Ruth Fine

National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Karin Breuer

Steven A. Nash

Fine Arts Museums (San Francisco, Calif.)

Crown Point Press (Oakland, Calif.)

Crown Point Press in San Francisco, founded in 1962 by Kathan Brown, is a world-renowned center of contemporary printmaking. It has published work by such major figures as Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Sol LeWitt, and Wayne Thiebaud, while bringing to attention prints by many younger artists, including April Gornik, Anish Kapoor, Eric Fischl, and Francesco Clemente. Crown Point Press is known for presenting social and political issues in a range of printmaking media, from hard- and soft-ground etching to drypoint, aquatint, and mezzotint. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco acquired the Crown Point Press archive in 1991. This collection of nearly 800 works contains one impression of every print the Press has ever produced. Also included are over 2000 working proofs and preparatory sketches. Now, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has organized an exhibition of these distinctive prints. Chronicling Crown Point Press's dedication to artistic quality and commitment to innovation in printmaking technique and subject matter, this book also presents Kathan Brown's notable contributions in transforming the printmaking landscape of the twentieth century. Published in association with The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Making Prints, Doing Art

Thirty-five Years at Crown Point Press

A comprehensive survey of Arnold Genthe's legendary photography of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake and fire When disaster struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906, photographer Arnold Genthe grabbed a pocket camera and ventured out to document the destruction. Now, over a century later, the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts presents the definitive collection of Genthe's historic photographs. For the first time ever, this important body of work is shown in its entirety with newly printed photographs from ultra-high-resolution scans created from the original negatives, an overview of Genthe's life, a mapping of his journey on that day, and a look at the aftermath of the disaster.

Arnold Genthe's Photographs of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Firestorm

Among the Ruins

Legendary American tattoo artist Ed Hardy's groundbreaking tattoos, flash, drawings, and artworks are gathered together for the first time in one brash book. Ed Hardy's (b. 1945) unique vision spans decades, creating an indelible mark on popular culture. Accompanying a major exhibition, this profusely illustrated survey of his life in art traces his inspirations, rooted both in traditional American tattooing of the first half of the twentieth century and in the imagery of Japan's ukiyo-e era. Hardy, raised in Southern California, became intrigued with tattoo art at the age of ten, setting up shop in his parents' den. After attending the San Francisco Art Institute in the 1960s, he rejected a graduate fellowship from Yale to apprentice at studios up and down the West Coast. It was his intention to rescue tattooing from its subculture, "outsider" status and elevate it to at least the level of folk art. Hardy's success at breathing new life into the art form is chronicled in a plethora of tattoo designs, paintings, drawings, prints, and three-dimensional work spanning fifty years. While the world that inspires him may be lost, Hardy's distinct visual language is vibrantly alive within American visual vernacular, synonymous to some with the spirit of the West Coast itself.

Art of the New Tattoo

Ed Hardy: Deeper than Skin

Rebecca Solnit

Philip L. Fradkin

Mark Klett

Michael Lundgren

Legion of Honor (San Francisco, Calif.)

Compares photographs taken just after the fires of the 1906 earthquake with new photos of modern San Francisco from the same vantage points, in a photo essay created in conjunction with the exhibition at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, California.

Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006

Prints and Drawings from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts : [exhibition], the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 18 April-22 July 1990

The Expressionist Era in Germany, 1900-1933

D.J. Waldie

Ed Ruscha

The renowned artist Ed Ruscha was born in Nebraska, grew up in Oklahoma, and has lived and worked in Southern California since the late 1950s. Beginning in 1956, road trips across the American Southwest furnished a conceptual trove of themes and motifs that he mined throughout his career. The everyday landscapes of the West, especially as experienced from the automobile—gas stations, billboards, building facades, parking lots, and long stretches of roadway—are the primary motifs of his often deadpan and instantly recognizable paintings and works on paper, as well as his influential artist books such as Twentysix Gasoline Stations and All the Buildings on the Sunset Strip. His iconic word images—declaring Adios, Rodeo, Wheels over Indian Trails, and Honey . . . I Twisted through More Damn Traffic to Get Here—further underscore a contemporary Western sensibility. Ruscha’s interest in what the real West has become—and Hollywood’s version of it—plays out across his oeuvre. The cinematic sources of his subject matter can be seen in his silhouette pictures, which often appear to be grainy stills from old Hollywood movies. They feature images of the contemporary West, such as parking lots and swimming pools, but also of its historical past: covered wagons, buffalo, teepees, and howling coyotes. Featuring essays by Karin Breuer and D.J. Waldie, plus a fascinating interview with the artist conducted by Kerry Brougher, this stunning catalogue, produced in close collaboration with the Ruscha studio, offers the first full exploration of the painter’s lifelong fascination with the romantic concept and modern reality of the evolving American West. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Exhibition dates: de Young, San Francisco: July 16–October 9, 2016

Ed Ruscha and the Great American West

Karin Breuer

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