Sam Tchakalian (1929 – 2004)

Sam Tchakalian was born in Shanghai, China, in 1929. His parents fled the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900’s escaping the Turkish massacres by migrating to China by traversing the Caucasus and Siberia and traveling through China via the Chinese Eastern Railway. Thus, Sam and his brothers were among the first generation of Armenians born outside their homeland following the Armenian Holocaust. Sam lived in China during the first 17 years of his life. After World War II and much civil and political unrest in China, along with his brothers Manuel and Edward, the family relocated to San Francisco.

Tchakalian received a B.A. degree in Psychology at San Francisco State University in 1952.  After receiving his degree in Psychology, Tchakalian would serve in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and work within the military intelligence structure of the Army until the war ended in 1953.

After completing his military service and returning to the Bay Area, Tchakalian became immersed within the San Francisco art scene and, for the first time, started to think about a full-time career as an artist. It was a busy time for creative arts in San Francisco with art schools such as the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) flush with students on the GI Bill and legendary instructors such as Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hassel Smith, and Richard Diebenkorn all weighing into the Beat era mix.

Tchakalian completed his MFA degree from San Francisco State in 1958 and committed to becoming a full-time career artist and art teacher. In 1957, he rented a space on Duboce Street near Haight-Ashbury that would serve as his studio and home for the next 40 years. Beginning in 1962, Sam Tchakalian started his teaching career. He taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts and the San Francisco Art Institute and would become one of San Francisco’s influential art teachers for the next 35 years and throughout most of his adult life. 

Sam Tchakalian’s work of the late 1950s and 1960s exhibit indications of classic bay area abstract expressionism. Still, he also maintains an individual style and applies collage throughout many of his works during this period.  It was not until the late 1960s that his work developed into a more minimalist and large-scale format focused on the purity of paint and color often scraped across the surface. These planks of color began in 1968 and continued to develop. The work from this period and on has been described as ‘mature’ with a focus on Tchakalian’s exceptional application of paint and color exhibiting the distinct hand of the artist. Tchakalian’s bold and energetic large-scale color-field paintings with thick texture and muted colors would become his identifiable and personal style.

Sam Tchakalian died in San Francisco at the age of 75 after suffering from diabetes and leukemia. The artist Bruce Conner described Tchakalian’s work in 2004 as ‘one of the major lights of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s and 1960s.’ And he added, ‘he was always a fun guy to be around.’

Museums:
Albright Knox Gallery, NY
Bakersfield Art Museum, Bakersfield, CA
Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA
M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
Milwaukee Art Center
Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
The Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, NY

Select Solo Exhibitions:
1988  National Musuem of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
1987  Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1981  Steven Wirtz Gallery,  San Francisco, CA
1979  Portland Center for Visual Arts, Portland, CA
1978  Oakland Museum Oakland, CA Retrospective
1973  Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1970  Emanuel Walter Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1968  Molly Barnes Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1967  San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1966  John Bolles Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1963  Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1962  M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA

Select Group Exhibitions:
1987  Berkeley Museum Collection, University of California at Berkeley
1986  San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
1984  The Dilexi Years: 1958 to 1970 – Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
1983  University of California at Davis
1979  Department of Art – University of California at Berkeley
1977  Smithsonian Institute National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington D.C.
1975  Fredrerick S. Wright Gallery, UCLA
1974  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1974  Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois
1971  Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
1970  The San Francisco Pavilion – Osaka Exposition
1969  Whitney Museum of American Art, NY|
1969  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1969  California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
1968  San Francisco Museum of Art
1968  University of Oklahoma
1968  Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, M.H. De Young Museum, LACMA
1967  California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
1967  University of Arizona, Tucson
1964  San Francsico Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
1964  California Palace Legion Honor San Francisco, CA
1961-2 California Palace Legion Honor San Francisco, CA
1961  Poindexter Gallery, NY
1961  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1961  Scripps College, Pomona, CA
1961  Municipal Gallery – Los Angeles, CA
1961  Pasadena Art Museum
1960-7  Art Bank Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute
1960  California Palace Legion Honor San Francisco, CA
1960  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1959  John Bolles Gallery
1959  Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1958-65 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1958-60 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

Awards:
1982  Maestro/Apprentice Program – California Arts Council
1981  Fellowship Grant – NEA
1981  Adaline Kent Award
1975  Fellowship Grant – NEA
1961  80^th Annual Painting Award – S.F. Museum of Art
1961  11^th annual Painting Award – Richmond Art Center juried by Michael Goldberg NY
1960  Winter Invitational Painting Award – California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
1958  Purchase Award – San Francisco Art Festival, San Francisco, CA

