RON HENGGELER

The dawn's early light of a new day in San Francisco, from my window.

San Francisco at night---City Hall Illuminated 1903

 

Portals of the Past: The Photographs of Willard Worden

July 25, 2015 – February 14, 2016

GALLERY 12

A fascinating though largely forgotten figure in the Bay Area’s rich photographic history, Willard Worden (American, 1868–1946) took up photography while serving in the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars and later opened his first gallery near the Presidio in Cow Hollow. Within a few years, his stock list contained hundreds of views of his newly adopted city and its environs as well as sites as far away as Yosemite National Park.

Detail of Poem of the Vine.

In front of the de Young sits Poème de la vigne (Poem of the Vine) (1877–1878, cast in 1882), a monumental bronze vase by Gustave Doré (French, 1832–1883) that has been a feature of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s two institutions since 1895. Doré was one of the most prodigious artists of the 19th century, and few works illustrate the depth of his creative vision as well as this colossal ode to French winemakers, which, appropriately, has found its home in our state, well known for its viticulture. Measuring about 11 feet high and weighing nearly three tons, the work is one of the largest bronze castings of its time.

Poème de la vigne, originally intended to be the centerpiece of a display on winemaking at the Exposition Universelle of 1878 in Paris, was a major artistic and technical undertaking. Its allegorical narrative depicts mythological figures associated with the rites of Bacchus (the Roman god of wine), including Silenus (Bacchus’s drunken attendant) and Diana (goddess of the hunt, associated with woodlands and wild animals). It further employs an abundance of smaller putti, satyrs, bacchantes, and creatures that menace the precious grapes, including a giant spider, a rat, several snakes, and a horde of insects.

Michael H. de Young, publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, saw the bronze cast at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, and, enchanted by the piece, ensured that it would be on display a for the 1894 California Midwinter Exposition (located on the site of today’s de Young). After the fair, he purchased the piece for approximately $10,000.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the center of the roadway (while stuck in traffic).

The light of a low setting sun viewed through the trees at Lincoln Park near the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free

Through September 20, 2015
HERBST EXHIBITION GALLERIES
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) was one of the greatest British artists of the nineteenth century. His paintings are revered for their spectacular effects of light and color, and have influenced generations of artists. His late work, created between 1835 and 1850, articu­lated a radical vision that was heedless of public reaction, and explored such themes as the rise and fall of civilizations, the natural and industrial worlds, and religious and cultural mythology.

The Hero of a Hundred Flights ca. 1800-1810

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The Cliff House (Low Tide) 1904

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Modern Rome --- Campo Vaccino 1839

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Storm on Ocean Beach 1904

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Snow Storm---Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Author was in the Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

A view of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge from the center of the roadway (while stuck in traffic).

The Tower of Jewels 1915

Worden was at the height of his career at the time of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), the 1915 world’s fair held in San Francisco. As one of the exposition’s official photographers, he captured its spectacular architectural and sculptural creations by day and night. Art from the PPIE, including approximately 250 works by major American and European artists, is the focus of the exhibition at the de Young, Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition, opening October 17, 2015.

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Thousands of gopher holes pockmark the coastal cliffs overlooking the Golden Gate at Lands End and Point Lobos.

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The Disembarkation of Louis-Phillippe at the Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport, 8 October 1844 ca. 1844-1845

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The light of a low setting sun viewed through the trees at Lincoln Park near the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

A view of San Francisco VA Medical Center (Fort Miley) as seen from the Lincoln Park Golf Course.

An enormous mural painted on canvas hanging in the Wilsey Court in the de Young Museum. The mural is to be a part of an upcoming exhibition titled:

Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition

October 17, 2015 – January 10, 2016

The year 2015 marks the centennial of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), the San Francisco world’s fair that celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal and the city’s reconstruction following the great earthquake of 1906. The grand exposition covered 76 city blocks and boasted national and international pavilions showcasing innovation, industry, and the arts. At the heart of the PPIE was one of the most ambitious art exhibitions ever presented in the United States, encompassing more than 11,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs, in addition to a significant array of public murals and monuments. To mark this anniversary, Jewel City will revisit this vital moment in the inauguration of San Francisco as the West Coast’s cultural epicenter. The landmark exhibition at the de Young will reassemble more than 200 works by major American and European artists, most of which were on display at this defining event.

Learn more about the city of San Francisco's full PPIE 100 program.

The Nations of the West 1914

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A view of San Francisco VA Medical Center (Fort Miley) as seen from the Lincoln Park Golf Course.

