middle window, and “In God We Trust” over the right window, crossed over with chains. As if this were not provocative enough, a reporter from the Hearst newspaper empire fanned the flames of the situation even more. During the political turmoil and confusion surrounding the delay of the tower’s opening, a reporter illegally and covertly gained access to the locked tower and photographed some of the murals in question.;8 Typical of the main stream media’s assault on leftist ideas at the time, the newspaper decided to run a forged photo playing up the severity of the communist sympathy in the tower. The altered photo featured Clifford Wight’s “Workers of the World Unite” slogan placed directly over Bernard Zakheim’s controver sial library scene (fig. ). Although the text of the article correctly stated that the slogan was located over a window, any journalist knows that a picture can speak a thousand words and the intent of the mischievous editing was obvious. Public opinion turned irreversibly against the artists, and Colt Tower remained locked up by the art commissioners who woriced for the PWAP and represented Washington until something was done about Wight’s slogan. While at first supportive of their fellow artists creative freedom, even going so far as to picket for his support, the
‘7Zakheim,Colt Tower, 30. 8 Ibid.
Ex POST FACTO 177 threat of losing future work made the other artists of the tower one by one turn their backs on Wight. Victor Arnautoff wrote in his memoir:
I did not dream ofthe reaction that ensued. Petitions appeared—some from the artists—demanding removal of Wight’s mural, for political reasons. Imarveled at how rapidly opinions changed among those who before had picketed the tower entrance. Today they cowardlysigned their names to condemn the work ofa colleague.The artists wereafraid oflosingfuture commissions—economicpressure destroyed their resis tance. RalphStackpole,BernardZakheim,CliffordWight and Ideclined to sign the petitiOflS.19
This polarizing statement shows concisely and clearly who the true leftists among the tower artists were. Missing is the painter of the politically turbulent California Industrial Scenes, John Langley Howard. It is likely that he had succumbed to the fear of blacklisting, which was a constant threat hanging over the head of every politically charged artist in the early 193oS. To sign a petition in support of communist symbols would have been viewed as treasonous, and have serious consequences. for one artist, these consequences struck home. According to the memoir ofArnautoff, Clifford Wight was deported immediately follow ing the incident, and his three window mounted symbols were painted over by an unknown hand. The details regarding Wight’s deportation, as well as the identity of the person responsible for painting over his symbols are lost among the other events of the turbulent summer of 1934, and remain a mystery to modern historians. Although the most popular political counter-culture of the time was that of the left, leftists were not the only ones to emblazon the tower with symbols of their ideals. One muralist, frede Vidar, was notoriously known as an avid supporter of Hitler. He frequently expressed pro-Nazi sympathies in 1934, including the scratching of a swastika into a layer of whitewash in a window of the tower. His painting, Department Store, showcases both a box bearing the “SS” logo, as well as a newspaper article displaying the visage of Hitler himself. The female deli owner has a Jewish star painted on her cap, although it is not known whether this was painted in by Vidar himself as a way of”marlcing” the woman, or if it was added in by another artist after the completion of his worlc without his knowledge. In the mural Banking and Law, located directly next to Vidar’s and painted by artist George Harris, many books in the law library are given fake titles and authors, who are named after fellow
‘ Victor Arnautoff, A Lfe Renewed:An Autobiographical Sketch. None: Unpublished. Courtesy of BayArea Labor Archives (Contact: Catherine Powell).
VOLUME )O(• 2011 178 Timothy Rottenberg painters in the tower and their habits. Harris has titled one book Laws on Seduction, and named the author as Herr Vidar. Given the short span of time during which the artists were forced to work, Vidar’s frequent flirting with women in the tower had been a deplorable distraction to everyone around him. There was also conflict with proud Jewish- American artist Bernard Zakheim. In American Jewish History, Mary Elizabeth Boone notes, “Zaltheim also included friends and enemies in his mural. The man in yellow, for example, depicts fellow-muralist Frede Vidar, a Danish-born San Franciscan who freely expressed antisemitic sentiments during their months together painting the Coit Tower murals. Zakheim vented his dislike for Vidar by depicting him as a blind man, with the features of a Down syndrome victim.”2o Having been the only fascist out of twenty-six artists and therefore the black sheep of political thought in the group, frede Vidar showcased his ideologies within his woric, just as many of the leftists did their own. While low-lcey compared to the symbols of Clifford Wight, Vidar’s sympathies come across about as strongly as those of Victor Arnautoffs mural. Frede Vidar, like Arnautoff and all of the other artists, used the opportunity granted to him by the PWAP to paint California as he saw it through his personal political spectrum. Also present in the tower were artists who chose to make their po litical statement by avoiding the symbols of the Depression as much as possible. The most apparent of these come from the artists Maxine Aibro, Otis Oldfield, and Jane Berlandina. In Aibro’s vast agricultural expanse known simply as Ca1fornia, the viewer is shown a busy and bustling fruit-picking scene, absolutely rife with productivity (fig. 5). The National Recovery Act (NRA) symbols on the crates, which are the only mention of the Depression era in the entire piece, seem out of place on packages overflowing with healthy looking oranges. Attentive viewers notice that there are even ladies picking scores of flowers, dressed in what were popularly known as “beach pajamas.” Instead of working to feed their families, these women look like they have stopped by on their way back from an afternoon of lounging away on the shore. Finally, the type of crops pictured represent popular fruits of both northern and southern California, representing prolonged statewide prosperity. To Maxine Albro, a Diego Rivera trained artist, it was more important to paint encouraging signs of wealth for the public than to discourage them with depressing imagery. Otis Oldfield, a well-respected artist at the time of the painting, was tasked with painting views of the bay from Telegraph Hill for the elevator
‘° Elizabeth Boone, “Something of his Own Soil’:Jewish History, Mural Painting, and Bernard Zakheim in San Francisco,” American Jewish History 90(2002)2131.
