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Photos | San Francisco’s de Young Museum features exhibit on photographer Irving Penn

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Photos | San Francisco’s de Young Museum features exhibit on photographer Irving Penn


  • The subjects in a quartet of portraits by iconic American fashion and portrait photographer Irving Penn look out from photographs now on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Penn was one of the 20th century’s great photographers, known for his arresting images and masterful printmaking. Although he was celebrated as one of Vogue magazine’s top photographers for more than 60 years, according to the Irving Penn Foundation website, “Penn was an intensely private man who avoided the limelight and pursued his work with quiet and relentless dedication. At a time when photography was primarily understood as a means of communication, he approached it with an artist’s eye and expanded the creative potential of the medium, both in his professional and personal work.” The exhibit of Penn’s images at the de Young runs through July 21. To see more photographs, go to Sentinel staff photographer Shmuel Thaler’s Weekly Photographer’s Eye feature/A3 (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

  • Film and fashion icon Audrey Hepburn’s shining continence looks out...

    Film and fashion icon Audrey Hepburn’s shining continence looks out from a photograph by Irving Penn in the de Young’s Herbst Exhibition Galleries. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

  • Lee Mingwei’s Ritual of Care exhibit created a space to...

    Lee Mingwei’s Ritual of Care exhibit created a space to encourage visitors to write letters to their loved ones. Mingwei is a Taiwanese-American artist living and working in Paris and New York. The exhibit closed on July 7. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

  • Visitors to the de Young Museum in San Francisco stand...

    Visitors to the de Young Museum in San Francisco stand recently in front of posters detailing the museum’s programs and exhibits. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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  • A bronze statue of Venus created in 1931 by sculptor...

    A bronze statue of Venus created in 1931 by sculptor Boris Lovet-Lorski dominates a gallery at the de Young Museum. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

  • The Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron created the...

    The Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron created the de Young Museum with attention to light, flow and design. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

The de Young in Golden Gate Park together with the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park make up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest art museums in the United States.

The de Young Museum opened in 1895 and is home to American art from the 17th century through today, textile arts and costumes, African art, Oceanic art, arts of the Americas and international contemporary art. In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake, which had its epicenter in Santa Cruz County, caused significant structural damage to the de Young and the museum’s board of trustees instituted a project that braced the museum as a temporary measure until a long-term solution could be implemented. In December 2000, the de Young closed to the public for a complete rebuild.

Historic elements from the former de Young, such as the sphinxes, the original palm trees and the Pool of Enchantment were retained or reconstructed, and the new museum opened on Oct. 15, 2005.

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Current exhibits at the museum include a photographic retrospective of iconic fashion photographer Irving Penn, which runs through July 21, and Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style, which runs through Aug. 11. Go to famsf.org for information.



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18-year-old dies in crash on I-80 near SoMa district

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18-year-old dies in crash on I-80 near SoMa district


(KRON)– An 18-year-old is dead, and several others are injured after an early morning crash on eastbound I-80, near the 7th street off ramp in San Francisco’s SoMa district, according to California Highway Patrol San Francisco (CHP SF).

The crash occurred around 1:00 a.m. between a tractor-trailer, a Recology truck semi, and a grey Chevrolet Camaro, according to CHP officials.

Police said the Camaro was traveling eastbound just west of 7th Street when it made an illegal lane change to the right, colliding with the tractor-trailer as it was approaching the off-ramp.

Both vehicles crashed into the sand barrels at the top of the 7th Street off-ramp, officials said. The tractor-trailer continued onto the offramp, where it came to a stop, blocking all lanes.

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After hitting the sand barrels, the Camaro continued, launching over the off-ramp bridge railing, where it dropped 25 feet and landed in the San Francisco Police Department Impound parking lot beneath the off-ramp and hitting several vehicles in the impound yard, police said. The Camaro landed upside down on top of another car.

Police said four people were inside the Camaro. The driver, an 18-year-old man, had moderate injuries and managed to get himself out of the car, police said. The right front passenger, a 17-year-old male, suffered moderate injuries as well.

The two rear passengers, both 18-year-old men, suffered major injuries. One is being treated at a local hospital, and the other was pronounced dead at 1:50 a.m. at the scene of the crash, police said.

