Victor Arnautoff And The Politics Of Art

Victor Arnautoff reigned as San Francisco's leading mural painter during the New Deal era. Yet that was only part of an astonishing life journey from Tsarist officer to leftist painter. Robert W. Cherny's masterful biography of Arnautoff braids the artist's work with his increasingly leftist politics and the tenor of his times. Delving into sources on Russian émigrés and San Francisco's arts communities, Cherny traces Arnautoff's life from refugee art student and assistant to Diego Rivera to prominence in the New Deal's art projects and a faculty position at Stanford University. As Arnautoff's politics moved left, he often incorporated working people and people of color into his treatment of the American past and present. In the 1950s, however, his participation in leftist organizations and a highly critical cartoon of Richard Nixon landed him before the House Un-American Activities Committee and led to calls for his dismissal from Stanford. Arnautoff eventually departed America, a refugee of another kind, now fleeing personal loss and the disintegration of the left-labor culture that had nurtured him, before resuming his artistic career in the Soviet Union that he had fought in his youth to destroy.

During the 1930s San Francisco's most ambitious public murals were painted by artists on the left. In this study, Anthony Lee shows how these painters, led by Diego Rivera, sought to transform murals into a vehicle for their rejection of the economic and political status quo and their support of labor and radical ideologies, including Communism. In addressing these subjects, the mural painters developed a new imagery, based on the activities of the city's laboring population - its efforts to organize, its protests, its strikes.

The American labor movement seemed poised on the threshold of unparalleled success at the beginning of the post-World War II era. Fourteen million strong in 1946, unions represented thirty five percent of non-agricultural workers. Why then did the gains made between the 1930s and the end of the war produce so few results by the 1960s? This collection addresses the history of labor in the postwar years by exploring the impact of the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union on American workers and labor unions. The essays focus on the actual behavior of Americans in their diverse workplaces and communities during the Cold War. Where previous scholarship on labor and the Cold War has overemphasized the importance of the Communist Party, the automobile industry, and Hollywood, this book focuses on politically moderate, conservative workers and union leaders, the medium-sized cities that housed the majority of the population, and the Roman Catholic Church. These are all original essays that draw upon extensive archival research and some upon oral history sources.

An edited volume exploring the role women played in California politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Three times the Democratic Party’s nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908), and Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post-Civil War economic growth. In this book, Robert W. Cherny traces Bryan’s major political crusades for a new currency policy, prohibition, and women’s suffrage, and against colonialism, monopolies, America’s entry into World War I, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Drawing on Bryan’s writings and correspondence, Cherny presents Bryan’s key role in the Democratic Party’s transformation from a proponent of minimal government to an advocate of active government.

Providing a fascinating look at American Expressionism--and at the beginnings of a new movement, Abstract Expressionism, which followed it--cultural historian Dijkstra offers new insights into the roots of painting in America today. 258 illustrations.

The Castro Theatre, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Headquarters, 450 Sutter Medico-Dental Buildingthesemasterpieces of San Francisco's Art Deco heritage are the work of one man: Timothy Pflueger. An immigrant's sonwith only a grade-school education, Pflueger began practicing architecture after San Francisco's 1906 earthquake. While his contemporaries looked to Beaux-Arts traditions to rebuild the city, he brought exotic Mayan, Asian, and Egyptian forms to buildings ranging from simple cocktail lounges to the city's first skyscrapers. Pflueger was one of the city's most prolificarchitects during his 40-year career. He designed two major downtown skyscrapers, two stock exchanges, several neighborhood theaters, movie palaces for four smaller cities (including the beloved Paramount in Oakland), some ofthe city's biggest schools, and at least 50 homes. His works include the San Francisco Stock Exchange, the ever-popularTop of the Mark, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco World's Fair. It is a testament to his talentthat many of his buildings still stand and many have been named landmarks. Therese Poletti tells the fascinating story of Pflueger's life and work in Art Deco San Francisco. In lively detail, she relates how Pflueger built extravagant compositions in metal, concrete, and glass. She also tells the story behind the architecture: Pflueger's commissioning and support of muralist Diego Rivera, his association with photographer Ansel Adams and sculptor Ralph Stackpole, and his childhood friendship turned to adulthood sponsorship with San Francisco Mayor James "Sunny" Rolph Jr. Beautiful archival photography mixes with stunning new photography in this collection of a truly Californian, but ultimately American, story.