Courtyard Commencement 1957 Sung-Woo Chun

Sung-Woo Chun, the first Korean student to attend the School receives his BFA degree at Commencement in the courtyard.  Chun studied with Elmer Bischoff, Nathan Oliveira and Ralph Ducasse who he followed to Mills College for his MFA. Fellow students and friends included Carlos Villa, Dean Fleming and William T. Wiley.  In a 2011 interview for Carlos Villa’s Rehistoricizing Abstract Expressionism, Chun recalled the Pabst sisters at the School having the pond in the courtyard filled with their father’s beer for a School party.  Chun had a noted exhibition history eventually showing at the Whitney Museum’s Young Americans show in 1960. He returned to Korea to run his family’s private museum and be headmaster at his family’s private high school.

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.

Sports at SFAI

By 1971 fencing is added to the School’s Athletic Program to complement basketball and trampoline.

Photographs by Stephen Gach of sports at SFAI c. 1971

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.

Matisse in the Courtyard

Henri Matisse certainly wanted to visit the School when he arrived in San Francisco in 1930.  This photo shows him with faculty member, Spencer Macky and the School's Director, Lee Randolph--who photobombs  nearly all the historical images in the SFAI Archives of the 1920s and 1930s. Matisse said that he had "never seen such magnificent light and working conditions" than at the studios of the School.

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.