2022……..1975……..

THIS SUNDAY, April 10th, McClaren Park: SFAI has TWO ENTRIES in the 2022 resurrected version of SFMOMA’s Artists Soapbox Derby!!!!! Here is the link to THIS YEAR’S version: https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/2022-soapbox-derby-at-mclaren-park/

BONUS: The 1975 Richard Shaw Pencil Car has been restored and will be there!!!! see below!!!

In preparation for THE 2022 version of the SFMOMA’s Artists Soapbox Derby, attached below is information on the ORIGINAL 1975 VERSION.

Image #1: Flo Allen, Queen of the Artists’ Soap Box Derby

Image #2, Martha Shaw (left) and Richard Shaw

The Artists’ Soap Box Derby was orchestrated by the San Francisco Museum of [Modern] Art—twice—once in 1975 and then again in 1978. Even though this was a SFMOMA production it has all of the fingerprints on it of SFAI---irreverent, entertaining, brilliant, conceptual, kind of dangerous, and loaded with entrants and artists who were SFAI students, faculty, staff and alumni. Artists were given $250 in 1970s money to build their cars. Sponsorship included everyone and anyone in S.F. from Cissie Swig to Ghirardelli Square, from the California State Automobile Association to Beefeater Gin, from Shreve and Company to Wilkes-Bashford haberdashery. Artists included Robert Kinmont (and Ben Kinmont) Lynn Hershman, Richard Shaw, Carlos Villa, Bonnie Sherk, Jeremy Anderson, Janet Delaney, Ursula Schneider, Phil Linhares, Tom Marioni, Eleanor Dickinson, Howard Fried, Valery Hardy, Jamie Rasmussen, Mike Henderson, Bill Allan, David Best, Bill Geis, Judith Linhares, Leo Valledor, Rodger Jacobsen, “Meadow”, Ant Farm, Bill Morehouse, Ivan Majdrakoff, Nancy Rubins, Nell Sinton…and….drum roll, Flo Allen! who presided as the Soap Box Derby Queen. It was a virtual Who’s Who of mid-1970s Bay Area Art folk. And if that is not cool enough there is a terrific 1975 film made by Amanda C. Pope titled The Incredible San Francisco Artists’ Soap Box Derby that won a SECA award from SFMOMA.

and you can watch Pope's film on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/9069815

And……there was another film made by College of Marin students about the 1978 soap box derby…..: https://vimeo.com/209299335?ref=em-share

For more information about the Artists’ Soap Box Derby check-out this blog on the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art webpage: https://www.aaa.si.edu/blog/2017/10/supercharged-with-wit-talent-and-magic-the-artists-soap-box-derbies

Want to know more about SFAI’s prestigious Athletic History? See: https://matrix277.org/Object-57

With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent archive.