Dawn of Christianity (Flight into Egypt) 1841

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Dutch Windmill, Golden Gate Park 1910

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

My photo of a watercolor by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

My photo of a watercolor by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Late-afternoon sunlight illuminating the trees at Lands End

Detail of an enormous mural painted on canvas hanging in the Wilsey Court in the De Young Museum. The mural is to be a part of an upcoming exhibition titled:

Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition

October 17, 2015 – January 10, 2016

Mile Island Rock seen from the Lands End

The Dogano, San Giorigo, Citella, from the Steps of the Europa 1842

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The Marin Headlands seen from Lands End

The Court of Palms 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Detail of: The Sun of Venice Going to Sea 1843

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The Dogano, San Giorigo, Citella, from the Steps of the Europa 1842

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

The Portals of the Past (Ruins of the Towne Residence, California Street) 1907

A recurring subject for Willard Worden was the surviving entryway to a Nob Hill mansion destroyed in the earthquake of 1906 and relocated to Golden Gate Park in 1909. Called the Portals of the Past, the ruin served as both a monument to the city’s recent tragedy and a symbol of its perseverance.

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Late-afternoon sunlight illuminating the trees at Lands End.

"Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!" 1846

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Point Bonita and the Marin Headlands just after sunset, seen with a 300mm lens from Lands End on the south side of the Golden Gate.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from high atop the coastal cliffs at Lands End in San Francisco.

“There is no stupidity great enough to ruin the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge. It has been the subject of terrible poetry and worse paintings, but it rises easily and grandly above the mundane, its towers poking through the fogs, natural and man-made.”

Herb Caen

An enormous mural painted on canvas hanging in the Wilsey Court in the De Young Museum. The mural is to be a part of an upcoming exhibition titled:

Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition

October 17, 2015 – January 10, 2016

Detail of: "Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!" 1846

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Whalers 1845

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Detail of: Whalers 1845

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Thistle on the side of the Kirby Cove Road

Rough Sea with Wreckage ca. 1840-1845

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from high atop the coastal cliffs at Lands End in San Francisco.

Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began on January 5, 1933 and the last rivet was placed on May 27, 1937. The bridge is 6, 450 ft. long and 90 ft. wide. The towers rise 746 ft. above the water and the height of the roadway span at center is 220 ft. above low tide. The main cables from which the span hangs (each 36.5 inches diameter and 7, 660 ft. long) are made up of 27, 572 strands of 0.2 inch diameter steel cable. . .22,000 tons worth and 80,000 miles long. This 0.2 inch cable could circle the globe at the equator more than five times. 693,000 cubic yards of concrete and 100,000 tons of steel were used in spanning the Gate. 25,000,000 man hours went into building the Golden Gate Bridge. . .eleven men lost their lives during its construction. The bridge, as designed, can sway 27.7 ft. during high winds. The paint color of the Golden Gate Bridge is International Orange. There are now well over a thousand known suicides who have jumped off the bridge since it opened in 1937. Nearly all these desperate souls who finally went over the side, did so facing towards San Francisco, but that is simply because pedestrians are not allowed on the ocean side of the span.

Looking up to the sunlight as it's filtered through the canopy of Eucalyptus trees along the Kirby Cove road in the Marin Headlands.

Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park n.d.

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

An embankment along the Kirby Cove road

The first scientists investigating the geology of the Marin Headlands were fascinated and awed by what they saw, and were unable to explain the fantastic rock formations revealed in the wave-cut cliffs along the shore of the straight.

To explore the rocks in the Marin Headlands is to peer into eons of the Earth's history and see the results of some of the planetary processes that shaped the seas and continents. The reddish rock in which fossils appear is radiolarian chert. Chert originally formed in level layers on the floor of the Pacific, one to five inches thick, but later contorted so they now resemble not so much crumpled pages in a book (as some of the early scientists noted) as intricate sculpturings by some artists in abstract designs-arches, domes, chevrons, and parabolas in innumerable variations of form and texture.

Arches, Court of Abundance 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A view of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge from the center of the roadway (while stuck in traffic).

Late-afternoon sunlight illuminating the trees at Lands End.

Sunset and Mile Island Rock as seen from Lands End

Japanese Tea Garden ca. 1912-1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Point Bonita and the Marin Headlands just after the sunset, seen with a 300mm lens from Lands End.

A view of San Francisco from Kirby Cove

An enormous mural painted on canvas hanging in the Wilsey Court in the De Young Museum. The mural is to be a part of an upcoming exhibition titled:

Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition

October 17, 2015 – January 10, 2016

Undine Giving the Ring to Masaniello, Fisherman of Naples 1846

My photo of an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, from the show PAINTING SET FREE at the de Young

Mt Tamalpais and the Marin Headlands seen just after sundown from the coastal cliffs at Lands End.

The Memorial Museum, Golden Gate Park ca. 1910-1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The tower of the de Young Museum seen from the upper-floor picture window overlooking the Main Entrance Courtyard.

Clipper Ship 1906

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Palace of Horticulture from the Court of Four Seasons 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The Golden Gate n.d.

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The view from Kirby Cove in the Marin Headlands.

Twenty thousand years ago, the Pacific coastline was 27 miles west of the Golden Gate, with coastal hills whose tops are now the Farallon Islands. The world was in the last ice age. With much of Earth’s water frozen in glaciers, the sea level was much lower than it is today and more land was exposed. Today’s San Francisco Bay was a series of broad, dry valleys within the Coast Ranges.

