?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
PAUL FORESTER (DATES UNKNOWN) SAN FRANCISCO / OAKLAND BAY BRIDGE CELEBRATION. 1936. 22 1/2x16 inches, 57x40 1/2 cm. Security Lithograph Co., San Francisco. Condition A / A-: minor scratch in image. The eight and a one-quarter mile long Bay Bridge in San Francisco opened for traffic on November 12th, 1936, three years after construction began. The four-day celebration that accompanied the opening was an enormous and impressive social undertaking, worthy of the extraordinary and unparalleled engineering feat that was the construction of the bridge itself. The festivities included speeches by such dignitaries as former President Herber Hoover, parades, military pageants, football games, river boat races, a massed flight of Navy aircraft, a yacht regatta and much more. This image was also used on the cover of the official program for the massive public event. "San Francisco Celebrates! The rejoicing is more than a tribute to the brains and brawn that went into this vast undertaking. It is more than a tribute to the engineering wonder of this decade. We celebrate a monument to the indomitable and undying spirit of the West" (Official Program, San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge Celebration, p. 2). Depicted also is San Francisco's Ferry Terminal, a building rendered virtually obsolete when the new bridge opened.
