The Great Depression and World War II hit the school hard, and by the 1940s it was on life support. In the 1920s and 1930s, Richard Candida Smith writes in “Utopia and Dissent: Art, Poetry and Politics in California,” it “had the reputation of having the most conservative curriculum in the state, with a faculty that steadfastly clung to the beaux-arts academic tradition.” Founded in 1874, the CSFA was a typical fine-arts college of its era, attracting large numbers of female students who wanted to acquire “accomplishments” to make themselves more marriageable. In 1945, few expected the California School of Fine Arts to even survive, let alone become a center of cutting-edge art. And remarkably, it was a bunch of World War II veterans who made that development possible. During that time, the school played a significant role in the development of Abstract Expressionism, one of the most important artistic movements of the 20th century. The artists and movements associated with the institution include Diego Rivera, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Manuel Neri, the Bay Area Figurative School, the funk movement, and too many others to list.īut the most crucial period in the school’s long history, when it transformed itself from a moribund finishing school for debutantes into a white-hot center of artistic experimentation and a force to be reckoned with in modern art, took place in just five years, from 1946 to 1950. Yet for decades, the school - known as the California School of Fine Arts until 1961- was a major force, not just on the Bay Area art scene, but on the national one. The 148-year-old art school on the northeast slope of Russian Hill had been struggling for years, plagued by declining enrollment and financial woes. When the San Francisco Art Institute closed its doors on July 15, the city lost one of its oldest and most important cultural institutions. The school, which closed in July, was a major force for years on the Bay Area and national art scene. From reverse phone lookups and reverse address searches to in-depth people searches, PeopleFinder will provide you with a fast and reliable solution for all of your search needs.“The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City,” painted by Diego Rivera in 1931, is displayed in a private gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute in July. Our all-inclusive database contains names, phone numbers and addresses as well as a host of other valuable information. With over a billion public records in our database, PeopleFinder will give you the freedom to search for anyone and everyone at no cost to you. Robust, effective and powerful-PeopleFinder is changing lives and making connections. PeopleFinder’s database will also provide you with the best white pages information on anyone you choose. With this incredible technology, you can find people based on several different details such as a name, age, address, and phone number. With the click of a mouse, our people search database will explore millions of records to bring you the results you are searching for. For years, PeopleFinder has helped countless loved ones reunite and reconnect all across the nation.

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