Took this photo on Potrero Hill with a certain excitement Saturday evening as the sun was going down, even though "monochrome industrial" is far from what I think of when I think about the things I like to look at. And it's true that unassisted by the cultural machinery of San Francisco, I would probably have ignored this colorless demonstration of solid geometry. But no sooner did I see it than I was reminded of a painting at SFMOMA. Needless to say, that's when the real world gets interesting, when it starts to resemble some mediated vision whose outline is already lodged in my head.
In my memory, the painting is by Charles Sheeler, but when I checked the museum's online collection inventory, it did not appear among Sheeler's work, so we will get that question settled at a later date.
*** Later date ***
Vertical Building by Ralston Crawford was painted in 1934 and was acquired in 1975 by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
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| Ralston Crawford Vertical Building 1934 oil on canvas San Francisco Museum of Modern Art |