San Francisco, CA, USA
A bronze statue of Georgia O’Keeffe, a painter, who is known as “the mother of American modernism.”
The semi-realistic, semi-abstract statue that was created and dedicated in 1982 depicts O’Keeffe as an older woman, sitting on a tree stump and holding a cane, with her two dogs, Bo and Chia, by her sides. All are facing west, towards the setting sun.
The sculptress, Marisol Escobar, based the portrait on a photograph she took while visiting O’Keeffe in New Mexico. Read more...
San Francisco, CA, USA
The “Lady of the Lamp” is a cast stone statue of Florence Nightingale, known as “The founder of professional nursing,” and the mentor of Linda Richards, who was the first trained nurse in the US. Since the 19th century till these days, Nightingale inspired many nurses, and for that reason, this location of the statue was chosen, facing the Laguna Honda hospital, and symbolizes the role she still has on modern nursing.
The statue, designed by David Edstrom and dedicated on the National Hospital Day in 1939, depicts Nightingale in her nursing uniform, holding a lamp during a hospital round, visiting wounded soldiers.
A duplicate of this statue is located at Lincoln Park in Los Angeles. Read more...
San Francisco, CA, USA
A bronze bust of Dianne Feinstein, located at San Francisco city hall, just outside of the mayor’s office, is honoring Feinstein, a senior US Senator who was the first female mayor of SF and served in this position from 1978 to 1988. This is the only female statue inside the city hall building.
It was revealed in 1997, and was made by the sculptress Lisa Reinerston, who is well known for her large scale public sculptures. Read more...
San Francisco, CA, USA
Between 1931 and the end of WW2, hundreds of thousands of girls and women were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. They were called euphemistically “comfort women.” The Japanese Administrations continued to deny the truth of this massive crime against humanity, but the women who survived the horror had the courage to reveal it to the world.
In 2015, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided to build a memorial to the “Comfort Women” to educate the community about stopping human trafficking of women and girls. The memorial was unveiled on September 22nd, 2017. A year after the memorial dedication, San Francisco’s sister city, Osaka, ended their 60 years sister-city relationship due to the lack of acceptance of the accusation of Japan in this massive crime.
The memorial of a 10-feet tall bronze statue, also known as the Column of Strength statue, made by Steven Whyte, was installed in 2017 to honor these women, their strength, and their courage to come forward and share their stories. The statue depicts three girls standing back to back holding hands. Each represents a country from which came the highest numbers of victims: China, Korea, and The Philippines.
At a distance stands a bronze figure of an older woman watching the girls. This woman represents Kim Hak-Sun – a Korean human rights activist who was the first ‘comfort woman’ to tell her story in public.
On August 16th, 2019, a smaller version of this statue was unveiled in Seoul’s Mt. Namsan, South Korea. Read more...
