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Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics” murals are seen in Oakland on May 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
Amanda Bartlett\/SFGATE<\/p>\n
Dan\u00a0Fontes, the Oakland artist<\/a> best known for his animal murals spanning freeway underpasses, as well as the offbeat sculptures dotting the Emeryville mudflats, died Tuesday after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 67 years old.<\/p>\n The Pacific Pinball Museum<\/a> in Alameda, where he served as a longtime board member, confirmed the news in an Instagram post this week. Fontes was \u201cresponsible for the massive wall art on both sides of our History Room that greets our patrons upon museum entry every day,\u201d the museum wrote, as well as other murals at Musee Mecanique<\/a> in Fisherman\u2019s Wharf and Free Gold Watch, the arcade in the Haight. \u201cOur deepest condolences go out to Dan\u2019s longtime partner Julie [Lucchesi].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a> with SFGATE last September, when Fontes described acquiring and unearthing a collection of rare Wonderlite neon sign artwork, he said his career as a muralist traced back over 40 years.\u00a0Fontes said he painted over 400 murals in the Bay Area, including \u201cGiraphics,\u201d a family of seven giraffes he completed in 1983 after he was inspired<\/a> by the \u201cjungle-like land tucked under the concrete maze\u201d of I-580. \u201cAnimurals,\u201d a series of zebras, emerged the following year.<\/p>\n He also claimed to be behind the tallest mural in San Francisco: \u201cSalud! The Bethany Senior Center,\u201d which he painted in 1997 as part of the 21st Street Mural Project in the Mission. It stretches almost 100 feet tall and 75 feet wide.<\/p>\n FILE – A mural titled “The Jewish Cultural Experience” by Keith Sklar, Brooke Fancher and Dan Fontes covers the north wall of a building at 1400 Franklin Street in Oakland as seen in 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle\/Hearst N\/Paul Chinn\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n Fontes grew up by the Grand Lake Theater. After a stint on a Sausalito houseboat, he was more recently living in San Rafael, where he found a warehouse he adapted as a studio that could also store all of his beloved collectibles, including 45 pinball machines, a couple of jukeboxes and a telephone booth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m something of a packrat,\u201d he joked last year. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve had a strong interest in the history of California since I was a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n Fontes traced his passion back to 1970s Oakland, when he was 10 years old and living on Grand Avenue. A neighbor was moving out and emptied the contents of his basement onto the curb: old pianos, furniture and photos dating back to the Civil War and the 1906 earthquake. Fontes was transfixed, obsessively looking up what he could in the encyclopedia and stashing away the treasures that didn\u2019t get hauled off by the garbage truck.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was just that lucky kid who got to see all of this stuff that had been buried for decades,\u201d he said. \u201cIt opened my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics” murals are seen in Oakland on May 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Amanda Bartlett\/SFGATE Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics” murals are seen in Oakland on May 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Amanda Bartlett\/SFGATE Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics” murals are seen in Oakland on May 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Amanda Bartlett\/SFGATE<\/p>\n Fontes\u00a0attended high school in both Oakland and Alameda before studying at Merritt College, later transferring to Cal State East Bay\u00a0where he graduated with honors in 1981, the Oaklandside reported<\/a>. Long before he became a renowned muralist, Fontes took his fascination with art and everyday objects and used it to create some of the sculptures in the Emeryville mudflats<\/a> along Interstate 80.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cAfter returning from a trip overseas I developed an interest in the environment which included working with\u00a0Greenpeace,\u201d he wrote on his website. \u201cI’d been creating lots of drawings of whales and one of the first big public works I was a part of was at the Emeryville mudflats in the late 1970’s.\u201d<\/p>\n Fontes crafted the towering \u201cLunar Lander\u201d sculpture and the massive \u201cEmeryville\u201d sign out of various pieces of driftwood, both of which sparked the imaginations of countless passing commuters. Keith\u00a0Lang, the owner of Rasco Manufacturing, a third-generation fabrication shop and sheet metal company in Hayward, was one of them. Lang told SFGATE in 2022 that he crafted the minion sculpture overlooking I-880<\/a> as a direct homage to the estuary oddities.<\/p>\n FILE – Art sculptures made from driftwood and wood scraps on the\u00a0Emeryville mud flats are seen dwindling while the Emeryville skyline rises and business grow in this photo from1986.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle\/Hearst N\/Jerry Telfer\/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n In a GoFundMe<\/a> shared in March, Lucchesi, Fontes\u2019 partner of 28 years, revealed the artist had been in the hospital for 11 days after undergoing a \u201cserious health crisis\u201d and developing an abscess in his lower left lung. News of his death brought an outpouring of tributes.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe have lost another giant in the Bay Area art world,\u201d fellow Oakland muralist David Burke wrote on Instagram. He recounted seeing the \u201cGiraphics\u201d mural for the first time from the back seat of his family\u2019s Volkswagen station wagon in 1983, when he was eight years old. \u201cWhat I couldn’t have known then was how that experience planted a seed that would quietly shape my path as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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