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History of San Francisco (Refregier)
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History of San Francisco (Refregier)
In 1941, Anton Refregier won the $26,000 commission for the series History of San Francisco, which are a set of 27 murals painted in the lobby of the Rincon Annex Post Office in San Francisco, California. Refregier painted the mural with casein tempera on white gesso over plaster walls, in the social realism style. Work was interrupted by World War II and restarted in 1946; the murals were completed in 1948.
In 1953, U.S. Representative Hubert B. Scudder opened a Congressional hearing to determine whether the murals should be removed for themes "inconsistent with American ideals and principles"; the often contentious proceedings concluded with their retention. The building is now part of Rincon Center, remodeled as shops and residences after the Post Office left in 1979, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places that year. The Rincon Center lobby is publicly accessible, and regular guided tours of the murals are provided by volunteers.
You see, along with at about the same time as the WPA was functioning, as a purely relief program, [Franklin] Roosevelt with the encouragement of George Biddle, whose brother was Attorney General, with encouragement of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a wonderful woman, very aware of the issues, (a former social worker) a person of great human values; and many other people who are under Roosevelt at that time, including Edward Bruce, suggested that here were all the federal buildings going up new Post Offices, Federal money was being spent. The discovery was made, one day, that there was a procedure of allocating one percent of the total cost of the building for fancy door handles, Renaissance ceilings the kind of ceiling you can see in our 34th Street Post Office in New York City. Why not take that money and give it to artists in national open competitions? This, Joe, was a great idea! It worked like magic.
The Section of Painting and Sculpture was created by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s executive order of October 14, 1934 to award commissions to artists for new federal buildings; once the Rincon Annex Post Office was completed in 1940, the Section announced a competition for artists on April 12, 1941, drawing attention in the local press. Entries were required to be submitted by October 1 of that year.
Refregier was selected by a four-person jury: the Annex architect, Gilbert Underwood, and three peer artists, consisting of Victor Arnautoff, Arnold Blanch, and Philip Guston. The jury handed down a split decision, with Underwood, Arnautoff, and Blanch voting for Refregier, and Guston against. His competitors included artists Richard Haines and Wendell C. Jones, whose studies for the project were donated to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1988; in total, there were 82 entrants for the Rincon Annex commission, including Refregier. The contract was awarded to Refregier on October 21, 1941.
History of San Francisco was the largest mural commissioned by the federal government at the time of the award in 1941. The medium was specified in the contract to be tempera on gesso, and the murals were to be completed within three years (1,095 calendar days) of the award of the contract. Shortly after he was awarded the contract, in 1942 Refregier told the San Francisco Chronicle he wanted paint the past as it had affected the present conditions of depression, strikes, and war. Painting of the murals began in 1946, and they were completed by fall 1948.
Refregier was required to submit sketches of the planned designs for approval prior to starting work. The project sponsors requested 92 changes during the design and painting of the murals, ranging from slimming a Spanish priest (#6, "Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores") to raising picket signs so their pro-union messages could not be read (#14, "Torchlight Procession"). An image of Franklin Roosevelt was deleted from the final panel (#27, "War and Peace") because Refregier had based it on a portrait of an aged Roosevelt after the Yalta Conference, which was seen as an "undignified way" to portray him. Refregier was resistant to the removal of Roosevelt, who was to have been in the center of the middle section of the panel, depicting the Four Freedoms: "To omit the portrait of FDR from the final panel dealing with the United Nations meeting in San Francisco, is a concession I cannot make. ... I cannot allow myself to be a victim of propaganda against a very great man."
During the painting of the murals, Refregier would be interrupted by well-meaning Post Office patrons, as he recounted in 1947: "One way I learn [about California history] is from the people who stream through the Post Office and watch me work. They look at my pictures a while, then catch my attention and start telling me exactly what my pictures mean."
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History of San Francisco (Refregier)
In 1941, Anton Refregier won the $26,000 commission for the series History of San Francisco, which are a set of 27 murals painted in the lobby of the Rincon Annex Post Office in San Francisco, California. Refregier painted the mural with casein tempera on white gesso over plaster walls, in the social realism style. Work was interrupted by World War II and restarted in 1946; the murals were completed in 1948.
In 1953, U.S. Representative Hubert B. Scudder opened a Congressional hearing to determine whether the murals should be removed for themes "inconsistent with American ideals and principles"; the often contentious proceedings concluded with their retention. The building is now part of Rincon Center, remodeled as shops and residences after the Post Office left in 1979, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places that year. The Rincon Center lobby is publicly accessible, and regular guided tours of the murals are provided by volunteers.
You see, along with at about the same time as the WPA was functioning, as a purely relief program, [Franklin] Roosevelt with the encouragement of George Biddle, whose brother was Attorney General, with encouragement of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a wonderful woman, very aware of the issues, (a former social worker) a person of great human values; and many other people who are under Roosevelt at that time, including Edward Bruce, suggested that here were all the federal buildings going up new Post Offices, Federal money was being spent. The discovery was made, one day, that there was a procedure of allocating one percent of the total cost of the building for fancy door handles, Renaissance ceilings the kind of ceiling you can see in our 34th Street Post Office in New York City. Why not take that money and give it to artists in national open competitions? This, Joe, was a great idea! It worked like magic.
The Section of Painting and Sculpture was created by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s executive order of October 14, 1934 to award commissions to artists for new federal buildings; once the Rincon Annex Post Office was completed in 1940, the Section announced a competition for artists on April 12, 1941, drawing attention in the local press. Entries were required to be submitted by October 1 of that year.
Refregier was selected by a four-person jury: the Annex architect, Gilbert Underwood, and three peer artists, consisting of Victor Arnautoff, Arnold Blanch, and Philip Guston. The jury handed down a split decision, with Underwood, Arnautoff, and Blanch voting for Refregier, and Guston against. His competitors included artists Richard Haines and Wendell C. Jones, whose studies for the project were donated to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1988; in total, there were 82 entrants for the Rincon Annex commission, including Refregier. The contract was awarded to Refregier on October 21, 1941.
History of San Francisco was the largest mural commissioned by the federal government at the time of the award in 1941. The medium was specified in the contract to be tempera on gesso, and the murals were to be completed within three years (1,095 calendar days) of the award of the contract. Shortly after he was awarded the contract, in 1942 Refregier told the San Francisco Chronicle he wanted paint the past as it had affected the present conditions of depression, strikes, and war. Painting of the murals began in 1946, and they were completed by fall 1948.
Refregier was required to submit sketches of the planned designs for approval prior to starting work. The project sponsors requested 92 changes during the design and painting of the murals, ranging from slimming a Spanish priest (#6, "Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores") to raising picket signs so their pro-union messages could not be read (#14, "Torchlight Procession"). An image of Franklin Roosevelt was deleted from the final panel (#27, "War and Peace") because Refregier had based it on a portrait of an aged Roosevelt after the Yalta Conference, which was seen as an "undignified way" to portray him. Refregier was resistant to the removal of Roosevelt, who was to have been in the center of the middle section of the panel, depicting the Four Freedoms: "To omit the portrait of FDR from the final panel dealing with the United Nations meeting in San Francisco, is a concession I cannot make. ... I cannot allow myself to be a victim of propaganda against a very great man."
During the painting of the murals, Refregier would be interrupted by well-meaning Post Office patrons, as he recounted in 1947: "One way I learn [about California history] is from the people who stream through the Post Office and watch me work. They look at my pictures a while, then catch my attention and start telling me exactly what my pictures mean."
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