The last exhibition that San Francisco dealer Jessica Silverman put on was a solo exhibition by artist Isaac Julien. It was open for exactly one day, March 13, 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic forced the United States and much of the world into lockdown. Now, over a year later, Silverman is ready to open their next show, this time in a brand new and much larger space in historic Chinatown.

Jessica Silverman Gallery has established itself as one of the country’s leading galleries in its thirteenth year, representing established artists such as Julien, Judy Chicago and Andrea Bowers, as well as emerging stars such as Matthew Angelo Harrison, Sadie Barnette and Woody De Othello. “I firmly believe in going slowly and focusing and staying on the right track where you want to be,” Silverman told ARTnews. “That’s how I work with our artists. I am not interested in the quick burn. I am interested in the long career. “

On the subject of matching items

The new Jessica Silverman Gallery is located at 621 Grant Avenue, across from the city’s famous Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral. It’s 5,000 square feet – almost twice the size of the previous room – with a private viewing room on the mezzanine and 18 foot ceilings. The space was designed by Abigail Turin, co-founder of Kallos Turin, an architecture firm based in London and San Francisco. Two commissioned works by gallery artists will also be shown: a tile wall piece for the bathroom on the ground floor by Claudia Wieser and a cherry wood door for the viewing room by Julian Hoeber.

“There is an experimental moment when you take in the volume of space and leave the street behind while you are inside and focus on the art,” said Silverman. “The space is really for my artists and my clients. I wanted to think about how we can accommodate their needs in this room. I’m excited to see the kind of exhibitions we can do here – being ambitious is definitely something I really want to push forward. “

The gallery is currently showing a solo exhibition of works by Clare Rojas, a kind of gentle opening, before the first group show “We Are Here” opens on May 27th. This exhibition will include work by gallery artists such as Julien, Bowers, Conrad, Egyir and Matt Lipps, as well as a few other artists the gallery does not currently represent, including Hernan Bas and Lam Tung-Pang, but who will have solo shows at the gallery in 2022.

“The show is a way of saying, ‘This is the place to be,’ without explicitly mentioning it – it’s a location finder,” said Silverman. “The topic is present and to be here.”

Installation view of “Clare Rojas: Here We Go”, 2021, at the Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.
Photo Henrik Kam

After starting a two-year project space, Silverman founded her gallery in 2008 and opened a space in the Dog Patch neighborhood of San Francisco. It unveiled its latest location in the Tenderloin district in 2013, but felt that it had outgrown that space about three years ago. At that point, she was looking for a bigger one in San Francisco.

She was eventually introduced to Betty Louie, a Sino-American community leader and real estate owner. The two walked around Chinatown, and Louie gave Silverman the location of the land. “Betty has a very forward-thinking approach to what she wants from Chinatown,” said Silverman. The dealer found the new location in autumn 2019 and started the renovation in February 2020. The opening was planned for the summer – and then the pandemic.

Silverman said because she is moving to such a historic neighborhood – it’s the oldest and largest Chinatown in the country – she feels it is important to act as a good neighbor to the community’s long-time residents and businesses. She hopes the gallery can later work with the San Francisco Chinese Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization just blocks away, on programming.

The CCC provided the gallery with a list of local businesses run by community members for support. In addition, Silverman and her team are working on a 1 mile (1.6 km) walk through Chinatown that gallery visitors can take to visit other local businesses in the neighborhood. “I’m trying to create a support system with my colleagues and neighbors,” said Silverman. “I hope we become a place they come when they need things too, so it works both ways.”

In January, the Gagosian mega-gallery confirmed it had closed its San Francisco location. But Silverman said she feels obliged to run an internationally influential gallery in San Francisco for the years to come – she signed a 12-year lease for the Chinatown space. She added, “At the end of Gagosian’s closure [here]People may think you can’t do what we do here in San Francisco. You can and we do – well. To do what we are good at, slow walking and specificity are the keys to our success. “

The post Jessica Silverman Gallery Opens House in San Francisco’s Chinatown – ARTnews.com appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

From her headquarters on Potrero Hill, Jessica McClintock ran a clothing empire that at its peak ran dozens of stores across the country, supplying women with dresses, handbags, watches, glasses and a perfume reminiscent of Jasmine.

The influential designer died in her sleep on February 16, in the middle of what her website called the Month of Romance, “when most weddings are planned.” McClintock was 90 years old.

McClintock sold fantasy as well as plaster. Her silky, silky creations cost three figures, not four or five. In later years they were sold at Marshall’s, not Saks, and Nordstrom Rack, not Nordstrom. But at the height of her empire, in the 1970s and 1980s, she adorned dozens of women in calico, jute, and lace for proms, graduations, and the wedding altar.

One of them was Hillary Rodham, who wore a ruffled long sleeve McClintock dress when she married her law school sweetheart, Bill Clinton, in 1975.

The Jessica McClintock look was called the Prairie Girl aesthetic and was very, very tall until it wasn’t like that in any way.

Her success was a mixture of inspiration and an almost burdensome work ethic.

“Time is everything,” she liked to say. “The competition is tough. Decisions have to be made quickly. “

McClintock was born Jessica Gagnon on June 19, 1930. Gagnon, the daughter of a shoe retailer and beautician, was from Presque Isle, Maine. She learned tailoring from her grandmother and never officially studied design. She graduated from San Jose State University and taught young students at Nimitz Elementary School in Sunnyvale in the 1960s. Her first husband, Al Staples, died in 1963. She and her second husband, Fred McClintock, a commercial airline pilot whom she once referred to as “the love of my life,” were divorced in 1967.

Jessica McClintock’s reinvention as Style Maven began a few years later. She remembered selling barefoot dresses in Berkeley in 1969. A year later, she invested $ 5,000 in a friend’s clothes store in San Francisco called Gunne Sax, and in a few years her fashion was being sold worldwide. She opened her first store in San Francisco in 1981. Your empire is said to have annual sales of $ 100 million.

Not only did McClintock work long hours, he asked her colleagues to do the same. Her half-brother and vice president of the company, Jack Herich, thought moving to California in the 1960s to work for McClintock would lead to an easy life.

“I thought I was going to be a beach goer,” he said in 2011. “I’ve been to the beach once every 40 years.”

McClintock’s half-century career was not without controversy. Two decades ago, a clothing store in the Mission District that was sewing their clothes was found to be in breach of labor standards and liable for unpaid wages. She and others paid $ 120,000 to settle the case.

After their stores closed, McClintock’s fashion and other products were licensed and continued to be sold in non-valet stores. She was still at work in her eighties overseeing licensing deals and marketing strategies. A Chronicle reporter asked her in 2011 if it was okay to sell mid-thigh strapless dresses to young girls.

“Are you kidding?” McClintock said. “With everything in the world today? Everything is so seductive! Sure, I’ll keep the clothes short. But the girls can wear leggings. “

On the McClintock corporate website, which it survives, the domain was described as “an enchanted lifestyle brand … always in touch with the desires of young women”.

In 2018, McClintock and her son established the Scott and Jessica McClintock Foundation to support environmental efforts, particularly those related to elephants, rhinos and mountain lions.

She is survived by her son Scott. A memorial service will be held in San Francisco at a later date.

Steve Rubenstein is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF

The post Jessica McClintock, influential San Francisco designer who dressed ladies in calico and lace, dies at 90 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.