Ex POST FACTO 179
lobby. He preferred to woric in his home studio instead of amongst a plethora of other artists. While there, Oldfield created breathtaking oil paintings of the views directly northwest and east from Telegraph Hill in two separate panels. Defiantly, he placed people in the foreground of his worlcs, in a smaller scale than the one used by the artists in the rest of the tower. Most notable in Oldfield’s works today is the lack of development in what is now the bustling port of Oakland, as well as the absence of bridges connecting the San Francisco peninsula to the outside world. These were not artistic omissions, but rather accurate representations of the environment around San Francisco in early 1934. There is only one small reference to the Depression era, in a few planks sitting on a dock with no workers in sight to load them onto the waiting cargo ship. As explained by Masha Zakheim, “According to Jane Oldfield, daughter of Otis Oldfield, while her father was not a political artist, he was painting what he saw.”21 Finally, and most starkly in contrast with the rest of the work in the tower is Jane Berlandina’s Home Lfe. Critic of Rivera and the modern fresco movement, Berlandina, refused to paint in any other style than the modern impressionist tempura (fig. 6). Appropriately, her work is separated from the rest of the artists, on the second floor and in a separate room. The errant artist painted a scene of plenty, a prosperous family enjoying their life at home amongst a grand piano, servants, many works ofart, and a fully stocked pantry of goods. Her painting technique sticlcs out like a sore thumb. According to Junius Cravens of the San Francisco News, “Most people appear to think, however, that the Ber landina paintings are unfinished, in fact barely begun.”22 The well- educated Berlandina knew that her artistic medium appeared out of place and primitive compared to the rest of the works in the tower, but she chose to use it anyways. Although she did not express a political agenda, Berlandina furthered her point of criticism for the Fresco revival of the 19205 and 193os, showing true courage to be the only artist to disobey the style directive imposed on the tower muralists as a whole. from leftists to fascists and everything in between, the political spec trum represented in the Coit Tower murals is all-inclusive. The intense political climate of the time period was like a magnifying glass which amplified the effects of any questionable symbols in the murals, whether they were intended to be offensive or not. In the end, artistic integrity was maintained for the most part; only one set of murals, Clifford Wight’s telling symbols, were forcibly removed. Thanks to the efforts of
Zakheim, Colt Tower, 2$. junius Cravens, “City May Be Proud of Mural Decorations Put On Coit Tower Walls by San Francisco Artists,” San Francisco News, October 20, 1934. Page numbers
VOLUME XX 2011 i8o Timothy Rottenberg
Edward Bruce and the PWAP, these local San Francisco artists were able to reflect local and national politics through their own political lens using a medium that for the first time was meant to be consumed en masse by the public. And consume they did, for months after the towers opening, crowds thronged to absorb San Francisco’s first publicly produced art, as well as the exemplary view from the tallest man-made structure in the city. After October 20, 1934, once the tower finally opened, all involved must have uttered a collective sigh of relief. Contro versial in all stages of its construction, from architectural design to artistic intent, Coit Tower was finished and successful. The artists were able to eat and were also able to afford the abrupt rise in rent for their Telegraph Hill apartments —forone more year. The PWAP had proved its worth and opened up the path for the WPA to follow in its footsteps, and those like the businessman Herbert Fleishhacker, who had set out to make money, had done just that. Junius Cravens most eloquently stated the mood of the day in his review of the opening day of the tower for the Son Francisco News:
Taking everything into consideration, the tower decorators have done remarkably finework. There is no question but that some ofthe panels leave much to be desired. Two or three of them are very weak. But even the worst mural faults are of minor importance as compared to the merits of the job as a whole. San Francisco should be not only proud of this group of artists but grateful to them as well. And this not only for what they have given the city but also because of the courageous way in which they tackled such a Gargantuan problem, fraught as it was with difficulties and discouragements, and licked it—knocked it out cold.23
Timothy Rotten berg currently studies history as an undergraduate at San Francisco State University. Timothy is a distinguished scholar beginning at the high school levelas a participant and Secretariat of Mission ViejoHigh School’sModel United Nations Program. After receiving his BA., Timothy intends to begin a single-subject credential to teach history at the high school level.Beingaccepted into ExPost facto is Timothy’sfirst major achievement in thefield of History.
23 Ibid.
Ex POSTFACTO