Panama Pacific International Exposition 1915 San Francisco

The world’s fair of 1915 celebrated both the completion of the Panama Canal and the rebuilding of San Francisco following the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire. The exposition spotlighted the canal and the city as gateways to the Pacific, where the American empire could now expand after its victory in the Spanish-American War. Empire on Display is the first book to examine the Panama-Pacific International Exposition through the lenses of art history and cultural studies, focusing on the event’s expansionist and masculinist symbolism. The exposition displayed evidence—visual, spatial, geographic, cartographic, and ideological—of America’s imperial ambitions and accomplishments. Representations of the Panama Canal play a central role in Moore’s argument, much as they did at the fair itself. Embodying a manly empire of global dimensions, the canal was depicted in statues and a gigantic working replica, as well as on commemorative stamps, maps, murals, postcards, medals, and advertisements. Just as San Francisco’s rebuilding symbolized America’s will to overcome the forces of nature, the Panama Canal represented the triumph of U.S. technology and sheer determination to realize the centuries-old dream of opening a passage between the seas. Extensively illustrated, Moore’s book vividly recalls many other features of the fair, including a seventy-five-foot-tall Uncle Sam. American railroads, in their heyday in 1915, contributed a five-acre scale model of Yellowstone, complete with miniature geysers that erupted at regular intervals. A mini–Grand Canyon featured a village where some twenty Pueblo Indians lived throughout the fair. Moore interprets these visual and cultural artifacts as layered narratives of progress, civilization, social Darwinism, and manliness. Much as the globe had ostensibly shrunk with the completion of the Panama Canal, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition compressed the world and represented it in miniature to celebrate a reinvigorated, imperial, masculine, and technologically advanced nation. As San Francisco bids to host another world’s fair, in 2020, Moore’s rich analytic approach gives readers much to ponder about symbolism, American identity, and contemporary parallels to the past.

The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, the rebirth of San Francisco after the disastrous 1906 earthquake, and the world community in general. It was a festive time and one that transformed the swampy San Francisco waterfront into elaborate grounds for sculptures, playgrounds, fountains, and national pavilions. Some say it was the most successful world's fair ever held, bringing together disparate cultures as no other event before or since. Lasting 10 months and covering 635 acres over what is now the city's Marina District, the fair remains in evidence today at the famed Palace of Fine Arts, the only extant structure and a popular and much-photographed local landmark.

Timed with the centennial of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915, Jewel City presents a large and representative selection of artworks from the fair, emphasizing the variety of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and prints that greeted attendees. It is unique in its focus on the works of art that were scattered among the venues of the expositionÑthe most comprehensive art exhibition ever shown on the West Coast. Notably, the PPIE included the first American presentations of Italian Futurism, Austrian Expressionism, and Hungarian avant-garde painting, and there were also major displays of paintings by prominent Americans, especially those working in the Impressionist style. This lavishly illustrated catalogue features works by masters such as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Paul CŽzanne, Robert Henri, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Umberto Boccioni, and many more. The volume also explores the PPIEÕs distinctive murals program, developments in the art of printmaking, and the legacy of the French Pavilion, which hosted an abundance of works by Auguste Rodin and inspired the founding and architecture of the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco. A rich and fascinating study of a critical moment in American and European art history, Jewel City is indispensable for understanding both the United StatesÕ and CaliforniaÕs role in the reception of modernism as well as the regionÕs historical place on the international art stage. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Exhibition dates: de Young Museum, San Francisco: October 17, 2015ÐJanuary 10, 2016

Series of volumes describe the Panama-Pacific International Exposition from idea to inception.