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“The detail described below is near the woman in the red hat.” –James Gibson
In 1940 Diego Rivera painted a massive mural in San Francisco. It has come to be known as Pan American Unity and is currently on view in SFMOMA‘s Roberts Family Gallery. The mural will eventually be installed in new performing arts center at the City College of San Francisco.
Field Notes subscriber James Gibson went to see this amazing work. Afterwards he dropped us a note.
I spotted this detail in the Diego Rivera mural currently on exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and I thought you might be interested.
You thought right James. Thanks for the heads up.
The text on the notebook reads “Porteous & Co. Seattle, Field Notes, Dudley C. Carter August 1931.” And spine appears to say something, including “Diego Rivera.”
Carter was a sculptor who befriended Rivera in San Francisco in 1940 while participating in the Golden Gate International Exhibition. He’s also featured a second time in the mural, carving The Ram, a landmark currently on the CCSF campus. Carter studied art and sculpture at the Cornish School and Art Institute in Seattle starting in 1929.
As for Porteous & Company, things are a little foggier. There was a very successful agricultural implement company in Fresno at the time, founded by James Porteous. Could this “Field Notes” be a promotional item distributed to customers by that firm? The name Porteous is also connected to a large contemporary department store chain founded in Maine, and also a Scottish stationery retailer.
Thanks to James, for sending me down this rabbit hole in search of a distant cousin of Field Notes, and bringing my productivity to halt for the better part of a Thursday.