As the ice age ended about 10,000 years ago, the glaciers began to melt and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers carried huge flows of water and sediment down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sea levels began to rise, and water entered the Coast Ranges through the Golden Gate. San Francisco Bay began to fill with seawater at the rate of about one inch per year, a rapid fill in a geologic time frame. And on the gentle slopes of the South Bay, the seawater advanced southward by several inches each day.

After a few thousand years, the rate of rising sea levels began to slow. Sediments from area rivers (the San Joaquin and the Sacramento in the north and Alameda Creek in the south) began to accumulate along the shallow shores of the new bay, creating marshes and mudflats that supported plant and animal life.

The Golden Gate 1904

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The End of the Trail 1914

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A view of the far-distant San Francisco seen from on the Conzelman Road near Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands.

There is a sense of permanence in the Bay Area landscape. Yet the familiar three-bay formation is very young on a geologic time scale—just 10,000 or so years old. A million years ago, there were rolling grasslands in the region where today lies the San Francisco Bay. An enormous inland sea called Corcoran Lake covered what is now the Central Valley. Over time, geologic processes slowly transformed the land into the now familiar landscape.

About 560,000 years ago, as the earth’s huge tectonic plates slowly shifted, the land sank and the southern end of Lake Corcoran rose. Water spilled over the western edge, and the lake drained completely. This action carved out what we know today as the Carquinez Strait and began to shape the basin that would become San Francisco Bay.

The Golden Gate 1910

“The bay of San Francisco has been celebrated from the time of its first discovery as one of the finest in the world. It rises into an importance far above that of a mere harbor...Its latitudinal position is that of Lisbon, its climate that of Southern Italy, settlements attest to its healthfulness, bold shores and mountains give it grandeur, the extent and fertility of its dependent country give it great resources for agriculture, commerce and population...To this gate I gave the name Chrysopylae or Golden Gate...John Fremont

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

Seal Rocks 1904

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

David, and a view of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Kirby Cove Road in the Marin Headlands.

Court of Four Seasons at Night 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A view of San Francisco from Kirby Cove

The End of the Trail 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A bird's eye view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Hawk Hill (Battery 129) in the Marin Headlands.

The Nations of the East 1914

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The Burning City from a Campsite West of Van Ness Avenue and Fort Mason 1906

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The view from Kirby Cove in the Marin Headlands.

The first scientists investigating the geology of the Marin Headlands were fascinated and awed by what they saw, and were unable to explain the fantastic rock formations revealed in the wave-cut cliffs along the shore of the straight.

To explore the rocks in the Marin Headlands is to peer into eons of the Earth's history and see the results of some of the planetary processes that shaped the seas and continents. The reddish rock in which fossils appear is radiolarian chert. Chert originally formed in level layers on the floor of the Pacific, one to five inches thick, but later contorted so they now resemble not so much crumpled pages in a book (as some of the early scientists noted) as intricate sculpturings by some artists in abstract designs-arches, domes, chevrons, and parabolas in innumerable variations of form and texture.

Call, Examiner, Chronicle, Palace Hotel, and Crocker Buildings from Kearny Street 1906

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

David, and a view of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Kirby Cove Road in the Marin Headlands.

Ferry Building at Night 1915

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

The white guano-covered Bird Rock as seen from Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands

The Portals of the Past (Ruins of the Towne Residence, California Street) 1907

A recurring subject for Willard Worden was the surviving entryway to a Nob Hill mansion destroyed in the earthquake of 1906 and relocated to Golden Gate Park in 1909. Called the Portals of the Past, the ruin served as both a monument to the city’s recent tragedy and a symbol of its perseverance.

My photo of a photo by Willand Worden, from the show PORTALS OF THE PAST at the de Young

A view of the far-distant Avenues (sliced through by Golden Gate Park) in San Francisco seen from across the Golden Gate while driving on the Conzelman Road in the Marin Headlands.

The two California mountain lions are part of the Pool of Enchantment in front of the de Young Museum.

The animals are lifelike bronze statues of native California mountain lions. The young man does not look like any particular person or ethnic group, portraying the better nature common to all humanity. Since the sculpture was first placed in 1894, the ferns and reeds have had to be replanted, but the original boulders and turtle-sunning rocks remain the same.

M. Earl Cummings (given name Melvin Earl Cummings) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 13, 1876. As a teenager Cummings was apprenticed to a wood carver in decorating the Mormon Temple. After moving to San Francisco in 1896, he won a scholarship to the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art where he was a pupil of Douglas Tilden. His benefactress, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst enabled his further study in Paris with Mercie at Ecole des Beaux Arts. Returning to San Francisco, he exhibited regularly at the Bohemian Club while sharing a studio with his close friend and sculptor Arthur Putnam. He taught sculpture at the Mark Hopkins until 1915 and also was instructor of modeling at University of California Berkeley from 1904-16. He did numerous portrait busts, statues, and public monuments and served on the San Francisco Park Commission for 32 years.