For artist Charles H. Trapolin and his partner Stanley Morris, it wasn’t a question as to whether they should open a gallery in San Francisco, so much as how wide its focus should be. Would it be an exclusive den for showing off Trapolin’s eye-catching works, a walk-through storage space for pieces he and Morris have collected in their travels, or simply a brand-new playground for local artists to showcase their work, some for the first time?
Eventually, they decided to do all three. The result was Bounty, their North Beach gallery that opened in October.
“The work we feature has been carefully acquired by traveling and living abroad,” Morris says, explaining how what’s in the gallery isn’t that different from San Francisco itself: “The work we feature has been carefully acquired by traveling and living abroad. It is eclectic, international, and culturally diverse.”
The city’s art scene is renowned for innovation and its incendiary nature. It’s the birthplace of lauded works by Wayne Thiebaud and Walter Keane (or the uncredited Margaret Keane) and has been home to graffiti displays that have come and gone since the Gold Rush. It showcased aggregated-from-private collections works by anti-establishment artist Banksy in a touring exhibition.
Yet in addition to high-donor institutions (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), small, independent galleries are proliferating, from controversial window displays of Artists’ Television Access in the Mission (operating since 1984) to the local branch of the contemporary art organization Kadist.
For Trapolin, who’s lived in San Francisco with partner Morris since 1980, the idea of creating a space for his work was a long time coming, as was the choice to plant stakes in North Beach.
“We were very specific about not going to the Union Square area,” Morris says, in response to a query about whether he considered Geary Street, home to tourist-friendly galleries. “Art buyers are seeking out retail options in the city’s neighborhoods, particularly for the eclectic original art and art objects we are featuring at Bounty. We were very specific about looking for commercial space in the North Beach/Jackson Square area when leasing space for Bounty. We knew there would be synergy with the surrounding retail environment. And with the downturn in commercial real estate, we knew there would be affordable space appropriate for converting to an art gallery.”
Bounty opened with paintings by Trapolin beside pieces gathered from their travels over the past 40-plus years; journeys that often kept them away from San Francisco in the past 15 years.
When they decided to return and open a gallery, it was clear what had changed since they arrived ahead of the Reagan era.
“Having moved here in the early 1980s, when it was affordable to both live and have a working studio in the city, we are clear that the lack of affordable living and working space that artists have faced for some time now has greatly affected the quality of the art scene,” Morris says, adding that he and Trapolin want Bounty to be viewed as a safe space for both artists and patrons.
Jonathan Carver Moore had the same goal when he opened his namesake gallery in March. A lack of diversity in the mostly white gallery scene inspired him to take action. The openly Black, queer owner chose the Tenderloin because, despite the area’s notoriety, it’s home to the country’s first recognized Transgender District — a quality more important than monetary consideration.
“I really cared a lot more about being in a neighborhood that was a central hub to individuals of various socioeconomic backgrounds,” he says, noting that his gallery a 10-minute walk away from the Asian Art Museum, SFMOMA and the Museum of the African Diaspora.
He also was interested in introducing art to Tenderloin residents: “I wanted to make sure that people who are fluent [in fine art], can, of course, come to the gallery, but I also wanted to have the opportunity for individuals who may have never stepped foot inside of an art gallery to see it in their neighborhood and then wanting to be a part of it.”
Moore was able to establish the gallery with help from Steffan Schlarb and Brandon Romer of Schlomer Haus Gallery, which opened in the Castro in 2021.
Schlarb, Moore says, “was very forthcoming with information and sharing about the steps and what I needed to do and what I should be thinking about.”
Characterizing San Francisco’s tight-knit art community, Moore and the Bounty owners support other artists during their time off.
Morris and Trapolin visit large institutions and small galleries, saying, “For us it is not an either/or. We are culturally inspired by the work we see in larger galleries and institutions. They also provide us with the opportunity to understand what is trending in the commercial art space. Smaller neighborhood galleries provide the opportunity to see cutting-edge and lesser-known artists.”
Moore echoes the sentiment, with his favorite being the Museum of the African Diaspora. He says, “It’s one that I think is often not mentioned as much as it should be. So, I find my time being spent there a lot, and revisiting their exhibitions.” He also mentions SFMOMA, Cecilia Chia’s gallery Glass Rice, Jessica Silverman, and, recently, Adrian Burrell’s exhibition “Venus Blues” at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation.
Though Moore’s gallery has been open less than a year, one of his featured artists, Zanele Muholi, a Black South African, has an upcoming exhibition at SFMOMA running from January through August 2024.
Also in January, Moore and his mentors from Schlomer Haus will attend San Francisco’s 2024 FOG Design + Art Fair.
Asked what they want patrons to understand about their art and San Francisco, Morris says he and Trapolin want “to create a warm and inviting space, filled with art to live with. We are intentionally breaking out of the white wall gallery experience as we believe that buyers will be inspired by the setting we have created.”
Moore, seeking accessibility, says, “I want people to come into my space knowing that we can have a conversation about the artwork. Let’s have a dialogue around the artwork when it comes to the subject matter, the process, the pricing strategy, the transparency of what it’s like to be an artist working with a gallery. I feel like that can also be applied to San Francisco as a whole. I think that we meet you where you are and we’re open to having many conversations about the art scene, and that it’s not something that needs to be so pretentious; and it’s something that’s much more inviting than it appears on the surface.”
Bounty is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday-Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays and by appointment at 609 Pacific Ave., San Francisco. Visit bountysf.com.
Jonathan Carver Moore is open is noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment at 966 Market St., San Francisco. Visit jonathancarvermoore.com.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, San Francisco Examiner and more. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.