Uptown Unveiled: The Fox and Paramount Theaters, Oakland, June 18

Anthony Holdsworth June 14, 2009

I've painted them on several occasions. Now my guest blogger, Annalee Allen, will fill you in on a celebration which will showcase two of Oakland's premier movie palaces: Annalee Allen

The upcoming Uptown Unveiled street party on June 18th presents an opportunity to showcase both of Oakland's movie palace gems - the Paramount Theatre on Broadway, and the newly restored Fox Oakland Theater on Telegraph Avenue. The lobbies of both theaters will be open for viewing, and guides with the Oakland Tours Program will be leading walks from one venue to the other throughout the evening.

Anthony Holdsworth's portraits of both theaters, seen altogether on this site, capture the sense of expectation and excitement patrons must have felt eight decades ago when both theaters, with capacities to seat 3000-plus people, offered a few hours of escape into the wide world of entertainment. A check of the history files reveals that several other theaters were operating in downtown during that time - the twenties and thirties, but the opening of the Fox in 1928, and the Paramount in 1931 represented a new level of architectural opulence and patron accommodation. Purchasing a ticket for 44 cents (55 cents for the loge level) meant transport to worlds and time periods far far away, files say.

Over the years, at the Fox, well-known vaudevillians and stars like Ginger Rogers, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and the Jimmy Dorsey Band took the stage during movie intermissions. During the year long construction period for the Paramount, which occurred as the

Great Depression

was deepening, dozens of subcontractors employed hundreds of steelworkers, plumbers, carpenters and artisans to work on the mammoth structure. On opening day the Paramount was reported to be the largest movie house on the

West Coast

While the style of the Fox suggests a "Brahamanian Temple of Northern India," with a tower dome encrusted with colored tiles, the Paramount, designed by noted

San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger, is a towering tribute to the Jazz Age and Moderne styled Art Deco. It too features highly unusual glazed

mosaic tile panels, flanking the neon blade sign, that depict stylized male and female puppet masters crowned with stars, dangling golden strings with performing arts figures.

How exciting it must have been to see those neon letters on the theaters' towering signs, glowing nightly, drawing folks downtown to shows, dining, and dancing.

According to the files, the acquisition and restoration of the Paramount Theatre by the Oakland Symphony Association in the early 1970's, was seen as the start of a major trend around the country to take aging

movie palaces

and convert them in to

performing arts centers

. A modest $4 million, funds contributed by a few key locally prominent civic minded leaders, and matched by energetic community volunteers who mounted a one dollar per person fundraising campaign, was what it took back in 1973, to reopen the Paramount Theatre. The rescue of the Fox took much longer and was far more complicated. That remarkable story will be retold on June 18th by the volunteer guides of the Oakland Tours20Program at the Uptown Unveiled street party. In addition, the Uptown tour will be repeated monthly through the summer months, the dates and times are posted on the web at

Oaklandnet.com/walkingtours

We owe a debt of gratitude to those who refused to give up on the idea that

Oakland

could have not one but two major downtown landmark venues, fully restored and open for all to enjoy. For more on uptown's renaissance check out

www.MeetDowntownOak.com

East Bay Open Studios 2009

Anthony Holdsworth May 27, 2009

Saturdays and Sundays June 6 & 7, 13 & 14, 2009
11AM - 6PM
351 Lewis St Oakland, CA 94110
Google Map

The East Bay hosts one of the highest per capita concentrations of visual artists in the United States. You've probably never heard of most of them. Many are not represented by local galleries.

Four artists, who have attended my painting workshops in Oakland, Mexico or Italy, are taking part in Open Studios. They are O'Brien Theile and Ron Weil both in Berkeley, Marvin Dalander in Alameda. And Lorrie Fink in Oakland.

I've participated in East Bay Open Studios every year since it's inception in the early 80's. Pro Arts is an artist membership organization which has acted as an entry point into the art world for emerging talent. It hosts a number of exhibitions each year. My exhibition with Pro Arts in 1986 garnered a full page review (by Charles Shere and Susan Stern) in the Oakland Tribune, as well as a gallery connection. Sales from this show enabled me to phase out my landscape gardening business and devote myself full time to painting.

