San Francisco, Triptych View from Telegraph Hill: The Harbor/ Business Center / Nob Hill by Max Pollak

San Francisco, Triptych View from Telegraph Hill: The Harbor/ Business Center / Nob Hill by Max Pollak

San Francisco, Triptych View from Telegraph Hill: The Harbor/ Business Center / Nob Hill

Max Pollak

Title

San Francisco, Triptych View from Telegraph Hill: The Harbor/ Business Center / Nob Hill

 
Artist

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)
Year
1930  
Technique
three etching & color aquatints 
Image Size
11 x 8 3/8" ; 11 x 8-3/8"; 11 x 8-1/2" platemarks 
Signature
each pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
6 of 120  
Annotations
each impression is pencil titled, editioned 6/120, and pencil signed; each bears the Friedl Pollak Collection stamp in lower left sheet corner; each is pencil titled and dated along the lower sheet edge; Business Center is annotated "Middlepiece" and Nob  
Reference
No. 116 on the checklist of titles included in Pollak's exhibition at the University of California, April 3 - May 15, 1949 
Paper
fine ivory laid 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
22539 
Price
SOLD
Description

Max Pollak did this triptych birdseye overview of San Francisco from Telegraph Hill in 1930, before either the Oakland/San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridges or Coit Tower were built in the mid 1930s.

The left panel, "The Harbor" is of the San Francisco Bay harbor. Looking past the rooftops of the shacks built on the side of Telegraph Hill the viewer can see the Ferry Building and the piers and wharves along the waterfront as ships arrive through the Golden Gate from the Pacific. To the left of the Ferry Building is a sign advertising the Wellman grocery and coffee company, established in San Francisco in 1849 during the Gold Rush.

The central panel titled "Business Center" looks to the east to downtown San Francisco. The new "skyscrapers" of the financial center are visible in the distance, viewed between 2 Eucalyptus trees on Telegraph Hill.

The right panel is titled "Nob Hill" and is a foggy view of the neighborhood with the Mark Hopkins Hotel visible at the top of the hill. The pre-bridge East Bay is indicated by the hills rising over the bay.

As the Depression wears on and San Francisco builds in order to help with jobs the landscape changes dramatically with the addition of the two bridges and Coit Tower, all which became immediate San Francisco landmarks.