Public Special Events

The San Francisco Art Institute invites you to celebrate the release of the book David Park: A Painter’s Life by Nancy Boas. The event features a discussion of David Park with Nancy Boas; Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle art critic; Bill Berkson, Professor Emeritus, poet, and art writer; and Charles Desmarais, President of SFAI.

"Just as Park put the humanity back into an era of abstraction, Boas brings David Park the man into the foreground in a literary and historical sense." --Huffington Post

An important teacher at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), David Park (1911-1960) led the way in creating what became known as Bay Area Figurative Art—a daring move during the post-World War II years when abstract expressionism held sway. In this beautifully illustrated biography, compiled from comprehensive and sweeping interviews, Nancy Boas traces Park's resolute search for a new kind of figuration, one that would penetrate abstract expressionism's thickly layered surfaces and infuse them with human presence. Boas changes our understanding of Park as a painter, highlighting his strong influence on Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, and other artists at the California School of Fine Arts and the University of California, Berkeley.  (UC Press, 2012)

Program

7:30-8:30 pm
• Brief slide lecture by author Nancy Boas
• Panel discussion 

8:30-9:30 pm
• Book signing and wine reception

Books will be available for purchase, with a discount for students with valid ID.