Mrs. Mortimer Fleishhacker

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1940  

etching 

12 15/16 x 10 15/16" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

not stated; presumed small 

pencil titled along lower left sheet edge; red Friedl Pollak Collection stamp in lower left sheet corner 

University of California 1949 exhibition catalog, no. 47 

pink-tinted laid 

published 

artist 

22601 

SOLD

This scarce intaglio by Max Pollak is available from the gallery for $350.00. ?Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law. Throughout his career, Pollak would turn to portraiture, perhaps in part to help his bank account, often getting commissions from the movers and shakers of the time. In San Francisco, he did many of these portraits, including this deftly etched image of Florence Fleishhacker, the wife of San Francisco capitalist and founder of the San Francisco Community Chest, Mortimer Fleishhacker. Florence Isabella (Bella) Gerstle was the daughter of San Francisco pioneer Lewis Gerstle (1824-1902) and his wife Hannah Greenebaum (1838-1930). In 1904 she married San Francisco businessman and financier Mortimer Fleishhacker (1866-1953) at Violet Terrace, the Gerstle summer home in San Rafael. Mrs. Fleishhacker was known as an accomplished painter and was a member of the San Francisco Community Music School and the San Francisco Museum of Art. She died August 4, 1963, while painting at her summer home in Woodside, San Mateo County, California.