Albert Bender

“He is that rare patron, a man who is one of those he helps, modest and generous always in the presence of another’s achievement.” (George West, 1931)

“Bender was a man small in stature but big in his enthusiastic support of the arts.” (James Hart)

“Albert Bender, that adored, elf-happy, Maecenas-hearted San Francisco character” (Julia Cooley Altrocchi in The Spectacular San Franciscans, 1949)

“If I am entitled to half a page in the Chronicle, the whole issue would be too little for you.” (Walter A. Haas in a letter to Bender, August 17, 1938)

“Everyone in that place [Temple Emanu-El, Bender memorial service attended by 3,000 people] felt that he or she was Albert’s closest friend. . . . I don’t think anyone like that will ever exist again.” (Elise Stern Haas)

Anne Bremer

“I think his cousin was the one who had the knowledge. Anne Bremer was a very brilliant woman.” (Elsie Martinez)

“Miss Anne Bremer, who stands among the first women artists of the West . . .” (Anna Pratt Simpson, 1907)

“Miss Bremer is distinctly a pioneer.” (Michael Williams, 1914)

“She was one of the most intelligent, one of the most independent, one of the most original of our painters. . . . With a small canvas and her magic brushes she could light up a room with immortal brilliance, and at the same time strike a spark in the brain . . . . Anne Bremer’s paintings will be valued more and more as the years pass. She painted out of her own rich nature, borrowed nothing, conceding nothing to the whims and fads that beset the painter’s art in this epoch of artistic unrest. Her genius burned strongly in a frail body . . . .” (Edward F. O’Day, Oakland Post-Enquirer, reprinted in the limited edition book Tributes to Anne Bremer)

“As far as a salon has existed in San Francisco Anne Bremer’s beautiful studio home was a salon where met and where one could meet the artists, the writers, the thinkers, the workers, the progressives, the personages of the hour in friendly informal association. From all the world and all fields of endeavor they gathered at her dinner table and around her studio fire . . . .” (Helen Dare, ibid.)

“Always she was original, as powerful personalities must be; never trifling, catchy, superficial: a colorist in painting, a philosopher in poetry; always serene.” (Charles Erskine Scott Wood, ibid.)