July 2024 ~ Presentations, Exhibitions and Collections
Happy Birthday to Camp Mather, 100 Years old this Summer!
Campers in rowboat at Camp Mather. California Photograph Collection.
In Memoriam: Alan Blackman, Calligrapher
Calligrapher spent 36 years mailing letters to himself, San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2024, Section C, page 1; Alan Blackman, calligraphic first day covers.
Our friend Alan Blackman (May 26, 1928-June 6, 2024) was an extraordinarily gifted calligrapher whose lettering subjects were imbued with an array of colors, more often neon and rainbow. His glorious calligraphic pieces provoked a sense of wonder at the originality of it all. Whimsical and eccentric, serious applications or downright funny showstoppers, Alan's inky colors burst out in calligraphic song. Alan's alphabets and colorful renderings of The Lord's Prayer were instantly recognized as a unique contribution to the world of calligraphy. He was a teacher and editor of the Friends of Calligraphy journal Alphabet.
Alan may be best known for his calligraphic first day covers produced over a period of thirty-six years. He was a stamp collector from a young age, later working for the Post Office. Along the way he studied calligraphy at the California College of the Arts. Beginning in 1968, Alan designed and addressed an envelope every month, artfully matching the theme of a postage stamp’s first day of issue to the address on the envelope. He addressed one to his young son and one to himself, finally amassing a collection of over 400 first day covers. In 2015, the San Francisco Public Library developed an original exhibition to celebrate Alan's distinguished collection as well as the postal connection with his son. Letters to Myself: The Calligraphic First Day Covers of Alan Blackman was one of the most outstanding one-of-a-kind retrospectives held by the San Francisco Public Library.
The Book Arts & Special Collections Center is honored to be the beneficiary of Alan Blackman’s generosity in the gift of his calligraphic first day covers, where they will become part of the Richard Harrison Collection of Calligraphy & Lettering. The collection will soon be available to the public.
Tim Ripper explores the story of ideas and reactions in type design through the evolution of letterforms within the current technological and societal currents. His presentation focuses on how to translate the language of history, the joy of archives, the challenges of very large projects and why the ideal place for a 19th-century English typeface might just be in California.
Presented by the Letterform Archive and Book Arts & Special Collections.
Curator Tour: Ralph Chessé: A San Francisco Century
Ralph Chessé: A San Francisco Century curator Glen Helfand leads monthly tours of the exhibition. Learn about Chessé's life, work and prolific career as a multi-talented artist who experimented across media. From painting and sculpture to performance and theater production, Chessé's work and life were experiments in creative expression.
Step back to the frenzied days of 1848 as gold fever grips San Francisco, transforming a sleepy village into a bustling metropolis overnight. Explore the captivating tales of fires, gangs and larger-than-life characters that shaped the city's legendary Gold Rush era.
"Gold! Gold from the American River!", shouted San Francisco businessman Sam Brannan, as he ran down Montgomery Street in May,1848, waving a jar filled with gold over his head, sparking the Gold Rush. As word spread rapidly around the world, the tiny village of San Francisco, tucked amidst massive sand dunes by the Bay, and frequented by grizzly bears and mountain lions, was transformed virtually overnight into a booming instant city. Learn about the incredible fires, gangs, vigilantes, shanghaiing, the Pony Express and the larger-than-life characters, like Mark Twain, Emperor Norton, and Levi Strauss, who walked the famously muddy streets. Walk above the fleet of abandoned ships, still full of cargo, buried beneath today’s skyscrapers. Hear how the Gold Rush sparked the largest peacetime migration in world history, catapulting California into statehood. Discover how treasure seekers converged from over a dozen nations around the world with diverse languages and customs to create the dynamic and tolerant character of the multi ethnic city we see today.
Meet at the sidewalk on the TransAmerica Pyramid (north) side of the Clay Street opposite the Starbucks on Clay.
Space Limited. Reservations required: (415) 557-4411 or anissa.malady@sfpl.org.
Saturday, July 20th, 2024: 10:00am
SF City Guides Meeting Spot
600 Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94105
sfplcpp@sfpl.org
Presentation: Hand Bookbinders of California Gallery Walkthrough
Come hear how books are made by joining members of the Hand Bookbinders of California as they lead a gallery tour of the HBC52 exhibition in the Skylight Gallery. Members will discuss the difficulties, trials and successes of their bookbinding creations.
