The golden age of postcards coincided with several momentous events in San Francisco history, including a major earthquake and fire destroying over one third of the city, rapid reconstruction, strikes, political upheaval, parades, festivals, and a worlds fair. From World War I through World War II, jazz-age San Francisco experienced a building boom of houses, skyscrapers, and engineering marvels such as the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, creating a marvelous Bay Area landscape documented on thousands of ubiquitous, inexpensive picture postcards popular with both visiting tourists and local residents.
Timed with the centennial of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915, Jewel City presents a large and representative selection of artworks from the fair, emphasizing the variety of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and prints that greeted attendees. It is unique in its focus on the works of art that were scattered among the venues of the expositionÑthe most comprehensive art exhibition ever shown on the West Coast. Notably, the PPIE included the first American presentations of Italian Futurism, Austrian Expressionism, and Hungarian avant-garde painting, and there were also major displays of paintings by prominent Americans, especially those working in the Impressionist style. This lavishly illustrated catalogue features works by masters such as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Paul CŽzanne, Robert Henri, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Umberto Boccioni, and many more. The volume also explores the PPIEÕs distinctive murals program, developments in the art of printmaking, and the legacy of the French Pavilion, which hosted an abundance of works by Auguste Rodin and inspired the founding and architecture of the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco. A rich and fascinating study of a critical moment in American and European art history, Jewel City is indispensable for understanding both the United StatesÕ and CaliforniaÕs role in the reception of modernism as well as the regionÕs historical place on the international art stage. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Exhibition dates: de Young Museum, San Francisco: October 17, 2015ÐJanuary 10, 2016
When the more than eighteen million visitors poured into the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, they encountered a vision of the world born out of San Francisco’s particular local political and social climate. By seeking to please various constituent groups ranging from the government of Japan to local labor unions and neighborhood associations, fair organizers generated heated debate and conflict about who and what represented San Francisco, California, and the United States at the world’s fair. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition encapsulated the social and political tensions and conflicts of pre–World War I California and presaged the emergence of San Francisco as a cosmopolitan cultural and economic center of the Pacific Rim. Empress San Francisco offers a fresh examination of this, one of the largest and most influential world’s fairs, by considering the local social and political climate of Progressive Era San Francisco. Focusing on the influence exerted by women, Asians and Asian Americans, and working-class labor unions, among others, Abigail M. Markwyn offers a unique analysis both of this world’s fair and the social construction of pre–World War I America and the West.