Teaching:
1962-63  Guest Lecturer, California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland
1964-65  Painting Instructor – College of San Mateo, CA
1966  Painting Faculty – San Francisco Art Institute
1970  Guest Instructor – UC Davis
1977-79  Chair Painting Department – San Francisco Art Institute
1979-80  Guest Instructor: Painting and Drawing. University of California at Berkeley
1981-85  Chair Painting Department – San Francisco Art Institute

Literature:
2005  Davenport, Ray.  Davenport’s Art Reference:The Gold Edition
2005  AskART.com Inc. – Dunbier, Lonnie Pierson (Editor). The Artists Bluebook: 34,000 North American Artists to March 2005
2004  Landauer, Susan.  San Francisco and Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism
2002  Hughes, Edan Milton. “Artists in California: 1786-1940″
2002  McClelland, Gordon T; Jay T. Last.  California Watercolors 1850-1970, An Illustrated History & Biographical Dictionary
2002  Modernism Gallery, San Francisco. Five Times Four: Sam Tchakalian, Richard Allen Morris, James Hayward, Dennis Hollingsworth, Michael Reafsnyder
2001  Frederick Spratt Gallery. RE/introductions: Geoffrey Bowman, Sam Tchakalian, Farrar Wilson
1999  Falk, Peter Hastings (Editor).  Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975
1996  Landauer, Susan.   The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism
1989  The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea. Sam Tchakalian
1989  Hughes, Edan Milton.  Artists in California, 1786-1940                    
1985  DuPont, Diana, K Holland.  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Paintings and Sculpture Collection
1985  Falk, Peter Hastings (Editor).  Who Was Who in American Art: Artists Active Between 1898-1947
1985  Albright, Thomas.  Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980 / An Illustrated History
1984  Orr-Cahill, Christina.  The Art of California Selected Works/ Oakland Museum
1978  St. John, T., Neubert, G., The Oakland Museum. Sam Tchakalian: Paintings 1958-1978
1976  San Francisco Museum Modern Art. Painting & Sculpture in California: The Modern Era
1975  Editor, Smithsonian.  Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Checklist of the Collection
1967  Hedrick, W., Tchakalian, S., Martin, F., Nordland, G., Balboa Pavillion Gallery. Wally Hedrick, Sam Tchakalian
1967  Martin, Fred. Wally Hedrick / Sam Tchakalian
1958  Art Bank of the SFAA San Francisco Art Association. Painting and Sculpture (in)  87
1935  Mallett, Daniel Trowbridge.  Index of Artists: International-Biographical

Sources:
Hopkins, Henry. Sam Tchakalian: Paintings. Fresno Art Museum
Landauer, Susan. The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism
Lee, Kyung-Sung.  Sam Tchakalian, The National Museum of Contemporary Art
Neubert, George W. Sam Tchakalian: Paintings 1958-1978, The Oakland Museum
Plagens, Peter. Sunshine Muse: Art of the West Coast, 1945-1970
sfgate.com
anca.org 
askART.com

Tchakalian Background Quotes

‘One of the major lights of Bay Area Abstract Expressionist painting in the 1950s and ’60s … he used mixed media at a time when other painters didn’t. And he was always a fun guy to be around.’

• Bruce Conner, San Francisco Chronicle, January 24, 2004
  
  

‘Such statements reflect a desire to refine painting further, to tame through studious formalism, and the artists are legion, north, and south. Characteristic are…Sam Tchakalian’s conversion of A.E. (abstract expressionism) into thick fields’

• Peter Plagens, Sunshine Muse: Art of the West Coast, 1945-1970 

‘Tchakalian is a materialist among contemporary painters. His painting expresses the faith of the matter of oil paint itself and experience in its use are the last reservoirs of honest discovery a painter has to tap. If they do not yield the pleasures and substance of art, nothing will.’

• Kenneth Baker, Introduction to Solo Exhibition Catalogue, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, 1989

‘Tchakalian’s painting consisted entirely of lush, unbroken fields of solid color produced by pouring, rolling, and brushing layer upon layer of oil onto immensely scaled horizontal canvasses. Color and paint itself literally became the content of these paintings, which were essential elements of architecture.’

• Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980, University of California Press

 
‘The feedback that his art inspires may rest on its ability to project an almost Zen state of mind …. The ability of Tchakalian’s work to communicate meaningfully depends almost exclusively on its capacity to project a quality all good art has, that is, a sense of presence.’

• Terry St. John, Associate Curator, 1978 Solo Exhibition Oakland Museum

‘Tchakalian’s early work of the 1950s strongly reflected Still’s influence…In the early 1960s, his imagery flattened and simplified gradually evolving into broad expanses of intense color.’

• Susan Landauer, The San Francisco and the Second Wave, Crocker Art Museum

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