The other three passengers in the Camaro were wearing seatbelts, and the 18-year-old who died was not wearing a seatbelt.

CHP SF officials do not believe alcohol or drugs were a factor in this crash.

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A 1906 fire burned 200,000 books. More than a century later, one was returned | CNN

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A 1906 fire burned 200,000 books. More than a century later, one was returned | CNN


Inside a charred book, pages dotted in soot stains tell the story of how San Francisco rose to the epicenter of a gold rush. Barely escaping the 1906 earthquake, this book should’ve burned completely.

The city’s oldest continually operating library presumed it did. After all, almost 200,000 volumes inside the Mechanics’ Institute did. That was until Randall Schwed donated the book to the library in December. Fumbling around an online marketplace, Schwed found “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” listed for $35.

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“What’s interesting about this book is that it’s a survivor,” Schwed told CNN. “I needed to send it home.”

Fires heavily damaged the city during the 1906 earthquake and other fires followed. While no one knows which fire the book survived, here’s what we know about the mystery around it.

Library Manager Myles Cooper has been racking his brain for an explanation of how the book found its way home. In a fire after the earthquake that destroyed 200,000 volumes, how could this book emerge more than a century later?

Was it checked out? Was it rescued from the rubble of another fire? Was it hidden somewhere?

Cooper is certain the book is from the institute in San Francisco, evident by a stamp and a date: Dec. 10, 1874. Schwed, a collector, said his first instinct was to research the owner.

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Agnes Quigley is inked at the top of the book’s first page.
In 1898, a woman by the name Agnes Quigley posted an advertisement in the San Francisco Call and Post newspaper, Schwed said.

The advertisement is about a young woman and reads, “From East, wishes situation as chambermaid and carer of children.”

There’s no way to prove whether the two Quigleys are the same person, Schwed said. But he has two theories as to how Quigley could have gotten hold of the book. She could have checked the book out. Or Quigley somehow stumbled upon the charred book and inscribed her name inside.

Both theories are plausible, Cooper agreed. He added another theory: There was a “lot of looting in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake.”

“Echoes of the Foot-Hills” isn’t the sole survivor, though. Other volumes, like archival and reference materials, were in a safe at another location during the earthquake, Cooper said. Another book, “Marriages, Rights, Customs and Ceremonies,” survived and was in circulation until 2001.

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Now, the soot-spotted book is unavailable for checkout. It is locked in a display case beneath an 1854 map of San Francisco that also survived the earthquake. Nearby, an oversize atlas bears drawings of the earthquake’s activity created by pendulums.

“It’s really kind of like a library fantasy,” Cooper said. “It’s really magical.”

In San Francisco’s Financial District, the Mechanics’ Institute stands two stories tall. The membership organization is home to the nation’s longest-running chess club, writers’ groups and classes.

In the 1850s, the institute was established to provide gold miners with an education. Decades later, in January 1906, the institute merged with the Mercantile Library to form what was the city’s largest library. Three months later, the Institute lost that title.

“Our library was destroyed in ways that many other buildings were not. I mean, it completely fell down,” Cooper said. “There’s only one remaining wall and really only one brick story left, and everything was burned.”

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The institute, like San Francisco, began discussing a plan to rebuild, Cooper said. They collected thousands of dollars and books in donations. Many of those books are related to architecture, mining and railroads – the things San Francisco needed to rebuild.

“It’s definitely part of the DNA of San Francisco to rebuild and rethink things, and that we always have a place to save history, and people’s stories won’t be lost,” Cooper said. “We will be a place that can have the capacity to contain those stories.”

As a longtime San Franciscan, Cooper said the earthquake’s story is kept alive through word-of-mouth. Today, no witnesses of the earthquake and fire are alive.

The institute plans to put acid-free cardstock inside the book to explain its story. It’s common practice for an owner to write their name inside an old book. “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” has had three owners in its more than 150-year lifespan: Quigley, Schwed and the institute.

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Giants reassign 3B coach Borg; Wotus named interim replacement

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Giants reassign 3B coach Borg; Wotus named interim replacement


DENVER — The Giants announced on Friday that they have reassigned third-base coach Hector Borg to a new role within their player development staff. Ron Wotus will fill the third-base coaching role on an interim basis until the organization identifies a permanent replacement.
Borg has made several questionable calls from



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