Persistent Memory (homage to Chiura Obata), 2015

Stephen Albair

Stephen Albair lives and works in San Francisco where he has lived and worked for over 40 years. Educated at Illinois State University, in Design, he is a metalsmith, a self-taught photographer, and lecturer. Albair has taught college art courses, and is a former LPC Art professor. He has staged numerous exhibitions and installations in the US and Thailand and authored four books with a fifth book currently in progress.

His work in tableau photography began in 1974 with the purchase of a 35mm Nikkormat camera, which has remained the camera used for most of his photography. His imagery is mostly rooted in memoir built with found objects and images with Art Historical references. The focus is not so much on a series of images but rather a broad range of subject matter, from early memories to the current political landscape. Albair explains the symbolism behind the photographs in LPC’s collection:

The Yellow House: References Van Gogh and his yellow house in Arles, France. He wanted to establish an artist's community and invited Gauguin to join him...and we know things did not go well. It's filled with idealism, perfection, isolation, a sense of place, like the Painted Ladies of SF; fitting in but standing out.

Persistent Memory | Homage to Chiura Obata: The background is a painting by Chiura Obata, "Setting Sun of Sacramento Valley". The house is a bird house that was once hidden in the bushes of the interior garden of the old LPC library building. Chiura Obata was a well-known Japanese-American artist (1885-1975) and popular art teacher at UC Berkeley. He was interned in the prison of war camps established by the US to hold Japanese/Americans at the beginning of WW2. Their property and personal possessions were often seized or vandalized. Obata set up art schools in these prisons and taught art to student groups or anyone that wanted to learn. The Japanese internment camps and the forced incarceration of US Citizens is something that should be remembered and never repeated to any group of Americans. This is an image of beauty and isolation of our California landscape that hints at its humble beginnings.

Not Realized: I've always been a dreamer and speculator of ideas that flow through my work. This house was being built, a dream realized and then abandoned. The postman goes about his usual route, always looking for the new residents, always wondering, but construction has stopped as nature claims the space. He pauses and reflects on a dream unrealized, reminding us to focus on our dreams. This is just one idea and there are many ways of approaching this image. The viewer is left to their own conclusion. The ambiguity of the place and surrounding space, an unfinished structure, haunting, yet beautiful at the same time.

The Albair collection was acquired in 2021 by the Art on Campus Task Force as part of an ongoing effort to grow the LPC art collection, with a focus on local Bay area artists and LPC student artists.