Art in Action was an exhibit of artists at work displayed for four months in the summer of 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) held on Treasure Island. Many famous artists took part in the exhibit, including Dudley C. Carter, woodcarver and Diego Rivera, muralist. Rivera painted his monumental work Pan American Unity at Art in Action. [1]
During the first year of the Exposition, the investors failed to make a profit and the GGIE committee decided to extend the fair for one more year. [1] The exhibition's second season ran from May 25, 1940, through September 29, 1940, and featured lower ticket prices and a collection of new attractions. [2] Art in Action opened on June 1, a week after the main Exposition, and closed at the same time as the rest of the Exposition. [3]
Timothy L. Pflueger, architect and member of the GGIE design committee, came up with a plan to have an exhibition of artists on display. He selected Helen Bruton, an artist from Alameda, California, to be in charge of the program. [4] She was assisted by Beatrice Judd Ryan, a local art dealer and curator, who was hired as the State Director of Exhibitions. [5] They contacted a wide array of artists to show their talents to the public while working within the "Fine Arts Palace", a concrete and steel industrial building measuring 335 by 78 feet intended to be an aircraft hangar after the Exposition closed. [6] For the second time, Pflueger brought Rivera to San Francisco to paint a mural, this time as the main attraction at Art in Action.
Alfred Frankenstein of the New York Times reported from the opening day and wrote "Here the visitor is privileged to observe a kind of twenty-ring circus of art... On the floor, in a series of little ateliers, sculptors, painters, lithographers, etchers, ceramicists, weavers and whatnot are at work under the direct observation of the public." [7] On July 29, 1940, LIFE magazine ran a story about Art in Action using a spread of color photos. [8]
Along one wall, Rivera painted the mural Pan American Unity on ten steel-framed panels spanning 74 feet in width and reaching 22 feet in height, weighing a total of 23 tons. [3]
Some 68 artists had participated by the end of September when the Exposition was closed. [9] Rivera was not finished, however; he and two assistants labored for two more months in the empty exhibit hall. On Friday, November 30 and Sunday, December 2, 30,000–35,000 visitors came to Treasure Island to view the completed mural. [3] During the painting of the mural, Frida Kahlo had arrived in San Francisco and on December 8, 1940, Rivera's 54th birthday, Kahlo and Rivera were married for the second time in a civil ceremony at San Francisco City Hall.
After the Exposition, many of the larger artworks remained in the building in temporary storage. Most of these ended up at San Francisco City College in their permanent collection, including Dudley C. Carter's Bighorn Mountain Ram which became the school's mascot. [10]
Artists that participated in the Art in Action exhibition.
Other fine artists that participated at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE)
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.
City College of San Francisco is a public community college in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded as a junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local role, annually enrolling as many as one in nine San Francisco residents. CCSF is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).
Dudley Christopher Carter was an artist and woodcarver from the Pacific Northwest. His works are on display in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon and California. There are also works of his on display in Japan and Germany, as well as a private collection in Israel
The Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) (1939 and 1940), held at San Francisco's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair celebrating, among other things, the city's two newly built bridges. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. The exposition opened from February 18, 1939, through October 29, 1939, and from May 25, 1940, through September 29, 1940; it drew 17 million visitors to Treasure Island.
Timothy Ludwig Pflueger was an architect, interior designer and architectural lighting designer in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of the 20th century. Together with James R. Miller, Pflueger designed some of the leading skyscrapers and movie theaters in San Francisco in the 1920s, and his works featured art by challenging new artists such as Ralph Stackpole and Diego Rivera. Rather than breaking new ground with his designs, Pflueger captured the spirit of the times and refined it, adding a distinct personal flair. His work influenced later architects such as Pietro Belluschi.
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Mexican muralism refers to the art project initially funded by the Mexican government in the immediate wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) to depict visions of Mexico's past, present, and future, transforming the walls of many public buildings into didactic scenes designed to reshape Mexicans' understanding of the nation's history. The murals, large artworks painted onto the walls themselves had social, political, and historical messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Although not as prominent as the Big Three, women also created murals in Mexico. From the 1920s to the 1970s, many murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.
Ralph Ward Stackpole was an American sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator, San Francisco's leading artist during the 1920s and 1930s. Stackpole was involved in the art and causes of social realism, especially during the Great Depression, when he was part of the Public Works of Art Project, Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, and the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture. Stackpole was responsible for recommending that architect Timothy L. Pflueger bring Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to San Francisco to work on the San Francisco Stock Exchange and its attached office tower in 1930–31. His son Peter Stackpole became a well-known photojournalist.
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Pan American Unity is a mural painted by Mexican artist and muralist Diego Rivera for the Art in Action exhibition at Treasure Island's Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) in San Francisco, California in 1940. This work was the centerpiece of the Art In Action exhibit, which featured many different artists engaged in creating works during the Exposition while the public watched.
Frederick "Fred" Erskine Olmsted Jr. was an American artist and biophysicist. He created social realism themed murals and sculptures for the Federal Art Project, and the Public Works of Art Project.
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Charles Stafford Duncan (1892–1952) was a San Francisco painter and lithographer perhaps best known for his mural in the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. He won the Benjamin Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design in 1937.
Herman Roderick Volz (1904–1990) was a Swiss-American painter, muralist, lithographer, set designer, decorative artist and ceramist. He was politically active, vocal and often made social statements through his imagery and he was especially taken by the industrial horizon of his adopted home of San Francisco Bay Area. Many of his art pieces done for the Federal Art Project (FAP), for example, were of men at work and of docks, piers, and railroad yards.
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Dorothy Rieber Joralemon was an American abstract sculptor, children's portrait artist and writer based in Northern California.
Antonio "Tony" Sotomayor (1902–1985) was a Bolivian-born American artist and educator, known as a painter and muralist. He also worked as an illustrator, caricaturist, designer, and ceramicist. He was nicknamed San Francisco's 'Artist Laureate'.
Beatrice Judd Ryan was an Australian-born American gallerist, art dealer, curator, arts philanthropist, and poet. She was best known for her work in prompting modern art, as a founding director of Galerie Beaux Arts in San Francisco, and as an organizer of the 1940 "Art in Action" program at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE). She was nicknamed "Mrs. San Francisco", for her tirelessly support of West Coast artists.