I shall begin this article the way I ended my June 6th article on the San Francisco Upper Grant Avenue Fair, i.e., with Peter Macchiarini. He was much more than one of the original founders of the North Beach Festival.
Peter Macchiarini (1909-2001) established his first studio in North Beach on Genoa Place in 1937. He later moved to Jasper Place and eventually to an apartment on the Kearny Steps. It was in 1942 that Peter opened a studio on Grant Avenue. His life was committed to the creation of innovative, avant-garde metal sculpture and jewelry. One of the most in-depth interviews of Peter was conducted in 1999 by the Telegraph Hill Oral History Program. The following are excerpts telling his story in his own words.
“I came to San Francisco in 1928. I returned to this country from Italy where my parents had taken me in 1924, and in 1928 I came back to San Francisco and I’ve been here ever since.
I was born in Sonoma County, up north here a couple of counties up the way, and I was born on a hop ranch. My parents were working hop fields and grape fields and I was born while they were busy doing all this work. The ranch where I was born on was called the Wohler Ranch.
I always was interested in art. Even when I was only here going to grammar school. I was always fascinated by it. I didn’t do anything much of it until I went to Italy. I went to Italy to a place called Pietrasanta in the Province of Lucca, and that’s where all the marble quarries are, and where Michelangelo got his marble for his David and all the great sculptors since then have gotten their marble from this quarry; my parents thought it would be a good idea if I learned how to carve marble. When I came back, you can imagine, there wasn’t any marble in San Francisco like there was in Lucca. So I had to go into other parts of art. I did a lot of clay modeling, wood carving, and all that, but I was interested in art from the very beginning.
I started doing metal. I taught myself how to work metal. That led into making jewelry because that’s what a lot of people were interested in, and a lot of people would patronize and buy my work. So that was the way that I finally found myself in this business. I basically always considered myself a sculptor, and frankly, even as I make jewelry, I consider my jewelry as a form of sculpture, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Peter studied art at the California School of Fine Art (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute) and ultimately taught metal-smithing and jewelry making at Mills College in the mid-1950s. At one point, he was employed as a stone carver and worked on projects in the 1930s with sculptors Beniamino Bufano and Ralph Stackpole. Over the years, Peter was often seen in the North Beach area, easily recognizable by his trademark beret.
Among his many awards and honors is the “messenger of Modernism” bestowed by the Montreal Museum of Modern Art and several one-man shows at the California Legion of Honor and the Museo Italiano. He won more awards in the early San Francisco Art Festivals than any other individual artist.
On February 14, 2000, one year before his death, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution No. 135 “Honoring Peter Macchiarini, commemorating his contributions to the art community and dedicating the steps on the sides of Kearny Street between Broadway and Vallejo Streets as the Peter Macchiarini Steps.” On June 29, 2001, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recognized his contribution to the culture of the city by declaring him a “San Francisco Legend”.
So now we can answer the question “Who was Peter Macchiarini?”. From an admirer’s point of view, he was quite an amazing jewelry designer, sculptor, metal artist, photographer, and was a pioneer of American modernist studio jewelry.
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