Regional Oral History Off ice University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Richard B. Gump COMPOSER, ARTIST, AND PRESIDENT OF GUMP'S, SAN FRANCISCO An Interview Conducted by Suzanne B. Riess in 1987 Copyright @ 1989 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West,and the Nation. Oral history is a modern research technique involving an interviewee and an informed interviewer in spontaneous conversation. The taped record is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The resulting manuscript is typed in final form, indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the University of California and Richard B. Gump dated 7 March 1988. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Request for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with Richard B. Gump requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Richard B. Gump, "Composer, Artist, and President of Gump's, San Francisco," an oral history conducted in 1987 by Suzanne B. Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1989. Copy No. To Those Interested in my Self-Portrait: Please don't call it sad. I am caught in a pensive mood. Bob Leitstein, now head of GUMP'S, asked for my portrait, and in seeking someone who could draw fairly well I ended up selecting myself. It is not conceit. It is just that I was pretty sure of this artist's work. J,$id* x. Richard Gump TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Richard Gump INTRODUCTION by Joan Sianta INTERVIEW HISTORY BRIEF B ICGRAPHY RE CORD 0 F EMPLOYMENT vii I FAMILY, CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION Religion Grandparents The Violin Mother, Dramatics Home Environment Father' s Blindness, and Voice Interests - Music and Baseball Potter School Connections Concordia Club Father and Son Family Houses, San Francisco, Saratoga Reading and Writing Music Remembered Performances Stanford Family Finances Panama-Pacific Exposition, and French Lessons Milton Lichtenstein Penthouse on Powell Street, Playing the Organ To Europe with Robert, 1924 History, Richard Gump' s Way Parents' Divorce I1 "FOUNDED IN 1861" Coming Into the Business Gump's Window Displays Oriental and European Division Reproductions Creativity and Change Salesmen and Buyers I11 FINDIN2 AN IDENTITY Art Deco Pioneer Nights in the Art Gallery Investor Buying of Art California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Artists Groups and Snobs Living in Europe. 1927-1928 Agents for Gump' s in Europe Furnishing a Monterey Adobe: The Jacks Americans in Paris More Adventures in the Art Gallery On Turning a Profit Marriage to Frances, 1928 Misunder stood IV HOLLYWOOD AND HONOLULU, 1932-1941 Hollywood, MGM Drafting Room Agent and Extra "My Tane" and ASCAP Rudolph Schaef fer Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright V. C. Morris and Artek Mother's Death, 1934 Second Marriage, and Hollywood Scene Alice Bwen, Honolulu Gump' s Pearl Harbor V GUMP' Ss SAN FRANCISCO, 1941 Mexico, A New Market Inventors and Repeaters Eleanor Forbes Exclusive Relationship with Crafts Artists Isamu Noguchi Gimmicks The Discovery Shop On the Mezzanine 1944: Vice-President and General Manager Psychiatrist's Adsvice A. L. Gump in Retrospect Period Furniture, Sources and Profits Return to Carcassone Fakes VI GOOD TASTE Richard Gump, Lecturer "Jade, Jewels, and Junk" Marriage to Agnes Business Friends : Sir John Wedgwood N. S. I. D. Honoree Testing the Design Test Applying the Design Test Matters of Taste International Design Conference in Aspen Serifs Value of Exclusives GOOD BUSINESS "Neglect Nothing" Three Phases of Successful Buying Importance of the Agent "Promote Most What Sells Best" Presenting the Merchandise The Urge to Collect Authentication Retail Merchants Association, and Unions Location, Union Square Area Advertising, Specials and Catalogs Attending to Salespeople, and Customers The Book Business A Room in Richard Gumpt s Townhouse VIII MUSICAL LIFE "A Lousy Musician" Performances Inspiration and Influences in Composing Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band Beginnings San Francisco Symphony Board Richard Gumpt s King Lear Seven Variations on an American Theme C Model Steinway The Boys in the Guckenheimer Band Sour, but Strict Good Times "Trink Dein Bier" Classical DJ The Gumps and Asian Art The Jade Book, and Buddhas Epilogue TAPE GUIDE AN INTERVIEW WITH KEN KOJ IMA Background and Education Bureau of Customs A Network of Experts A Working Day The Florence Agreement Determining the Fakes Jades and Ceramics Travels with Richard Gump Other Experts AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL FARIA AND CLARIECE GRAHAM 195 A Job at Gumpl s, February 1947 197 The Decorating Business -- Gumpl s Furniture Department 20 1 Knowing What the Customer Wants -- Antiques 20 5 Recognizing and Merchandising the Unusual -- Reproduction Models 209 The Design Test 21 2 Equal Opportunity, Salespeople and Customers 214 Little Touches, From Labelling to Morale 2 16 The Notebooks and the Buying Trips, 1960 and 1964 218 A Friendship, in the Store and in the Band 222 The Store Brochure 225 APPEND1 CES 2 27 INDEX 27 1 Introduction Having known Richard Gump for twenty-eight years and having traveled with him around the world on so many of his buying trips I can honestly say he is one of the great teachers of culture in all its forms. Without lec- turing or pontificating he imparts knowledge in a very natural and easy way which makes art, architecture, music and history a daily pleasure. This is a rare trait in one who knows so much. What a joy it is to experience this truly exciting and uplifting education that never ends. Johanna Sianta Florence, Italy March 1988 INTERVIEW HISTORY - RICHARD B. GUMP Richard B. Gump was recommended for an oral history by close friends of his in 1984, and we enthusiastically agreed. A member of an old San Francisco family, retired as president of a world-famous store which in his generation he had brought to new standards of good taste and successful merchandising, he was a most appropriate subject for the Regional Oral History Office. The prospect of a package from Gump's has always been delightful, and the prospect of interviewing Richard Gump himself was one we looked forward to with pleasure. In 1981 Richard Gump had given to the University of California his thirty-five acre estate on Cook's Bay on the island of Moorea for a biological research station, "dedicated to research, preservation of the environment and to the benefit of the Polynesian people." We remembered an article about this new Pao Pao "campus" in UC Berkeley's Cal Monthly in 1982, in which its donor was introduced not only as president of the famous San Francisco store, and locally known for his Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band, a versatile man, merchant and director, but also as a composer of both classical and modern music, a watercolorist, and a lecturer and author who could be found at home in San Francisco, in Moorea, in Florence, Italy, and sometimes in Bad Gastein, Germany. The Bancroft Library's director James D. Hart wrote to Richard Gump in March 1984 to tell him about the Regional Oral History Office and to invite him to be a memoirist. "First of all we would like to have more documentation on your family as well as on its remarkable store, an institution famous not only in San Francisco since Gold Rush days but famous worldwide," was how the invitation began. Richard Gump accepted the invitation but said he would be traveling for a while. He was in and out of San Francisco through 1986 and it was not until April 20, 1987 that we made his acquaintance in person at the presentation to another well-known San Franciscan, Louise M. Davies, of her oral history, From Ouincy to Woodside: Memories of Family and Friends. Here at our side at a party full of notables was Richard Gump in person, accessible, entertaining, interesting, and ready and willing to begin on an oral history. The only thing keeping him from beginning immediately was an imminent hip operation. iii While Mr. Gump was having the operation and in recovery in the hospital in May, his secretary for forty-two years, Mrs. Wilson Graham, prepared for the interviewer files of articles and data about her boss, with sections on the biographical, the musical, the art, the philanthro- pies. We absorbed that, read Gump's Treasure Trade, the story of the store written by Carol Green Wilson (Crowell, 1965), and reread and marveled at Richard Gump's wise and witty Good Taste Costs No More (Doubleday, 1951), and Jade.