Bay Area Reporter San Francisco

Freda Koblick, influential abstract artist, dies

Freda Koblick, a San Francisco artist and designer known for introducing cast acrylic as a medium for sculpture, died Saturday of renal failure and diabetes. She was 90.

Ms. Koblick, who never married, made her name in the Bay Area and beyond in the 1960s, when artists around the world, flouting tradition, experimented with materials and processes distinctive of the 20th century.

Ms. Koblick got the jump on most of them. After attending City College of San Francisco and studying English and engineering at San Francisco State College (now University), she moved to Los Angeles in 1939 to enroll in the Plastics Industries Technical Institute.

Realistically believing that the West Coast art world would not be ready at that point for abstract sculpture in cast plastic, Ms. Koblick started to design and produce functional cast plastic objects such as doorknobs and lighting accessories, frequently in collaboration with architects.

Commissions from architects for large wall structures in her acrylic medium led eventually to her producing and showing her own sculpture. "Art is free fall," she said to a Chronicle reporter in 2006. "You're in a kind of collusion with the work as you do it. In crafts, you know what is expected of you, and what's expected of you has to be palatable. It was easy to make things that were nice, that were pretty, but I wanted to find out what was under that."

The Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York exhibited her work in 1968, and a prestigious fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation followed in 1970.

Ms. Koblick took to spending several months each year in London, where she taught her casting techniques at the Royal College of Art, and where she had ready access to the equipment her process required.

Ms. Koblick's most noticed work was undoubtedly a large hanging piece in cast acrylic commissioned in the early 1980s for the United Airlines terminal at San Francisco International Airport.

In 1985, the California Creative Arts League named Ms. Koblick a "Living Treasure," one of only 19 people then honored with the title.

After many years as a denizen of the North Beach art scene, Ms. Koblick received her biggest professional break in 1980, when an affluent friend offered to buy her a disused San Francisco building in which she could live and work, if she collaborated on its partial conversion to residential lofts, a type of project nearly unheard of in the city at the time.

Bay Area Reporter Weblogs » Supes approve Turman for SF Police ...

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved the appointment of out gay attorney Julius Turman (seen at left) to the city’s Police Commission today (Tuesday, June 14).

A supervisors committee had recently recommended Turman over David Waggoner, another out gay attorney, and two other candidates.

The city’s two out supervisors were among those who expressed respect for Waggoner, but both approved Turman’s being named to the commission.

Supervisor David Campos, a former police commissioner himself, said either one of the men “would do a great job,” and said it was possible to support one candidate “without being against another individual.”

However, Campos indicated he was supporting Turman’s appointment because that’s what the rules committee had recommended. He said Turman “has a great deal of integrity,” and, “you cannot go through life as an African American gay man” without knowing the “important role” the police department has.

“I know he will stand for the right things on that commission,” said Campos of Turman.

Supervisor Scott Wiener also supported Turman’s appointment. He said, “I personally like and respect” Waggoner, but Turman is “an incredibly well-respected leader” in the gay, black, and legal communities “who has consistently shown independence and leadership.”

As an example, Wiener pointed to past racism allegations against the Castro bar Badlands, which led to a boycott. “Turman was a true leader in that effort to hold Badlands accountable and come to a resolution with the community.”

He also said, “Believe you me, if the department needs to be  held accountable, nobody’s going to hold the department accountable more than Julius Turman.”

Supervisors John Avalos, Jane Kim, Ross Mirkarimi, and Eric Mar initially voted in support of Waggoner at the full board meeting. But once that effort failed, all 11 supervisors voted for Turman.

June 2, after the rules committee voted 2 to 1 in support of him, Turman had told the Bay Area Reporter , “If appointed I promise to serve the interests of all San Francisco.”