{"id":544268,"date":"2026-03-25T11:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544268\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T11:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:54:18","slug":"1930s-mural-by-famous-s-f-artist-uncovered-in-pacific-heights-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544268\/","title":{"rendered":"1930s mural by famous S.F. artist uncovered in Pacific Heights home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owners of 2535 Vallejo St. in Pacific Heights got a hint of what might be hidden in their home when a stranger climbed their stairs 11 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA historian knocked on the door, and said they felt there was an important piece of art in this house,\u201d said the property\u2019s listing agent, Mary Lou Castellanos. \u201cThey [the owners] said, \u2018we haven\u2019t seen it, nor are we going to rip the house apart looking for it.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fast-forward 11 years. The owners were prepping the home for sale when painters pulled on a panel above the fireplace, and revealed a mural by Antonio Sotomayor, known as the \u201cArtist Laureate\u201d of San Francisco, concealed beneath it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAntonio Sotomayor. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library<\/p>\n

Sotomayor came to San Francisco from Bolivia in 1923 not knowing a word of English, and found work as a dishwasher at the Palace Hotel. He held that job for only five days\u00a0because, after he drew a portrait of the chef, the owner\u2019s wife hired him as an illustrator. <\/p>\n

He went from scraping plates to designing them. An archive of his work can be seen at the San Francisco Public Library\u2019s History Center.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHis art career in San Francisco started a week after he got here, and extended for 60 years,\u201d said Will Maynez, a former City College of San Francisco faculty member and local mural expert<\/a>. \u201cIn his early 80s, he did a series of murals at Grace Cathedral.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sotomayor\u2019s artwork is associated with countless San Francisco places, big and small, awe-inspiring and everyday: Those Grace Cathedral murals, Trader Vic\u2019s tiki barware, stage sets for multiple San Francisco Ballet productions, a children\u2019s book about balloons. <\/p>\n

He kept up a lengthy correspondence with Leo Eloesser, Frida Kahlo\u2019s famed doctor, and his caricatures appeared regularly in the newspaper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAntonio Sotomayor Papers, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library\"AnAntonio Sotomayor Papers, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library\"AAntonio Sotomayor Papers, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library\"IllustrationAntonio Sotomayor Papers, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a pixy, an elf, a man of enormous charm. There\u2019s something almost fey about him. Everyone wants him. After all, there is no one in San Francisco who can really do the things he does,\u201d reads the article, which said Sotomayor was integral to the city as its cable cars and foghorns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The remarkably versatile artist dabbled in genres, mediums and materials. He even designed a fountain for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island, using terracotta from the clay producer Gladding McBean<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe essentially lived there for six months,\u201d said Anne Schnoebelen, vice president of the Treasure Island Museum<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s three- dimensional tiles, an oval projection of the map of the Pacific [\u2026] and the tiles are individually set into a metal basin like a puzzle.\u201d The fountain, incorrectly disassembled, now sits in storage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSoto,\u201d as his friends called him, thought an artist should dabble widely \u2014 as he clearly did \u2014 and have no shame about artwork hanging in hotels and bars, where it would be seen by a greater audience. <\/p>\n

There was nothing he wouldn\u2019t decorate,\u00a0 including the ceilings and cabinets in his Nob Hill home. Most surprising of all might be the slippers held in his archives, one foot decorated with a male figure, the other with a female one.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given his description as \u201cSan Francisco\u2019s Society Artist\u201d in a 1966 San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle article, it\u2019s perhaps no surprise one of Sotomayor\u2019s pieces would end up in a lofty Pacific Heights perch designed by renowned architect Oliver Everett.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sotomayor wasn\u2019t just an artist but a socialite, who was invited to all the balls and cotillions, and \u2014 along with his wife Grace \u2014 sent everyone in his address book a custom-illustrated Christmas card. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s likely how he came to know Dr. Mabel Wolfe, the owner of 2535 Vallejo St. at the time the mural was painted. They would have run in the same social circles, like the Family Club, an offshoot of the famed Bohemian Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAntonio Sotomayor with one of his paintings. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library<\/p>\n

The fireplace mural depicts a Native-looking figure signing a document \u2014 which is actually the signature of both Soto and his assistant, Mona Hofman, along with some faux-looking glyphs. Hofman also assisted Diego Rivera, who painted her into his iconic 1940 mural, \u201cPan American Unity<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sotomayor likely painted the mural around 1937, according to Maynez, when he and Hofman would have already been working together on a mural project in her Hillsborough home<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pre-Columbian idyllic situation,\u201d Maynez said of the subject. \u201cI wonder whether somebody was into western history and happened to live in the house.\u201d Maynez guesses it\u2019s acrylic, not a fresco, though professional testing could make an official determination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story of the mural\u2019s discovery has another uncanny layer. Eight art experts and historians, including Maynez, had gathered in February to meet in the living room of a Cow Hollow home to discuss Sotomayor. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t been home for half an hour, and I get this call from a realtor,\u201d Maynez said. \u201c\u2018I got this house with a Sotomayor painting in it, would you like to see it?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, the realtor got Maynez\u2019s name after making a call to Mexican art specialists, who had referred her to the expert who lived in her own city. <\/p>\n

\u201cI get a lot of this rebound stuff,\u201d Maynez said. \u201cSomebody wants to do something here, and they call up Mexico, and Mexico will refer them to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the puzzle pieces came together. It remains to be seen whether the surprise discovery will have any impact on selling the house \u2014 and whether Sotomayor\u2019s work will ever become well-known again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the most famous San Francisco artist you\u2019ve never heard of,\u201d Schnoebelen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ARoom where Antonio Sotomayor mural was found. Photo by Julie Zigoris.\"AAntonio Sotomayor mural. Photo by Julie Zigoris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owners of 2535 Vallejo St. in Pacific Heights got a hint of what might be hidden in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,27713],"class_list":["post-544268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-murals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}