The bronze statue of the Rev. Thomas Starr King, located at the entrance to the Music Concourse, and directly across the road from the de Young Museum.

The statue is by American sculptor, Daniel Chester French.

The bronze stands on a pedestal of pink Missouri granite. The inscription reads:

THOMAS STARR KING

In him eloquence, strength, and virtue were devoted with fearless courage to the country and his fellow men. 1824-1864

Thomas Starr King was an America Unitarian and Universalist minister, influential in California politics during the American Civil War. King spoke zealously in favor of the Union cause and was credited by Abraham Lincoln with preventing California from becoming a separate republic.

Thomas Starr King is buried in the small garden alongside the First Unitarian Universalist Church at the corner of Franklin and Geary Streets in San Francisco. San Francisco's Union Square is so-called, because of the rallies to the Union cause that Starr King was holding in San Francisco in the years leading up to the American Civil War.

Francis Scott Key Monument on the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park 
Built 1888

The monument was designed by William Wetmore Story and funded by James Lick. It was the nation's first memorial to Francis Scott Key. 

In 1888, when the monument was unveiled, The Star-Spangled Banner was not the national anthem of the United States. It did not achieve that distinction until 1931.

Detail of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza kneeling before a bust of their creator, Cervantes.

Miguel Cervantes Memorial located alongside the de Young Museum

Bronze and Stone by Jo Mora, 1916

The de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park

Sphinx by Arthur Putnam, 1912

Golden Gate Park Sphinxes

Cult of the Machine

Characterized by highly structured, geometric compositions with smooth surfaces, linear qualities, and lucid forms, Precisionism—a style that emerged in America in the teens and flourished during the 1920s and 1930s—reconciled realism with abstraction, and wed European art movements, such as Purism, Cubism, and Futurism, to American subject matter to create a streamlined, “machined” aesthetic with themes ranging from the urban and industrial to the pastoral. The tensions and ambivalences about industrialization expressed in works by the Precisionists are particularly fascinating and relevant to a contemporary audience in the midst of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which robots are replacing human labor for various functions, underscoring many of the same excitements and concerns about modernization that existed nearly one hundred years ago.

From: de Young Museum

During the Machine Age (ca. 1880–1945), technological innovations revolutionized American life. This period gave birth to the efficiencies of the factory assembly line; gravity-defying skyscrapers; and the streamlined aesthetic of an industrial design defined by functionalism. Inspired by the modern world around them, Precisionist artists such as Charles Demuth, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Charles Sheeler produced structured, geometric compositions with smooth surfaces and lucid forms—reconciling the influence of avant-garde European art styles such as Purism, Cubism, and Futurism with American subjects ranging from the urban and the industrial to the rural.

As the mechanization of society accelerated in the early twentieth century, artists from the United States and abroad increasingly found inspiration in the industrial machines surrounding them. The pioneers of what came to be known as a Precisionist style were affiliated with the group of American and expatriate European artists, writers, and intellectuals who frequently met for lively exchanges at the Manhattan apartment of the art collectors Walter and Louise Arensberg. Duchamp, who had emigrated from France, was a constant presence at these gatherings—along with other members of the conceptually minded, avant-garde New York Dada group such as fellow Frenchman Francis Picabia—and extolled the virtues of America’s technological achievements and “cold and scientific nature.” These Dadaists’ embrace of mechanistic subjects influenced the Precisionists to depict the industrial “gear and girder” world of early twentieth-century America.   

From: de Young Museum

Watch, 1925

Oil on canvas

Gerald Murphy (American 1888-1964)

"We are coming to appreciate beauty as a revelation of problems rightly solved . . . a visible rightness."

Walter Dorwin Teague 1936

Razor, 1924

Oil on canvas

Gerald Murphy (American 1888-1964)

Watch, 1925

Oil on canvas

Gerald Murphy (American 1888-1964)

Dynamo, 1948

Oil on canvas

Edmund Lewandowski (American, 1914-1998)

Chanin Building Gate, 1928

Wrought iron and bronze

Rene Paul Chambellan (American, 1893-1955)

Detail of: Chanin Building Gate, 1928

Wrought iron and bronze

Rene Paul Chambellan (American, 1893-1955)

Buildings, 1930-1931

Tempera and plumbago on composition board

Charles Demuth (American, 1883-1935)

From the Garden of the Chateau, 1921 (re-worked 1925)

Oil on canvas

Charles Demuth (American, 1883-1935)

Incense of the New Church, 1921

Oil on canvas

Charles Demuth (American, 1883-1935)

