Open Archive: 100 Years of Rediscovered Bay Area Art
March 11 – May 21, 2027
Saint Joseph's Arts Society
Lost Art Salon
A century of Bay Area artists who slipped out of the record, in about 50 rediscovered works from Lost Art Salon’s archive
Saint Joseph's Arts Society
1401 Howard StreetSan Francisco, CA 94103Enter on Howard Street. Work is installed in groupings across several floors, so give yourself time to wander.
Monday–Friday 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Free with ticket
RegisterADA Accessible. Please contact us with any questions.
Art does not disappear because it lacks value. It disappears because it lacks witnesses. Open Archive gathers a century of Bay Area painting and works on paper by artists who built serious careers here and then slipped out of the record, not for lack of talent but for lack of attention.
Drawn from Lost Art Salon’s ten-thousand-piece archive, the exhibition brings together paintings and works on paper made between the 1920s and today. These are artists who taught, printed, framed, illustrated and raised families while making the work, and who showed in cooperatives, storefronts, small presses, and each other’s living rooms. That independence is part of what makes the work good. It is also what kept it out of the institutions that write art history.
Saint Joseph’s Arts Society and Lost Art Salon, neighbors in San Francisco’s SOMA, have organized the exhibition thematically rather than by decade, so a 1948 canvas can hang beside a 1979 drawing and reveal the same instinct twice. Works appear in groupings throughout the building rather than in a single gallery, so the archive opens gradually as you move through the house.
A series of free Art History Salons brings historians and specialists into the room to take up the question the exhibition keeps asking: “Who decides what gets remembered?”
Co-curated by Martin Strickland, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, and Rob Delamater, Lost Art Salon.
Exhibiting Artists
Alysanne McGaffey, Barbara Lewis, Byron Randall, Calvin Anderson, Clyde F. Seavey, Edith Park Truesdell, Forrest Hibbits, Freeman Sargent, Gary L. Shaffer, Georgette London Owens, Gerald Wasserman, Hubert Crehan, Jack Bevier, Jack Freeman, Jane Rades, Jerry Opper, Joseph DiStefano, June Felter, Kay Metz, Kurt Weber, Leigh Hyams, Lucy Howard Cohen, Michael Carey, Michael di Cosola, Miriam Rice, Ray Rice, Richard Caldwell Brewer, Rip Matteson, Sam Hugh Harris, Thomas Akawie, Virginia Conroy
Bill Paskewitz, (Abstract composition) (detail), nd. Courtesy Lost Art Salon and SJAS
Saint Joseph's Arts Society
Saint Joseph’s Arts Society occupies a 1913 church in San Francisco’s SOMA, restored as a home for exhibitions, performance, and gathering. It presents contemporary and historical art in a building that is itself part of the city’s record.
Lost Art Salon
Lost Art Salon has spent two decades locating, researching, and reintroducing overlooked twentieth-century artists, with a particular focus on the Bay Area. Its archive holds more than ten thousand works, many acquired directly from artists’ estates.
Things to Do Around Here
Sextant Coffee Roasters, one block over on Folsom, roasts Ethiopian coffee in the same room where they serve it. It is the best cup within walking distance, and a good place to sit with whatever the exhibition left you thinking about.
Martin Strickland, Foundation Director, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society
Ted’s Market and Deli, half a block up Howard, has been making sandwiches for this neighborhood since long before anyone called it an arts district. Order at the counter, take it outside, and you have had lunch the way people around here actually have lunch.
Martin Strickland, Foundation Director, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society
Driftwood, three blocks down Folsom, is a warm, low-lit neighborhood bar with none of the self-regard that phrase sometimes implies. It is where to go after an evening salon if you are not ready for the conversation to end.
Martin Strickland, Foundation Director, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society