Howard Edwin Hack (July 6, 1932 – June 11, 2015) was an American representational painter and graphic artist, with works in numerous museum collections. Known for an innovative approach to a variety of media, as well as use of traditional oil paints, Hack began working in the late 1940s. He was active in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

Early life and education

Hack was born July 6, 1932, in

Cheyenne, Wyoming Cheyenne ( or ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Wyoming, as well as the county seat of Laramie County, with 65,132 residents, per the 2020 US Census. It is the principal city of the Cheyenne metropolitan statistica ...

, and moved with his family to

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, in 1939. As a youth, Hack established himself among San Francisco’s North Beach artists, exhibiting paintings at

Vesuvio Cafe Vesuvio Cafe is an historic bar in San Francisco, California, United States. Located at 255 Columbus Avenue, across an alley from City Lights Bookstore, the building was designed by Italian architect Italo Zanolini and finished in 1916. History ...

and The Coffee Gallery. Between 1950 until 1953, Hack learned

Flemish painting Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century, gradually becoming distinct from the painting of the rest of the Low Countries, especially the modern Netherlands. In the early period, up to about 1520, the painting ...

techniques from Martin Baer, who had studied in Munich and Paris. Hack attended

California College of Arts and Crafts California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

in this period, as well as studying with

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Biography Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889 in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi origin ...

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

in the summer of 1949. In 1953, Hack was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and assigned to Korea where he served as a truck driver and battalion clerk-typist (S-1).

Career

Upon returning to the United States, Hack resumed painting, using images from his stay in Korea, and scenes from Oakland. Hack occupied studio space and lived in the Ghost House (a victorian house located at Franklin Street at Sutter Street in San Francisco), along with other artists, including

Wally Hedrick Wally Bill Hedrick (1928 – December 17, 2003)Gerald D. Adams, San Francisco Chronicle, Wally Hedrick: Iconoclastic Painter, Sculptor, Wednesday, December 24, 200/ref> was a seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture,Peter ...

Jay DeFeo Jay DeFeo (March 31, 1929 – November 11, 1989) was a visual artist who first became celebrated in the 1950s as part of the spirited community of Beat artists, musicians, and poets in San Francisco. Best known for her monumental work ''The Rose' ...

, and

Hayward Ellis King Hayward Ellis King (1928–1990) was an American painter, collagist, art dealer, and an arts administrator. He was a mid-20th century arts leader in San Francisco, California, a co-founder of Six Gallery, and served as the director of the Richmon ...

. From the Ghost House, Hack attended the gathering at the nearby Six Gallery (the

Six Gallery Reading The Six Gallery reading (also known as the ''Gallery Six reading'' or ''Six Angels in the Same Performance'') was an important poetry event that took place on Friday, October 7, 1955, at 3119 Fillmore Street in San Francisco. History Conceive ...

at 3119 Fillmore Street, San Francisco), where poet Alan Ginsberg debuted his poem

Howl Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...

on October 7, 1955. Between 1957 and 1959, Hack lived primarily in

San Miguel de Allende San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the city lies from Mexico City, 86 km (53 mi) from Quer� ...

, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, a haven adopted by American artists and bohemians after World War II. In 1959, Hack returned to the United States, enrolling as a philosophy undergraduate at the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The ...

(USF). At USF Hack studied the theories of the neo-Kantian idealist philosopher

Ernst Cassirer Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( , ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science. ...

(1874–1945), in particular his concepts of symbolism.

Audiffred Building

In 1959, after a referral by Beat poet and bookstore owner

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

, Hack rented studio space with other artists on the third floor of the

Audiffred Building The Audiffred Building is a three-story historic commercial building in San Francisco, California, United States, formerly the location of waterfront bars and of the headquarters of a seamen's union, and now housing Boulevard restaurant. It is Cit ...

located at 9 Mission Street in San Francisco. The artists included Frank Lobdell, Hassel Smith, Sonia Gechtoff, Madeline Dimond, Philip Roeber,

Manuel Neri Manuel John Neri Jr. (April 12, 1930October 18, 2021) was an American sculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is re ...

, and

Joan Brown Joan Brown (born Joan Vivien Beatty; February 13, 1938 – October 26, 1990) was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.G ...

. Despite eviction efforts mounted in 1971, Hack alone used this studio space until 1978, completing some of his most notable oil paintings and silverpoints. In 2013, Hack donated the door from his Audiffred studio (salvaged in 1978), signed by artists who had worked on the premises, to the Beat Museum in San Francisco’s North Beach.

Major exhibitions

In 1967, the M.H.

De Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Ho ...

, San Francisco, exhibited Hack’s “Window Series,” oil paintings depicting scenes from San Francisco’s South of Market area designated for demolition. In his review of the show San Francisco Chronicle art critic

Alfred Frankenstein Alfred Victor Frankenstein (October 5, 1906 – June 22, 1981) was an art and music critic, author, and professional musician. He was the long-time art and music critic for the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' from 1934 to 1965. He was noted for champ ...

referred to the works as “ magic realism,” a phrase coined in 1943 by Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the New York Museum of Modern Art. (In her “Foreword and Acknowledgment” to the MoMA catalog for the exhibition ''Realists and Magic Realism'', Dorothy Canning Miller referred to Barr’s definition of magic realism as “a term sometimes applied to painters who by means of an exact realistic technique try to make plausible and convincing their improbable dreamlike or fantastic visions.”) Frankenstein noted: “Hack has lived for a long time with the moods of windows…. (T)hey display for him the humble machinery of everyday living - shoemaker’s equipment, the chairs and cabinets of a barber shop, a tailor’s padded pressing iron – always silent, always at rest, intensified to the highest degree by isolation and close scrutiny. But his collection of Sunday morning glimpses into little offbeat shops is neither a social document, in the manner of

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realism, American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolor painting, watercolorist and printmaker in e ...

