Ira Nowinski's San Francisco: Poets, Politics, And Divas

Published in collaboration with the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

“I have written about coteries, but artists like Nowinski represent rovers, people who study and document other communities and make it possible to see something of how culture is born and nurtured in many places. This is art in service of memory, the memory of the enormous variety one species has developed, of struggles to survive, of arias, celebrations, friendships, and dreams.”—Rebecca Solnit, from the Foreword

What catches Ira Nowinski’s eye and what he captures with his lens are people—the beat poets of North Beach, opera divas radiating passion and delighting in adulation, cigar-smoking old Italians, tenant organizers, and an alert shirtless old man in a boxer’s stance. These are photographs from three decades that speak eloquently and powerfully about the timeless virtues of courage and dignity, photographs that probe the depth of the human spirit, indeed the very heart of San Francisco.