A Ferry Ride to San Francisco and Uber to the de Young Museum

While vacationing in Napa, I drove to the nearest ferry and sped over the Bay to San Francisco for the day.  It is always great to be in the city and explore my favorite things like the Ferry Building and the de Young art museum in Golden Gate Park.

It was free Tuesday at the museum...an omen that I was meant to be there.  I had seen the Turner exhibit at the Getty Center in L.A. so I focused on their permanent collection and a few specials. One was sketches and etches by Richard Diebenkorn, one of my favorite artists.  His wife died recently and the museum acquired them. He lived from 1922 to 1993.  I have enjoyed several museum retrospectives of his Berkeley more figurative work when he lived there and the Ocean Park series (more abstract) from when he lived and worked in Santa Monica.

Here are my photos from my day of exploration:

A view of the city from the arriving ferry.

The outside entrance area of the de Young museum

The first paintings by Richard Diebenkorn are a part of the museums's permanent collection.

"Untitled," 1950 oil on canvas

"Berkeley No. 3," 1953, oil on canvas

"Miller 22," 1951

"Seawall," 1957, oil on canvas

"Untitled," 1949 by Mark Rothko, 1903-1970 oil on canvas.  This was in the same gallery as the Diebenkorn paintings for obvious reasons. 

"Ocean Park 116," 1979 by Richard Diebenkorn, oil on canvas

\"Crusades," 1976 by Helen Frankenthaler, 1928-2011

The posted description states that Diebenkorn had a lifelong interest in printmaking, maintaining a steady output of prints from the 1960's until his death.  The prints created a Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles and Crown Point Press in Berkeley are almost entirely figurative and compliment the paintings he created in the same period...his " Berkeley" years.  These etchings reveal that the artist used the copper plate like a sketchpad, drawing the model, Phyllis, freely and expressively.

"Untitled (Phyllis Hold a Cup with Both Hands)," 1964, drypoint.  Richard's wife, Phyllis, was his favorite model.

"Twelve," 1984, color lithograph

"Untitled (Woman Wearing Sunglasses Seated in a Striped Chair), 1962-1965, drypoint. The image likely was drawn on the back of a metal printing plate. 

"Untitled (Phyllis Seated on a Striped Couch with a Hand-Covered Face in the Background), 1965,
Aquatint and etching.

"Untitled (Phyllis Seated on a Couch Covered with a Striped Cloth)," 1962-1965, etching.

"Untitled (Phyllis, Hands Covering Face)," 1965, aquatint and etching

"Untitled (Reclining Woman)," 1967, Lithograph

"Untitled (Seated Woman Wearing a Polka-Dot Blouse)," 1967, Lithograph

"Untitled (Table Top, Still Life)," 1960, aquatint and drypoint with scraping and burnishing.

"Landscape with Clubs," 1963, aquatint and drypoint.  "Here, one club represents a tree, while the other's placement and meaning is not as obvious.  Nevertheless, the appearance of the three-gabled Tudor house and bridge locate the view as that seen from the artist's home on Hillcrest Road in Berkeley." 

Below are my photos of my favorite works by other artists:

"Jaguar Bench," 1003 by Judy Kensley McKie, b. 1944, bronze.

"Ultramarine Stemmed Form with Orange, from the Persian series," 1992, blown glass.

"Seated dog," 300 B.C. - A.D. 300, West Mexico, Colima, earthenware and pigment.

"Musician with gourd," 300 B.C. - A.D. 300, West Mexico, Colima, earthenware and pigment.

The de Young sculpture garden and outdoor cafe.

"Ponds and Streams," 2001 by Wayne Thiebaud, b. 1920, acrylic on canvas.  "Ponds and Streams depicts a patchwork of ploughed fields and shimmering waterways in the Sacramento River delta farm region from a bird's eye vantage."  

"Diagonal Freeway," 1993 by Wayne Thiebaud, acrylic on canvas.

"Untitled (Seated Girl Holding an Apple)," 1943 by Raul Anguiano, b. 1915, oil on canvas.  "Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Raul Anguiano moved to Mexico City in 1934...adopted the revoluntionary politics of the Communist Party.  Anguiano, a member of the second generation of the so-called Mexican School of Painting, was deeply influenced by the Mexican Muralists...Diego Rivera...who fuse native artistic traditions and subjects with the visual languages of modernism to create an art of protest."

"Petunias," 1925 y Georgia O;Keeffe, 1887-1986, oil on hardboard panel.

"Girl with Comb," 1919 by Max Weber, 1881-1919, oil on canvas.

"The 'Cello Player," 1924-1926 by Edwin Walter Dickinson, 1891-1978, oil on canvas.

"Seated Nude," 1910-1911, by George Wesley Bellows, 1882-1825

"Pierre-Edouard Baranowski," 1918 by Amedeo Modigliani, Italian, 1884-1920, oil on board.

"Bathers," 1917 by Max Pechstein, German, 1881-1955, oil on canvas.

"Still Life with Book," 1925 by Juan Gris, Spanish, 1887-1927, oil on canvas.

"Stiill Life with Skull, Leeks, and Pitcher," 1945 by Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881-1973, oil on canvas.

By Georges Braque, French 1882-1963.

By Salvador Dali, Spanish, 1904-1989.

"Space Venus," 1984 by Salvador Dali, cast bronze.

"Romance of Criehaven," 1916 by George Wesley Bellows, oil on wood panel.

"The Trout Stream in the Tyrol," 1915 by John Singer Sargent, 1856-1925, oil on canvas.

"The Blue Veil," 1898 by Edmund Carles Tarbell, 1882-1938, oil on canvas.
Jonah Copi, a seventh grade San Francisco student wrote the following about this painting:

"I shift and change
places with her every move.

I glide, flowing in the air
with the slightest just
of wind.

I hide her beauty and
ensure her innocence.

I conceal her emotions
with my blue shadow and
act as her barrier.

It is my duty to protect her
and I do my best.

She is helpless without
my blue, silky shield.

The two of us become one
as I cling to her forever.

I give her clarity
in a state of confusion.

I give her guidance
in a time of fogginess.

I am not only her veil
but her friend and protector.

"Caroline de Bassano, Marquise d'Espeuilles," 1994 by Joh Singer Sargent, oil on canvas.

"Portrait of Miss D.," 1900 by William Merritt Chase, 1849-1916, oil on canvas.

"Mrs. Robert S. Cassatt, the Artist's Mother," 1889 by Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926, oil on canvas.

"Waldo Peirce, 1920 by George Wesley Bellows, 1882-1925, oil on canvas.

"Rainy Season in the Tropics," 1866 by Frederic Edwin Church, 1826-1900, oil on canvas.

"Spring Landscape (Spring in Marin County)," 1893 by William Keith, 1838-1911

"The Ironworkers' Noontime," 1880 by Thomas Pollock Anshutz, 1851-1912, oil on canvas.

"Albert Post (1843-1872)," 1864 by Winslow Homer, 1836-1910, oil on wood panel

"The Bright Side," 1865 by Winslow Homer, oil on canvas.  "Despite receivine one-third less pay while suffering mortality rates one-third higher than their Euro-American counterparts, approximately 186,000 African Americans...served as Union soldiers during the Civil War.

"Cogitation," 1871 by Thomas Waterman Wood, 1823-1903, oil on canvas.

"Tshi-Zun-Hau-Kau (He-Who-Runs-with-Deer)," Winnebago, CA. 1832-1833 by Henry Inman, 1901-1846, oil on canvas.