This year I am showcasing my painting of the San Francisco Chronicle (Storm Clouds over the Chronicle) and the Farmer's Market painting that was featured in an article by Brenda Payton in the San Francisco Chronicle. I will be showing other examples of my Farmers' Market Series and Urban Garden Series as well as new urban landscapes.

You are welcome to explore my racks in the mezzanine where I store about a hundred paintings, and to take part in lively conversation with other guests over wine, cheese and cappuccinos.

I look forward to seeing you.

The Three Sisters July-Sept, oil on canvas, each painting 36" X 24", 2008

The Urban Garden

Anthony Holdsworth May 19, 2009

Last Wednesday while I was considering writing this blog I turned to a column by Jon Carroll, in the Chronicle. He began "Food is important. We cook it, we eat it, we talk about it. It sustains us. It is also politically important." He went on to cite the work of Alice Waters and the Michael Pollan and to opine that perhaps we are sometimes guilty of being faddish and snobbish here in "this center of good food and good food opinions". But what really bothered him, in this deepening recession, was the realization of just how expensive it is to eat good food.

He promised "more on Thursday", and I thought "Jon you're going to tout urban gardens!" But no. He was not about to tear out his flowers or frighten his cats by introducing chickens. Instead he's frequenting inexpensive, local ethnic restaurants.

When we eat out we usually choose inexpensive ethnic restaurants. But mostly we eat at home. Alice Waters maintains that 85% of good cooking is good ingredients. We have two excellent sources of good ingredients. The Farmers' Markets and our own urban garden.

All these paintings were created in our garden. You may enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Only the corner of our garden which has a stream, pond and rock garden is landscaped. The rest is a motley collection of vegetable beds. Lettuce, basil, carrots, sugar snap peas and other vegetables rotate through these beds. The asparagus, raspberries, artichokes, rhubarb and lemons are perennial. Everything flourishes on layers of household compost mixed with my 'house blend' of cocoa hulls, coffee grounds and ash.

As well as providing maybe thirty percent of our vegetables the garden has become my outdoor studio. I've started a series of time lapse paintings of the growing plants. "The Three Sisters" which is posted at the top of this blog is an example. The "Three Sisters" are the "Las Tres Hermanas" of pre-Columbian agriculture. Corn, beans and squash which were grown together, and together were the foundation of the diet .

The pond is the primary source of excitement in the garden.

It attracts an astonishing variety of creatures. There are the regulars: morning doves, mocking birds and jays (who eat my snails), and a variety of migrating birds. One day a red-shouldered hawk flew over my shoulder as I was bent over the pond. He settled on the rock garden twelve feet away and gazed at me.

A Grey Heron passes by occasionally. After one visit two of my three frogs were missing. Only this one remained.

The other day my son Mario and I were observing a humming bird skittering over the pond's surface catching insects. Our local hunter, the black cat Pilar, was also interested and set himself in ambush. The humming bird passed within inches of the frog. To our astonishment the frog sprang at the hummingbird jaws agape. He barely missed him. Pilar dashed towards the source of commotion drawing the attention of a jay. This jay makes it his business to constantly harass Pilar, and proceeded to drive him out of our yard.

Mario and I were left to speculate whether the frog mistook the humming bird for a large insect. How would he have ingested this whirring ball of beak, feathers and claws? Or was he simply chasing the bird away from 'his' turf?

Our garden produces 30% of our produce most of the year. It's the best tasting food on our table. I've always thought that the taste of unadulterated food is a good indication of it's nutritional value. At the farmer's market we buy organic food if it's reasonably priced. We also purchase from farmers who claim not to use chemicals if the flavor of their food supports their claims. Many small farmers who have no use for pesticides and chemical fertilizers prefer to avoid the cost and hassle of certification. The beauty of obtaining our food from these two sources is that the, nearly, expense free garden vegetables more than offset the cost of organic purchases.

Study after study indicates that organically grown food is 20% or 30 % more nutritious than industrial food as well as being free of poisonous residues. Which justifies paying more for it. This is admittedly a hard sell among impoverished minorities. Many label my point of view 'elitist.'

Not the young, urban pioneers around my studio in West Oakland who are establishing market gardens in abandoned lots and unused yards and selling the vegetables cheaply around the neighborhood.