Upper Deck, 1929

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

City Interior, 1936

Aqueous adhesive and oil on composition board

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Classic Landscape, 1931

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

American Landscape, 1930

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937

Iron, steel, copper, brass, chrome, rubber, glass, leather, vinyl, wood, plastics, and paint

Gordon Buehrig (American, 1904-1990) Auburn Automobile Company

Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937

Iron, steel, copper, brass, chrome, rubber, glass, leather, vinyl, wood, plastics, and paint

Gordon Buehrig (American, 1904-1990)

Auburn Automobile Company

Detail of: Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937

Iron, steel, copper, brass, chrome, rubber, glass, leather, vinyl, wood, plastics, and paint

Gordon Buehrig (American, 1904-1990)

Auburn Automobile Company

Airport Structure, 1932

Copper, aluminum, steel, and brass

Theodore Roszak (American, b. Poland, 1907-1981)

Motor Car No.8, ca. 1932

Mixed media

Norman Bel Geddes (American, 1893-1958)

Lamp, ca. 1930

Aluminum, plastic resin, (probably Bakelite, brass, and glass)

Possibly Walter Von Nessen (American, b. Germany, 1889-1943)

Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937

Iron, steel, copper, brass, chrome, rubber, glass, leather, vinyl, wood, plastics, and paint

Gordon Buehrig (American, 1904-1990)

Auburn Automobile Company

Cord 812 Phaeton, 1937

Iron, steel, copper, brass, chrome, rubber, glass, leather, vinyl, wood, plastics, and paint

Gordon Buehrig (American, 1904-1990)

Auburn Automobile Company

"Nocturne" radio, 1935

Mirrored colbalt glass, satin chrome steel, and wood

Walter Dorwin Teague (American, 1883-1960) designer for Sparton Corporation

Detail of: "Nocturne" radio, 1935

Mirrored colbalt glass, satin chrome steel, and wood

Walter Dorwin Teague (American, 1883-1960) designer for Sparton Corporation

 

Blast Furnaces,

Oil on canvas1927

Elsie Driggs (American, 1898-1992)

Aeroplane, 1928

Oil on canvas

Elsie Driggs (American, 1898-1992)

Yankee Clipper, 1939

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

"Design is . . . not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. "

- Steve Jobs 2003

Waterfront, ca. 1940

Oil on canvas

Francis Criss (British, active United States, 1901-1973)

Suspended Power, 1938

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Rolling Power, 1939

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Conversation-Sky and Earth, 1940

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Circuit Breakers, 1947

Oil on canvas

Edmund Lewandowski (American, 1914-1998)

Public Grain Elevator in New Orleans, 1938

Oil on canvas

Ralston Crawford (American, b. Canada, 1906-1978)

Overseas Highway, 1939

Oil on canvas

Ralston Crawford (American, b. Canada, 1906-1978)

Embarcadero and Clay Street, 1935

Oil on canvas

John Lanngley Howard (American 1902-1999)

"For a century, the machines have been . . . impoverishing the experience of humanity. Like great Frankenstein monsters . . . these vast creatures have suddenly turned on their masters, and made them their prey."

Paul Rosenfeld 1926

"Skyscraper" bookcase, ca. 1926

Lacquered wood and brass

Paul T. Frankl (American, b. Austria, 1886-1958)

Church Street El, 1920

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler, (American 1883-1965)

"People talk about conflict between humans and machines . . . [but] the machines are part of our intelligence . . . human expression, art, science, are going to become expanded, by expanding our intelligence."

Ray Kurzweil 2003

Night Terminal, 1920

Oil on canvas

Stefan Hirsch (American, b. Germany, 1890-1964)

14th Street, 1924

Oil on canvas

Bumpei Usui (Japanese, active United States, 1898-1924)

City Landscape, 1934

Oil on canvas

Francis Criss (British, active United States, 1901-1973)

Astor Place, 1932

Oil on canvas

Francis Criss (British, active United States, 1901-1973)

Bridge, 1936

Oil on canvas

Joseph Stella (American, b. Italy, 1877-1946)

Queensborough Bridge, 1927

Oil on canvas

Elsie Driggs (American 1898-1992)

Golden Gate, 1955

Oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)

Sullivan Street, Abstraction, 1924

Oil on canvas

George Copeland Ault (American 1891-1948)

East River from the 30th Story of the Sheldon Hotel, 1928

Oil on canvas

Georgia O'Keefe (American, 1887-1986)

From Brooklyn Heights, ca. 1925-1928

Oil on canvas

George Copeland Ault (American 1891-1948)

 

 

Bright Light at Russell's Corners, 1946

Oil on canvas

George Copeland Ault (American 1891-1948)