Beniamino Bufano and His Saint
St. Francis of Assisi was a key inspiration for Bufano’s life as well as his art. He revered the saint who loved animals and embraced peace and poverty, and he honored St. Francis with many works depicting animals, birds and children, as well as with portraits and statues of the saint himself.
Among his most controversial works was St. Francis de la Varenne, which he carved in Paris in 1927-28 from a twelve-ton piece of granite. After 27 years in storage, it was shipped to San Francisco in 1955 and installed at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach. Stating that the enormous sculpture interfered with wedding and funeral processions, the pastor insisted it be moved in 1960. Today it stands in front of Memorial Hall near Fisherman’s Wharf.
One of Bufano’s most compelling sculptures is St. Francis of the Guns located at the entrance to San Francisco City College. After the 1968 shootings of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., San Francisco’s Mayor Joseph Alioto led a voluntary gun turn-in program and commissioned Bufano to sculpt something with the melted gunmetal. A mosaic on the base of the sculpture depicts the multi-racial Children of the World singing and, above them, the portraits of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King – all victims of assassins’ bullets. The statue was dedicated in 1977 by Mayor George Moscone who was also assassinated by a handgun eighteen months later.
Other St. Francis statues by Bufano can be found at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa and in San Francisco at Grace Cathedral, SF State University, and at Westside Courts public housing development on Sutter Street. Not surprisingly a beautiful St. Francis, made of bronze and decorated with a vibrant mosaic of birds, now marks Bufano’s grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Colma, just south of San Francisco.
Photos from left to right:
– Bufano helping to move St.Francis statue, 1961. Photo courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
– Saint Francis of the Guns sculpture, located at City College of San Francisco
– Bufano with St.Francis De La Varenne – Photo courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Untitled (Study for St. Francis with Birds), pencil on vellum.
Gift of Ms. Joan Low.
Museo Italo Americano Permanent Collection
St. Francis with Birds, litho pulled on Andorra Cover Tan Laid Paper, 1970. Museo Italo Americano Permanent Collection
St.Francis, black granite sculpture. On permanent loan by David and Carolyn Giannini. Museo Italo Americano Permanent Collection
