San Francisco California Street

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1930  

etching and color aquatint 

14 15/16 x 7" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

17 of 150  

pencil titled in lower left, editioned in lower center; bear stamp "F.P.C." for Friedl Pollak Collection; annotated: "1930 California Street San Francisco"; copyright in lower right corner of image 

 

antique-white laid 

published 

artist 

22470 

SOLD

Max Pollak did this color aquatint and etching around 1930 and chose as his subject his adopted home, San Francisco, California, viewed from the bottom of the hill on California Street.

The viewer's eye is directed past the pagoda of the Sing Fat Company building at Grant Avenue to the top of the hill. The cable car line runs down the middle, with traffic lanes, parking, and sidewalks stretching out to sides.

Pollak squeezes the composition by adding the edge of a building to the right, the effect of which heightens the sense of the vertical street, while the cars in the foreground provide a horizontal base as the cars and begins its climb.

The artist anticipated a large edition of 150 however, fewer than 50 were ever printed.