San Francisco: Arts for the City, Civic Art and Urban Change, 1932-2012

Wels, in collaboration with the San Francisco Arts Commission, takes a bright look back at the history of the venerable Bay Area organization and its many accomplishments. Recalling the group's inception more than eight decades ago%E2%80%94it was "founded on the principle that a creative cultural environment is essential to the city's well-being"%E2%80%94Wels (Amelia Earhart: The Thrill of It) describes many of the public art installations and events it has supported since. Murals inside the iconic Coit Tower, for example, done in 1934 by a selection of PWAP artists, are among the commission's first projects. They were not completed without great political controversy, however. Other sections deal proficiently with pop culture movements in the 1960s and '70s now synonymous with San Francisco%E2%80%94Beat poets, "the hippie phenomenon", and the Summer of Love%E2%80%94as well as with more recent art developments. In this way, Wels's upbeat, thoroughly civic-minded book conveys not only the story of a dynamic arts agency in the City by the Bay. It also describes the extraordinary work the organization has helped to produce, and borne witness to, over the years across different media. With 175 full-color photos. (Apr.)