The Mid-Century San Francisco Art Scene

The Mid-Century San Francisco Art Scene

McChesney, M. F. (1973). A Period of Exploration: San Francisco, 1945–1950. Oakland, CA: Oakland Museum. N6535.S3 M32

As an LA native who has watched Pacific Standard Time (PST)—the Getty’s series of exhibitions on postwar art in Los Angeles—unfold from across the country, I’ve been left hankering for California art history. The Guggenheim Library has many of the Getty-sponsored PST catalogs, but for those interested in regional art historiography, our reach extends even further.
This book was based on an exhibition hosted by the Oakland Museum in 1973, a time when the San Francisco art scene was reevaluating itself. Looking back 20 years to the period between 1945 and 1950, A Period of Exploration provides a firsthand account of the Bay Area scene, focusing on the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Indeed, the book is primarily told in the words of the artists themselves, made up as it was of extended quotes from former students and teachers like Ad Reinhardt, Clyfford Still, and Raymond Parker, which are strung together to form a narrative of the emergence of the Bay Area school.
The reproductions offer a compelling mix of the familiar and the just off-center, complementing the artists’ reminiscences. In fact, the pictures seem to minimize the divide between the ’70s and the ’50s—you can imagine 1970s San Franciscans seeing a group of kindred spirits in the ahead-of-their-time bohemian collective.



Interior spread. McChesney, M. F. (1973). A Period of Exploration: San Francisco, 1945–1950. Oakland, CA: Oakland Museum. N6535.S3 M32