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A Wild Flight of the Imagination: The Story of the Golden Gate Bridge

The California Historical Society will open an exhibition on February 26, 2012 in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Exhibition featuring rarely seen artwork, photographs, film footage, and historic bridge artifacts is part of the region wide celebration organized by The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. CHS is pleased to be partnering with the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District on this exhibition.

The title of the Exhibition A Wild Flight of the Imagination is borrowed from a 1921 promotional prospectus for the Golden Gate Bridge. The authors, chief engineer for the Bridge Joseph Strauss and San Francisco city engineer M.M. O’Shaughnessy, used inspirational language to set a tone for the enormously ambitious engineering feat--language and imagery that would stay with the project and that clings to our image of the Bridge even today.

The Exhibition begins with a look back at the Golden Gate—that great aperture that links the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean— a hundred years before the Bridge, and its history as an inspirational landscape for artist, writers, and travelers. The Exhibition continues through history to the opening of the Bridge in 1937, and its continued stewardship as an icon of American history today.

Visitors will learn what life was like in the years just before the Bridge was constructed, including ferry life and culture along the San Francisco Bay, and the increasing pressure that cars put on the city confined by water on three sides. Through a unique scrapbook of clippings from the late nineteen twenties, part of the CHS collection, viewers will be able to trace the elaborate media campaign that succeeded in winning over a reluctant public. The original Western Union telegram to Mayor "Sunny Jim" Rolph of San Francisco dated December 29, 1924 alerting him that the Bridge had been approved by the War Department, a huge hurdle for the project, will allow the visitor to join the excitement that must have accompanied the receipt of this news 88 years ago.

Works of art made by artists employed as part of the campaign for the Bridge will be shown for the first time in many years. These works by Maynard Dixon and Chesley Bonestell (who would later become famous as “The Father of modern space art”) imagine what the Bridge would ultimately look like. These paintings along with drawings for the Bridge by architects John Eberson (best know for his movie palace designs) and Irving Morrow have been in the care of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District and through a shared interest in making them available for the public to see have come to the galleries at CHS.

Images and ephemera from the groundbreaking festivities that took place on February 26, 1933 will lead into photographs and scrapbooks depicting the life of workers on the Bridge. Original tools, a hard hat, and wire samples will give the visitor a more physical sense of the work, and they will be invited to hold in their hand a rivet from the Bridge.

Artists and architects included
Ansel Adams (1902-1984), William A. Coulter (1849-1936), Maynard Dixon (1875 – 1946), John Eberson (1875–1954), Irving Morrow (1884-1952), Carl Adolf Von Perbandt (1832-1911), Ray Strong (1905-2006), Carlton Watkins (1829-1916), Raymond Dabb Yelland (1848-1900)

Scheduled Events
February 26, 2012 2:30 – 4:30 pm
A Wild Flight of the Imagination opening celebration
Put on your dancing shoes and come help us celebrate the opening of A Wild Flight of the Imagination: the Story of the Golden Gate Bridge. On this day in 1933 San Franciscans celebrated the ground breaking for the Bridge, a symbol of hope in a devastated economy.

Thursday, April 12, 2012 5-7 pm
A Wild Flight of the Imagination Curator Walkthrough
Come by CHS for a glass of wine, and walk through our exhibition A Wild Flight of the Imagination: the Story of the Golden Gate Bridge with the curator Jessica Hough.

Saturday, April 14, 2012 2 - 3:30 pm
A Wild Flight of the Imagination Family Day
Bring the kids and come for a special curator-lead tour of the Exhibition. Children and adults will be invited to handle iron worker tools and Bridge artifacts. At the end, families will work on craft project together.

May 26-28, 2012
Special Memorial Day weekend 75th Anniversary events at CHS

Sunday, October 14, 2012
A Wild Flight of the Imagination: the Story of the Golden Gate Bridge exhibition closing celebration

75 Tributes to the Bridge The California Historical Society is proud to be a partner in 75 Tributes to the Bridge, a community program commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

 

Recent Exhibits

Oyster Farm:

Photographs of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company
 

From October 27, 2011 to January 31, 2012, the California Historical Society hosts the exhibit Oyster Farm, featuring the documentary photography of artist Evvy Eisen.Evvy Eisen’s photographs will be accompanied by pieces of ephemera and other materials from the rich collections of the California Historical Society.
 
When discussing Oyster Farm, Evvy Eisen explains, “I set out to photograph the workers at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company because they are part of our community, though few of us have ever seen them or understand what they do. They stood before my camera, with dignity and patience. Their portraits communicate information specific to these individuals, but also illuminate essential aspects of the universal human condition.”
 
The Drakes Bay Oyster Company is located on Drakes Estero in the Point Reyes National Seashore in western Marin County. It is also currently the center of a controversy about whether it will be permitted to remain in operation after 2012. Opposing positions have divided the community and have been argued at the state and national levels as well. This exhibit does not deal with the complex issues involved in these disagreements. Rather it focuses on the people who work at the oyster farm, who are silent and stoic in the face of an uncertain future. Their portraits communicate information specific to them but also illuminate essential aspects of the universal human condition and reveal unrecognized facets of daily life at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company. This exhibit creates a place where differences can be set aside, and where the people portrayed can be appreciated in a new light.
 
Evvy Eisen was born and educated in New York City and has lived and worked in Marin County since 1971. She specializes in environmental portraits and often works on long-term projects, portraying the people involved in socially relevant issues. 
 
Oyster Farm is on view at the California Historical Society from October 27, 2011 through January 31, 2012. For more information about this exhibition visit www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.