, nor a celebration of the mechanized, in the style of

Charles Sheeler Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionism, Precisionist paintings, commercial photographer, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, ''Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration wit ...

. It is a document of Howard Hack’s perceptions, reactions, and experiments.” In 1981, the

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also ...

presented a collection of works in silverpoint by Howard Hack. The show’s catalog curator Robert Flynn Johnson wrote: “What will people think of Howard Hack’s art one hundred years from now? What will they think of the time, patience and concentration necessary to create these works? What will they think of his seductive style and idiosyncratic subject matter? I believe that Howard Hack’s art will age far more gracefully than the strained and artistic fashions that currently strut upon the stage of history. Time will tell.” In San Francisco, Howard Hack was represented by several galleries, including Richard Gump’s and John Bolles. In New York, Hack’s works were sold through Lee Nordness Gallery. His art studio at 54 Cook Street in the

Laurel Heights Laurel Heights is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is located to the south of the Presidio of San Francisco and east of the Richmond District. It is bordered by Geary Boulevard and the University of San Francisco campus to the so ...

neighborhood of San Francisco was left abandoned for more than 15 years, but sold in 2016 for 1.5 million dollars despite decrepit conditions. The same property turned millions in the early 2020s, but no reference to it being Hack's art studio remained. In Hack's obituary, its remembered how 54 Cook Street became an afterschool play area for students from Laurel Hill Nursery School while Howard (Hondo) was still involved with the property. He rented the downstairs to a woman named Dorothy Collier who taught at Laurel Hill in the late 1970s to 1980s and lived on the bottom floor with 60 cats. Hack would often be around in the studio upstairs and sometimes brought his own children by the studio/afterschool care spot. November 14, 2017 "Everyday after Laurel Hill pre-school, Hondo, Russell, myself and a few others would take the steps down to Howard's house where we would stay and play until our parents picked us up. Cook Island! - what a place to be a four year old! Thank you Howard" wrote an old friend on the memory board of his obituary. Hack died in 2015.

Exhibitions

Solo

Information regarding One-Person Shows, Group Exhibitions, Collections, Awards and Prizes for Howard Hack is drawn primarily from the catalog for ''Howard Hack: Silverpoint Drawing Series, 1967 - 1981, An Exhibition organized by the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor'' (1981). * Galeria de la Parroquia, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 1959 * Bolles Gallery, San Francisco, 1962 * Bolles Gallery, New York, 1963 * Gump’s Gallery, San Francisco, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1972 * M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 1967 * San Jose College, 1968 * Lee Nordness Gallery, New York, 1968 * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1972 * Mils College, Oakland, 1972 (Retrospective) * Triangle Gallery, San Francisco, 1976 * Zara Gallery, San Francisco, 1978 * “Selections from the Blue Print Series,” University Art Gallery, California State University, Chico, 1980

Group

* Western Painters Annual, The Oakland Art Museum, 1955, 1957, 1961 * Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1961 * 24th Annual Drawing and Sculpture Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1961 * Pittsburgh International Painting and Sculpture Annual Invitational, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1964, 1967 * Whitney Annual of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1965, 1967 * 29th Corcoran Biennial, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965 * Lee Nordness Gallery, New York, 1967 * National Drawing Exhibition (Invitational Annual), San Francisco Museum of Art, 1970 * “Looking West,” Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, 1970 * National Academy of Design 148th Annual, New York, 1973 * Zara Gallery, San Francisco, 1975 * Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan, 1975 * Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan, 1975 * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1976 * National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1977 * “Bay Area”: Painting Invitational, Richmond Art Center, 1979 * “Realism”: Walnut Creek Civic Arts Gallery, 1980 * "Luminous Line: Contemporary Drawing in Metalpoint": Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College (1967)

Collections

Hack's works are in private collections and the following public and institutional collections: * Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco * Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas *

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, Cambridge, Massachusetts * Metro Media, Los Angeles * The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. * The Oakland Art Museum * San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California * Seattle First National Bank, Washington * Sara Roby Foundation, New York * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Washington, D.C. *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, New York

Awards and prizes

* Jack London Art Festival, Oakland, California: First Prize, 1961, 1964, 1965 * Painted Flower Exhibition, The Oakland Art Museum: Purchase Awards, 1962, 1963 * San Francisco Museum of Art 84th Annual: Ann Bremer Memorial Award, 1965 * Whitney Annual of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York:

Neysa McMein Neysa Moran McMein (born Marjorie Frances McMein; January 24, 1888 – May 12, 1949) was an American illustrator and portrait painter who studied at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Art Students League of New York. She began her ca ...

Purchase Award * National Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award for Painting, 1966 * Whitney Annual of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Sara Robey Foundation Award for Painting, 1967 * American Academy of Arts and Letters: Childe Hassam Foundation Purchase Award, 1969