16 Facts About Bernard Zakheim

Bernard Baruch Zakheim was a Warsaw-born San Francisco muralist, best known for his work on the Coit Tower murals.

Bernard Zakheim's mother objected and as a compromise Zakheim was sent to a technical training school to become a furniture designer and upholsterer.

Bernard Zakheim was one of the organizers of the Yiddish Folkschule on Steiner Street in San Francisco, where he taught children's art classes, and he organized the first "Yiddish art" exhibit in San Francisco.

Around this time, Bernard Zakheim was introduced to the muralist Diego Rivera by Lucretia Van Horn.

Bernard Zakheim traveled to Paris, returning with a more developed portfolio.

Back in San Francisco, in 1933 Bernard Zakheim helped found the San Francisco Artists and Writers Union, a group of activist artists.

In 1941, Bernard Zakheim moved out of the city to the rural-agricultural town of Sebastopol, California, where he taught classes at Pond Farm.

Bernard Zakheim lived on an old apple orchard and continued his work as a painter.

Bernard Zakheim had a daughter, Masha Bernard Zakheim, who became an art historian and published author, specializing in San Francisco murals and works by Diego Rivera.

Bernard Zakheim's daughter Ruth Gottstein was born on 1922 and was portrayed in her father's mural at Coit Tower, and was an activist for the restoration of the Coit murals.

Bernard Zakheim was responsible for restoring many important murals, including a WPA-era mural at San Diego State University, one of Edward Biberman's iconic murals, some of his own father's work, and the work of his father's contemporary artist and activist Victor Arnautoff.

Bernard Zakheim was considered one of the leading San Francisco muralists of the 1930s, alongside Victor Arnautoff.

Bernard Zakheim conceptualized the Coit Tower murals, and as part of that project painted the mural "Library", portraying men reading newspapers and books.

Over four years in the 1930s, Bernard Zakheim painted ten frescoes in Toland Hall Auditorium on the Parnassus campus of the University of California, San Francisco, titled "The History of Medicine in California".

In 1966, Bernard Zakheim created six wooden sculptures for one of the first Holocaust memorials in the United States, for 1969 display at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in Berkeley.

Later in life, Bernard Zakheim was allegedly rejected for some commissions in part because of his left-leaning politics.