Larry Thomas, Hook #1, work on paper

LARRY THOMAS (American, b. 1943), "Hook #1", 1992, charcoal, shellac and oil on paper. Image size: 29 x 23 inches, overall: 36 x 30 inches. Provenance: The Estate of Gertrude Parker, founder of The San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, which opened in 1982 in a small Richmond District home. Gertrude Parker was a fiber artist and sculptor with a belief that craft art was as legitimate a form as fine art painting. As a teenager, Parker narrowly escaped the Nazis by train out of her native Vienna. In her new home in the Bay Area, Parker trusted her hunch about folk art and she was right. Parker's museum outgrew the Richmond District house and moved to Fort Mason before landing downtown as the renamed Museum of Craft and Folk Art. Gertrude Parkeràs own art can be found in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of California and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. She also left behind a significant personal collection of surrealist and abstract art which will eventually have a home in a new gallery and museum in San Rafael.