Unloading Tuna

Wilhelmina (Mina) Schutz Pulsifer

This modernist Depression-era lithograph was done by San Diego, California printmaker Mina Pulsifer around 1940. The artist worked with L.A. Master Printer Lynton Kistler to print the stone in an unstated edition (the highest number we have seen was numbered "7"). Kistler's blind-stamp is impressed into the lower margin.

In the 1940s, Mina Pulsifer turned her attention to printmaking, particularly lithography, and began to receive recognition in that field. The Associated American Artists of New York published two of her lithographs, giving her work wide exposure. Her lithographs were also included in two European traveling shows organized by the Boston Public Library. Pulsifer 's work is in the collections of the Boston Public Library, Bibliotheque Nationale, and National Bezalel Museum in Israel.

San Diego's harbor remains a major Bluefin and Yellowfin tuna fishing destination for both sport and commercial fishermen. Chartered boats have been working out of the harbor since the 1900s in the city once known as the ‘Tuna Capital of the World.’ Still today the public comes to the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. to buy fresh tuna.

Pulsifer depicts a pair of tuna fishermen unloading their catch onto the pier, probably preparing the catch for the dockside market. The fish are stuffed into large baskets. The figure on the right strains with all his might to move the basket.