San Francisco: Telegraph Hill

Max Pollak

Max and Friedl Pollak moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1938 but he traveled there earlier where he did this view of Telegraph Hill in 1930. Like Whistler had done before him he left the foreground almost blank, buildings just sketched in as if they were buried in the fog. The middleground is a hodgepodge of color and architectural shapes and the composition fades off to the foggy background where the sky and the earth meet. A ship sails into the bay, arriving from a voyage on the Pacific.

Many of the buildings on the hill at that time were shacks, propped up on the hillside with a view of both San Frnacisco Bay and the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean. They were accessed by old wooden stairs and the poorest residents lived there.

Later that decade, in 1933, after this image was created, Coit Tower was built during the Great Depression. The Golden Gate Bridge was also constructed, between 1933 and opening in 1937, linking Northern California to San Francisco.