Mr. Monroe E. Deutsch (San Francisco portrait series)

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1940  

drypoint 

14 7/8 x 12" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

not stated 

pencil titled or possibly signed by the subject, lower left; pencil deciated "For Pete" along lower left sheet edge 

 

pale rose-tinted laid 

published 

artist 

22869 

SOLD

Pollak executed a series of portraits of high-profile San Franciscans in the 1940s. Among them was this portrait of Monroe E. Deutsch, a beloved professor of Latin, and head of the department of classical studies and provost at the University of California, Berkeley. However, upon his death in 1955, he was also known for his work in civil rights through the lens of academia. He participated in the National Conference of Christians and Jews and was an advisory on the council of Chinese universities; he formally protested the Japanese internment camps set up along the West Coast during World War II and fought to keep artist and fellow professor Chiura Obata's family out of the camps once it was clear that the government would move forward with the action. In a eulogy written for UC Berkeley's News of the Society by Emma McLaughlin, he was called the "conscience" of the university.