Saturday 9 August 2014

Mike Hinge - 83rd Birthday Anniversary - Mural, 314 Sutter Street, San Francisco.

Happy Birthday Mike, remembering that today would have been Mike's 83rd birthday. 

Looking through a collection of Mike Hinge's A4 photocopies I choose a drawing of a planned mural, that I have puzzled over many times wondering if it had ever been completed. The mural is in Mike's line drawing style, a nostalgic 1920's - 1930's San Francisco. The image is a reduced photocopy, and I do not know of the existence of the original drawing, the copy I have has lost some of the definition due to the reduction. 

The image has some great details giving a feel of an old San Francisco; steep hills, Chinatown, Chinese writing, fire hydrant, lamp and lamp posts, grand buildings, sunshine, potted plants, ornate railings and Art Deco.

The drawing scale 3/4" = 1' 0" and the full sized image would be a massive 9'4" x 34'.

Titled: Goldberg-Bowen          314 Sutter Street San Francisco

There is no date for this drawing and can not make a guess of when this would have been drawn. Goldberg Bowen was a specialist food store in San Francisco. They had a building on Stutter Street but were at number 250 (you can read a bit more about that here). Number 314 Stutter Street is the World Affairs Building now home to E&O Asian Kitchen (you can see it here, Google street view).

Who, when and why commissioned the mural? Was this mural ever completed? If so does it still exist?