Obata: Foggy Morning, Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco

Artist: Chiura Obata (1885-1975)
Title: Foggy Morning, Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco
Date: 1930 Size:  32 x 49.1 cm

An otherworldly silver mist has enveloped the familiar setting of this famous San Francisco street. Only the nebulous outlines of trees and buildings are visible, the mist veiling the colors from our perception. Adding to the mirage-like effect is what appears to be a lone, horse-drawyn dray cart approaching in the far distance, not a car in sight. At left we see what seems to be outline of the steeple of St. Mary’s Cathedral, formerly located at Van Ness and O’Farrell. The traditional building shown here was built in the 1890s and destroyed by fire in 1962. It was replaced by a modern design (whose roof locals compared to a Maytag agitator) that was constructed by the diocese at a different location at Gough and Geary in 1971. This is one of only two city views contained in this groundbreaking series of 25 prints, most of the other works focused on views of “Great Nature”.

From the World Landscape series, the groundbreaking effort that Obata spent all his savings on creating with the highest possible standards. With this series Obata replicated the effect of watercolor paintings in a way that had never been attempted before, and he chose many scenes that would be seemingly impossible to translate with woodblocks, as this one. According to the Takamizawa booklet that was printed with this series in English, this print required 90 impressions. In this example we can see the brushstrokes that were used for the surface application of sparkling mica that was applied over the surface of the entire print. An example of this print was recently acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

With the artist's signature and seal lower right, which is rather rare to have on works from this series. 

Publisher: Takamizawa
Signature: Signed in ink and Artist's seal in red, lower right corner

Condition: Excellent impression and color. Good condition. Work has been expertly conserved by a restoration specialist with decades of museum experience, and the margins show evidence of this. Never framed.

Literature: See the Whitney Museum of American Art online,  accession number 2015.11. See also the Achenbach Foundation of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

SKU: OBA151