Comic strip/cartoon about San Francisco.
Albert Tolf was an American artist, best-known for his paintings and cartoons about the city of San Francisco and its history. Earlier in his career he also assisted on the long-running classic newspaper comic 'Gasoline Alley'.
Early life and career
Albert Tolf was born in 1911 in Joliet, Illinois. He attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Chicago Art Institute, after which he began his career as an Illinois-based newspaper cartoonist and commercial artist. One of his early jobs was assisting Frank King on the slice-of-life newspaper strip 'Gasoline Alley' in the 1930s. He also worked as an illustrator for a builder of railroad sleeping cars, and made scenic paintings at Disneyland before it opened in 1955. Tolf didn't settle in San Francisco, California, until 1949. He quickly dropped his commercial assignments and ventured into fine arts. He was apparently a rather striking personality, riding around on his custom made unicycle at his own Sutter Street art gallery.
San Francisco
From the 1950s on, Tolf devoted most of his further career to the city of San Francisco. In his oil paintings, he captured the city as it was, varying from an old saw mill in the heart of town, Spring on Maiden Lane, a side street after a rain, the old produce district and the Golden Gate panorama. He also made paintings of "The City as it never will be", titled as his 'San Frantasia' collection. According to the San Francisco Examiner on 1 September 1975, these paintings included "visions of cable car tracks that start and end nowhere, and twist and wind like a roller coaster; outrageous pastel gingerbread houses tottering on tiny precipices; automobiles heading up and down perfectly vertical street, with the rest of The City shrouded in mist below." Some of these works were also sold as posters to tourists.
Cartoon about San Francisco.
In Old San Francisco
Tolf's series of cartoons about San Francisco's rich history, 'In Old San Francisco' (1956-1958), was very popular. The series of 101 cartoons originally ran in the San Francisco News from 4 September 1956 until 1958, after which they were collected in book format in 1960. The San Francisco Examiner reprinted the series "as a Bicentennial treat" in 1976.
Death
"The Mayor of San Frantasia", as Albert Tolf was sometimes nicknamed, passed away in 1996.
Albert Tolf in 1965. Photo credit: Fran Ortiz.