Artists of Aquatic Park

Vesuvio's Cafe, San Francisco, CA. Sargent Johnson far right, Hilaire Hiler, third from right, ca 1945-1950.

Like many artists during the Great Depression, the painters and sculptors who decorated the Aquatic Park Bathhouse found work through the Federal Art Project (FAP), the visual arts arm of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In San Francisco alone, FAP artists painted numerous buildings—including iconic Coit Tower, the first publicly funded art project in the United States.

The FAP drew from the city’s rich network of artists to execute its projects. For Aquatic Park, administrators Joseph Danysh and William Gaskin hired Hilaire Hiler as the artistic director for decorating the bathhouse. This was the park’s central building, designed by architect William Mooser III. Local artists Sargent Johnson, Beniamino Bufano, and Richard Ayer also joined the projects as supervisors.

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park continues to build on information about the artists and artist assistants known to have contributed to the Aquatic Park Bathhouse from 1935 to 1939. The former bathhouse is now the Maritime Museum, and the park works to ensure that the original artwork is preserved for the public to view and enjoy.

 

 

Artists and Artist Assistants

 

Ann Sonia Medalie adds details onto a mural of a sea plant.

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Ann Sonia Medalie

Ann Sonia Medalie (1896-1991) painted the unusual and intricate designs for plants and fish in the Maritime Museum lobby murals. She applied the colored glazes, gold leaf, and silver leaf to make the creatures shimmer.

Latvian-born Medalie, who studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago, was herself a respected painter. Her long career took her around the United States, Mexico, South Africa, and Israel. Exquisitely detailed flowers, still lifes, and landscapes with fantastical touches were her specialty.

Hilaire Hiler, who designed the Maritime Museum lobby murals, was not the only famed artist whose vision Medalie helped execute. She assisted Miguel Covarrubias and Diego Rivera with their murals for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, becoming good friends with Frida Kahlo.

Further Reading:

Martin, Nicole. Mysterious Paint Can of San Francisco’s Maritme Museum. Home and Homelands Exhibition. National Park Service, 2024.

 

Detail of the murals by Charles Nunemaker in the women's bathroom in the Maritime Museum.

NPS/J.Woerner

Charles Nunemaker

Charles Nunemaker created the beach-themed mural, Sepia Seascape, in the foyer of the women’s bathroom in the Maritime Museum. He also assisted on works throughout the building, including the carvings by Sargent Johnson.

 

Ann Rice O’Hanlon

Ann Rice O’Hanlon (1908-1998) painted an abstract panel, 24 inches by 4 feet in size, for one of the columns on the upper floor of the Aquatic Park Bathhouse. She executed it in the fragile medium of egg tempera, noting the piece had “a bit of an effect of a stained glass window in the dusk.” It is unclear, however, if this panel was ever installed.

Rice O’Hanlon was an artist of note before the Aquatic Park project. In 1934, she completed a 38 by 11-foot fresco in the Memorial Hall of the University of Kentucky. Depicting the history of the state—and continuously discussed for its portrayal of African Americans—it was the largest fresco be painted by a woman in the United States.

Further Reading:

"Oral history interview with Ann Rice O'Hanlon” by Mary McChesney, Smithsonian Archives of American Art. July 8, 1964.

University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center. Research Guides: Ann Rice O’Hanlon & The Memorial Hall Mural. University of Kentucy, 2024.

 

Detail of the abstract tugboat murals painted by Shirley Staschen

NPS/J.Woerner

Shirley Staschen

Shirley Staschen (1914-1995) assisted Richard Ayer in executing his murals at the Maritime Museum. The murals of stylized tugboats on the third floor are her own creation. She also taught classes and worked on lithographs, mosaics, murals, and easel paintings for the Federal Art Project.

Born in Oakland, California, Staschen engaged in art from an early age and briefly supported her family as a mechanic. In 1933, she joined a team of artists painting murals at Coit Tower. Her supervisor, Bernard Zakheim, painted her likeness onto a figure in his Library mural. A year later, during the 1934 West Coast Longshoreman’s Strike, Coit Tower came under controversy: communist symbols had been included in certain panels. Staschen and other artists picketed outside the tower to protest political interference with art.

A proud bohemian, Staschen’s artistic circle included Zakheim and the poet Kenneth Rexroth. They organized the San Francisco Artists and Writers Union, a socially minded support group for artists during the Great Depression.

Further Reading:

"Oral history interview with Shirley Staschen Triest” by Mary McChesney, Smithsonian Archives of American Art. April 12-23, 1964.

Shirley Staschen Triest, "A Life on the First Waves of Radical Bohemianism in San Francisco," an oral history conducted in 1995 and 1996 by Victoria Morris Byerly, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1997.

 

Mohammed Zyani at work on the large-scale mosaics designed by Sargent Johnson. Based on this photo, it appears the artists and craftspeople cut and prepared tiles in one of the circular rooms just off the mosaic’s final location on the veranda.

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Mohammed Zyani

Mohammed Zyani cut and prepared the pieces for Sargent Johnson’s large, sweeping mosaics on the Maritime Museum veranda.

Zyani, a Moroccan, had worked on mosaics for the Grand Mosque in Paris with his father before coming to the United States as a rug merchant. When he sought work through the FAP, William Gaskin, the administrator overseeing Aquatic Park, asked him to craft sample work from a piece of bathroom tile. Zyani impressed Gaskin by efficiently cutting it in the shape of a star.

Both Gaskin and Johnson spoke glowingly of Zyani’s skill. As Johnson said in a 1964 interview for the Archives of American Art, “He was first class. He could cut anything out of tile.”

Further Reading:

"Oral history interview with Sargent Johnson” by Mary McChesney, Smithsonian Archives of American Art. July 31, 1964.

“Oral history interview with William A. Gaskin" by Lewis Ferbrache, Rudolph Shaffer School of Art. February 28, 1964.