Union Square, San Francisco by Emil Rizek

Union Square, San Francisco by Emil Rizek

Union Square, San Francisco

Emil Rizek

Title

Union Square, San Francisco

 
Artist

Emil Rizek

  1901 - 1988 (biography)
Year
1939  
Technique
color etching & aquatint 
Image Size
23 3/16 x 19 3/4"  
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
7 of 30  
Annotations
pencil titled (different hand?) and editioned 
Reference
 
Paper
cream wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
21383 
Price
SOLD
Description

This color aquatint was done by Austrian printmaker Emil Rizek in 1938, while he was briefly teaching at Arts & Crafts in Oakland, California before returning to Vienna.

The image is of San Francisco's Union Square on a Fall day, featuring Dewey's Memorial monument - topped with the Goddess of Victory - and seated figures on park benches. The park is a gathering place for many workers in the area to have lunch and many shoppers to rest.

Emil Rizek was born on May 31, 1901 in Vienna, Austria, the son of an electrical engineer. Although his father wanted him to also become an engineer, young Rizek took private art instruction with Anton Hlavatschek and with Carl Fahringer, a professor from the Viennese academy. In the 1920s Rizek traveled to Italy, France, Germany and Holland where he was associated with the “School of the Hague” a group of Dutch Impressionists.

On his first major world trip, between 1928 and 1931, Rizek traveled and painted in Indonesia. On a second trip, lasting from 1932 through 1935 he visited Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa. In 1938 taught painting in Oakland California, and also painted and etched scenes of San Francisco’s Chinatown.