Newly Processed Collection: San Francisco Human Services Agency
AIDS memorial quilt sewn by San Francisco Human Services Agency social workers in memory of colleagues. Photograph by Daniel Kelly, June 2007.
Through times of hardship and crisis, the San Francisco Human Services Agency (HSA) has protected and supported the city's vulnerable communities, including families, foster children, seniors, refugees and veterans. The agency began in 1919 as the Widows Pension Bureau, assisting single mothers. The HSA Records (SFH 743) documents many voices and the persistent poverty that has existed in the shadow of the city's wealth.
Included are a Depression-era announcement about the city's first employment program for persons with disabilities; an evaluation of HSA's efforts to find childcare for mothers working in the shipyards during WWII; a report on runaway gay youth during the Summer of Love; policy memos about foster care during the early 1990s crack epidemic, and a newsletter profiling each person memorialized in the quilt pictured. One profile reads, "John worked in the Special Investigations Unit and Medi-Cal. He had a wild sense of humor and once streaked across the third floor of 150 Otis Street."
Explore these archives and more in the San Francisco History Center, Main Library, 6th Floor. By Daniel Kelly, San Francisco History Center intern and San Francisco Human Services Agency retiree.
Newly Digitized Collections: East/West and the Paul Radin Papers
Cover page of the June 7th, 1989 issue of East/West. Vol. 23. Issue 23. Internet Archive.
In collaboration with Internet Archive, San Francisco History Center finished the digitization of two significant collections documenting 20th century immigrant voices of San Francisco: the Paul Radin Papers and the bilingual Chinese/English newspaper East/West.
The Paul Radin Papers consists of interviews with members of various ethnic groups in California--mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area--carried out by over 200 State Emergency Relief Administration of California (SERA) workers under the supervision of Paul Radin. The interviews were conducted between 1934 and 1935.
The Chinese-American journal, East/West, began in Chinatown, San Francisco in 1967 by publisher Gordon Lew. The complete run of the newspaper includes 1,125 issues running weekly and ends in 1989. The newspaper reports and documents all through the lens of the Chinese-American experience: political and social events both locally and nationally, local business advertisements and international developments affecting the Asian diaspora.
The digitization was completed with grant funding awarded by National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC), affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
On Exhibit at the San Francisco History Center Exhibit Space
San Francisco History Center Exhibit Space - 6th Floor
Unknown in American history, past and present, seven Chinese American adolescent girls formed a club in 1924 to serve the community -- the Square and Circle Club. One hundred years later, the Club continues with their legacy of service, driven by compassion and mainstream society's marginalization of their community. The Square and Circle Club celebrate their centennial with an exhibition showcasing 100 years as a pillar of San Francisco's Chinatown community.
Ralph Chessé was born in 1900, the literal beginning of the 20th century, in New Orleans. He died at 91, just shy of a full hundred, and the turn of the millennium. The bulk of his life was spent in the San Francisco Bay Area, and his artistic endeavors -- painting, sculpture and notably, marionette production and performance -- reflected numerous touchstones of the Bay Area's cultural and social life, from WPA, theater, television and rock and roll.
At every turn, his life was fueled by creative endeavors, exploring different styles of art, as well as theatrical pursuits. He has a notable mural in Coit Tower and worked for the rights of artists. His expressive, exquisitely carved puppets enacted everything from Shakespeare's tragedies to the animal kingdom educator Brother Buzz, the main character of a beloved children's show that ran from 1953-1969 on mainstream television and was syndicated nationally. At every turn, Chessé's life and work continue to offer a
The Hand Bookbinders of California is pleased to present HBC52, their 52nd annual members' exhibition of fine bindings, artist books and boxes at the Skylight Gallery of the San Francisco Public Library from June 1 - August 18, 2024.
Founded in 1972 by a dozen amateur and professional bookbinders the organization now has over 150 members and embraces all aspects of book arts. The 52nd annual members' exhibition showcases the wide-ranging talents of members from historical models to original content, with books bound in wood, paper and leather.
For 52 years the Hand Bookbinders of California has sought to maintain the Bay Area tradition of fine binding, promote the public appreciation of fine books made by hand and encourage the exchange of ideas and techniques related to book arts.
Gallery Walk Through Sunday, July 21, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Remembering Alan Blackman
Calligrapher spent 36 years mailing letters to himself, San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2024, Section C, page 1; Alan Blackman, calligraphic first day covers.
San Francisco
History Center,
Book Arts &
Special Collections 100 Larkin St. San Francisco, CA 94102 415-557-4400sfpl.org/bookarts