Urban gardens are not only a good, healthy response to the current recession but anyone who works regularly in the soil will tell you it's a 'grounding' experience.

Old Oakland Market - April, 24"X35", oil/canvas, Anthony Holdsworth 2009

Farmers Markets: yesterday and today

Anthony Holdsworth May 3, 2009

(Read Brenda Payton's on the street commentary in the Sunday Insight Section of the SF Chronicle.)

In these recessionary times Farmers' Markets appear to be thriving. This is reassuring. Many of us look forward to their arrival in our neighborhood as a high point in the week. The sights, smells and flavors of the countryside spilling out onto concrete and asphalt. The opportunity to support small, family farmers, to pick up gardening tips. To enjoy the food stands and musicians. It's hard to imagine a time before most of these markets existed. It wasn't so long ago.

My first encounter with an outdoor farmers' market was in Florence, Italy in 1966. In those days this market occupied the piazza behind the Mercato Centrale. The local farmers had large handcarts with colorful awnings that could be unfurled on sunny days. It was a picturesque and animated scene overlooked by the pale yellow palazzi with their green shutters. The Duomo floated in the distance.

While Florentines haggled with the farmers, Gypsy families worked the tourists or stole fruit. The merchants would intermittently chase the Gypsies or hurl rotten fruit after them.

(Remember you can click on all these images to enlarge them.)

When I tasted the fruit I understood why they were stealing it. The peaches, especially, were a revelation and made me wonder what American farmers were doing wrong.

I returned to Berkeley, California in 1970. The counter culture rebellion against industrial agriculture was gaining momentum. Our block joined 'The Food Conspiracy'. Many Saturday mornings I would drive my '54 F-100 truck to the Alemany Farmer's Market in San Francisco to pick up the week's orders for more than a dozen households. Before noon, friends and neighbors would gather in our backyard to collect their food.

The Food Conspiracy, oil/canvas 7ft X 9ft, 1973

In the mid seventies an open air market rolled up a block from my home in North Oakland. It stopped on a parking lot on Telegraph Avenue just south of Alcatraz. I would set my up easel there almost every week. The market consisted of two or three red trucks with white wooden panels. The panels swung up to form a wooden awning revealing shelves filled with colorful fruit and vegetables.

I'd been painting on and off near Ratto's in Old Oakland for a decade. The neighborhood was emerging from skid row, when in 1997 'Urban Village' opened the Old Oakland Farmer's Market.

My mural sized painting of the market in those days hangs permanently in the foyer of Holy Names University's Performing Arts Center. It was composed from dozens of small sketches made at the market over several months.

(Remember you can click on all these images to enlarge them.)

Market on 9th St - July, 10.5ft X 11.5ft, oil canvas, 1997, Oakland

Some of the people in the painting from far left are Richard and Byron Fong son and grandson of the famous Oakland Chinese herbalist Fong Wan. Richard died a few years ago. Byron Fong continues the family trade as an herbalist and acupuncturist with an office on Grand Avenue opposite Children's Fairyland. The next two people are Martin Durante and his daughter Elena owners of Ratto's Delicatessen. Talking to them is Sandro Rossi founder of Caffe 817.

This last painting is an up to the moment rendition of the market. Completed May 1st of this year.

'Old Oakland Market - April', oil on canvas, 24" X 35", 2009

If you are in Oakland on a Friday morning come on down to Ninth and Washington Streets. Enjoy the market. Sip the best cappucino in town at Caffe 817 and enjoy organic, Italian food while you consider what you need to buy at Ratto's Delicatessen next door. For a more complete preview of what you will find watch my five minute video titled "Celebrating Caffe 817".

(Read Brenda Payton's on the street commentary about the creation of this painting in the Sunday Insight Section of the SF Chronicle.)

A Hidden Gem in Oakland: The Dunsmuir-Hellman House

Anthony Holdsworth April 7, 2009

The Dunsmuir-Hellman House, an arrow shot away from the 106th Street exit of 580, is a world removed from Thirteenth and Franklin Streets where I last worked in Oakland. This testament to the Greco-Roman thrust of our westward course of empire stands in splendid isolation in its own 45 acre valley. When the wild turkeys make a racket or the wind blows, they muffle the the low hum of the hidden freeway. At such times observing the duck pond, the thirty-seven room mansion, the subsiding swimming pool, the tiny grotto and the barn strung out along this valley with a stream running through it, observing all this, one can be excused for imagining oneself in another time and place.

