In the early 1930s, at the onset of the Great Depression, San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger orchestrated a symphony of modernistic art inside a capitalist institution, a luncheon club for the traders at the San Francisco Stock Exchange, in the new, small-scale office tower he had designed in 1929. Pflueger hired nine artists, sculptors, painters, and world-renowned muralist Diego Rivera, a cadre that would anticipate the government-funded socialist art of the New Deal just a few years later. Like the artists of FDR’s Federal Arts projects, some would prove to be controversial, especially the formerly avowed Communist Rivera as the star of the project.

This lecture by ADSC Preservation Director Therese Poletti will discuss the evolution of the Club, and showcase the artworks there, as well as Pflueger’s collaboration with the artists and his friendship with the charismatic Rivera and his artist wife Frida Kahlo.

Following the lecture, enjoy a brief fashion show curated by Jonathan Belmares, inspired by Diego Rivera’s models and muses, who included actresses Dolores Del Rio, Paulette Goddard, and more.

Social hour starts at 3pm; lecture at 4pm.

Admission $10 for ADSC and Bellevue Club members; $15 for non-members.

Free admission with purchase of tickets to the Art Deco Preservation Ball!