Over the course of a roughly two-decade span from 1945 to the mid-1960s, the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), later the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), incubated many of the region’s most significant and radical artistic developments and movements, chief among them Bay Area Abstract Expressionism and Bay Area Figuration.

Encompassing this extraordinary chapter of CSFA/SFAI’s history, Made in San Francisco focuses on artists at the school working in abstract and/or Bay Area Figurative modes and the fluid exchanges that many embraced across both of these idioms. It features penetrating essays on topics including photography; printmaking; Beat, Funk, and Assemblage art; and contemporary art from the 1970s onward that drew from the school’s legacy, with works by major artists including Ruth Asawa, Bernice Bing, Joan Brown, Imogen Cunningham, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Roland Petersen, and Mark Rothko.

Extensive back matter provides rich research material for scholars, including an illustrated chronology which includes photos of students, events, happenings and exhibitions, and an annotated bibliography by former staff members of the CFSA/SFAI.

This publication is the definitive sourcebook of the art and ideologies that emerged at this ground-breaking school in San Francisco during a pivotal time in American art history.