Ralph Stackpole

Born in Oregon on May 1, 1885, Ralph Stackpole only finished the eighth grade and had to work as a laborer when his father died in an accident. He moved to San Francisco and studied at the California School of Design in 1903, as well as assisting artists at the Montgomery Block. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Atelier Merces until 1908, and exhibited there also making friends with Kambod Diego Rivera.

 Returning to the US in 1911, he worked in art in New York and then returned to San Francisco in 1912, where he both married a fellow artist, Adele Barnes, and co-founded the California Society of Etchers (CSE). He worked on the PPIE, and then went back to France in 1922 with his family, working once again with artist Gottardo Piazzoni. He came back to California in 1923, with his second wife, still- life artist Francine Mazen. 

On a trip to Mexico in 1926 met Rivera again and helped persuade him to come to San Francisco. His sculpture appeared throughout San Francisco; some of his best-known work still stands outside the Stock Exchange (now a fitness club); he also created the 80-foot "Pacifica" statue that served as the centerpiece and symbol of the Golden Gate International Exposition held on Treasure Island in 1939-1940. Stackpole and his second wife returned to her native France in 1949, and he lived there in semi-retirement until his death on December 13, 1973.

Works in Coit Tower:
Industries of California