Max Pollak did this large color intaglio around 1944, using the tonal lines that softground etching can create and added color using aquatint, printed a la poupée.
The viewer's eye is directed down California Street, past the pagoda of the Sing Fat Company building at Grant Avenue to the right down to the San Francisco Bay where the the Bay Bridge is just visible in the fog. Colorless skyscrapers loom in the background. The view is akin to being on a roller coaster.
Max and Friedl Pollak traveled across the United States before settling in Sausalito, California in 1938. As they had traveled Max captured the cities with his impressionistic color intaglios; New York, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans, etc.