"At Work: The Art Of California Labor"
2003-09-01 until 2003-12-22
California Historical Society
San Francisco, CA, USA United States of America

The artists who recorded the dignity and struggle of California's turbulent 20th century labor movement will be presented in AT WORK: THE ART OF CALIFORNIA LABOR, opening Labor Day at the California Historical Society. The tribute to California's rich labor history includes the exhibition, a Labor Day Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens, and publication of a book featuring art from the exhibition.

The first overview of labor themes in California art over the last century, AT WORK includes work by photographers Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, Pirkle Jones, and Otto Hagel, painters Hung Liu and Diego Rivera, printmakers Rupert Garcia and Emmy Lou Packard, and other pivotal artists of the century. Mark Dean Johnson, director of the SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, curated the exhibition.

The CHS features historic pieces from 1900-1970, including the Chicano arts movement. The SFSU Fine Arts Gallery, 1600 Holloway Ave. at 19th Avenue, displays contemporary and conceptual labor artists Hung Liu, Larry Sultan, Allan Sekula, Sebastião Salgado, and others. Visit californiahistoricalsociety.com for details on both venues and related programming.

The AT WORK exhibition kicks off with the SF Labor Day Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens, a free family event, Monday, September 1. The Festival offers live music and children’s activities 11 AM - 5 PM, at Yerba Buena Gardens (Mission Street between 3rd/4th Streets), in downtown San Francisco. Visit www.sflabordayfestival.com or call 415 543-1718 for details.

Publication of At Work: The Art of California Labor (CHS Press & Heyday Books) is set for September 2003. Edited by Mark Dean Johnson, the book offers 108 color plates, a foreword by historian Gray Brechin, and an afterword by writer/activist Tillie Olsen.

The AT WORK exhibition is presented by the CHS, SFSU, California Labor Federation AFL-CIO, Heyday Books, and SF Labor Council.

IMAGE:
Emmy Lou Packard
Carpenter, ca. 1950
woodcut

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of California

Other Important Exhibitions in San Francisco