I encounter many interesting people while I paint on the street. I met Annalee Allen this way, in Oakland, around the time of the Loma Prieta Quake (Nov 1989). I was documenting the quake's aftermath while she, as president of the Oakland Heritage Alliance, was working to preserve some of the older historic buildings that had been damaged by the quake.

Recently we've been discussing collaborating on a book that would feature my paintings of Oakland accompanied by her historic commentary. Annalee observed that the Dunsmuir Hellman-House would need to be included.

So I went out and painted it. This seemed a good moment to explore a collaboration. I'm, therefore, turning the rest of this post over to Annalee - my first guest blogger!

ANNALEE ALLEN

Until recently, I thought I knew pretty much all the history of the beautiful landmark

Dunsmuir House

and Gardens located in the Oakland hills, near the

San Leandro border

. I knew the the hidden valley where the mansion stands was once the property of Ygnacio Peralta, son of Don Luis Peralta, whose 44,000 acre

Rancho San Antonio

once encompassed all the land of present day Alameda, Oakland, Piedmont, Berkeley, and Albany. I knew that later the valley belonged to a Gilbert Tompkins who maintained a trotting horse breeding farm with stables and a racing track.

And I knew that the early 20th century Broadway stage actress

Edna Wallace

helped select the architect J. Eugene Freeman to draw up plans for the stately Colonial Revival style residence for her mother Josephine who, after a years long love affair, was finally able to marry her sweetheart Alexander Dunsmuir, the son of a very wealthy Canadian mining magnate. The star crossed lovers were not able to enjoy their hidden retreat for long, I knew, because both passed away within a few short years, leaving the property to Miss Wallace.

Despite her best efforts Edna Wallace could not keep up the large estate and she soon sold it to a banker, I.W. Hellman, Jr. and his wife who lived across the bay in

San Francisco

and wanted a secluded estate where they could relax and entertain family and friends.

I have come to know a lot more about the Hellman years, from reading a fascinating new book,

"Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant named Isaias Hellman Created

California

written by Frances Dinkelspiel, Hellman's great-granddaughter. From her book I came to know how her ancestor immigrated to California in the 1850s from Bavaria, a 16 year old Jewish boy who started out working in a cousin's stationary store. The author traces the young man's rise from store clerk to brilliant financier and head of Wells Fargo Bank, and how nearly single handedly, he propelled frontier California into the modern era.

It was the

Hellmans

who over several decades, beautified and developed the property which they called Southvale Park, calling upon landscape designer John McLaren (of

Golden Gate Park fame

) to lay out the gardens, swimming pool, tennis courts, and ornamental ponds. The home was lavishly furnished with purchases made when the family traveled to

Europe

, and according to her book, through the years there were many family weddings, celebrations and gatherings.

In the early 1960s the family sold the property to the city of Oakland, and since the 1970s a dedicated nonprofit group has maintained the estate and offered public tours and other wonderful community events (the upcoming

Easter egg roll party

on the lawn is one example). Recently the nonprofit's director, Jim deMersman, formally petitioned the

Oakland City Council

to change the name, as a way to honor and celebrate the Hellman family's long association with the Dunsmuir property.

So, if it has been awhile since you last visited, make a date to go up to the Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate. Visit

www.dunsmuir.org

to learn more.

(Written specially for this blog by Annalee Allen.)

About the artist

Anthony Holdsworth was born in England in 1945. He was introduced to oil painting in high school by the New England painter, Loring Coleman. Holdsworth embarked on a painting career while working as Head of Outdoor Restoration for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy after the flood of 1966. He continued his studies at the Bournemouth College of Art in England where he studied with master draftsman Samuel Rabin and color theorist Jon Fish and at the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied with Julius Hatofsky, Bruce McGaw and Fred Martin. He has shown with major galleries in Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. He has participated in two exhibitions at the Oakland Museum. He was included in the California Cityscapes exhibition at the San Diego Museum. He was a recipient of WESTAF-NEA fellowship in 1990. His work is in corporate and private collections worldwide.

Anthony Holdsworth

Dispatches from the street