"cafe zoetrope" San Francisco Columbus Tower American Zoetrope film studio woodblock woodcut print printmaking bay area contemporary artist charles spitzack

This print depicts Columbus Tower, also known as the Sentinel Building, the verdigris-domed flatiron at the convergence of Columbus Avenue, Kearny, and Pacific in San Francisco's North Beach. The building houses Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope production company and Cafe Zoetrope at street level. Its triangular footprint, copper dome, and position at the boundary between North Beach and the Financial District make it a recognizable San Francisco landmark—a contemporary urban subject in the spirit of the architectural cityscapes that Hasui and Yoshida favored in shin-hanga. The narrow vertical proportion of the structure suits the oban tate-e format common in landscape mokuhanga, allowing a strong silhouette against bokashi sky. Mokuhanga's water-based pigments lend themselves to the muted greens and warm building tones called for by the subject. Within Spitzack's practice, the print documents Bay Area architectural character alongside his Legion of Honor image, sketching out a small body of work centered on San Francisco's built environment rendered through Japanese printmaking technique.