By Amy O’Hair
[Update Dec 2023: some photographs of the quickly rising Gateway building now found at the end of this post.]
As recently revealed in the Ingleside Light, three of City College of San Francisco’s iconic public artworks are slated for relocation into the new Gateway building complex currently under construction at Ocean Avenue and Frida Kahlo Way. The collection of public art belonging to City College is significant and extensive, and the selection of these three works, spanning 65 years, forms a suitably impressive welcome to any student or visitor, and a visual statement about the importance and history of the college.
Let’s take a closer look at the works and the artists.
Bighorn Mountain Ram
In 1940, in the Art In Action ‘pit’ at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE), Dudley Carter skillfully carved the form of a springing ram into a massive redwood trunk using just a woodsman’s axe.

Nearby, up on scaffolding above the ‘pit’, famed muralist Diego Rivera was also at work, painting the panels of Pan-American Unity, which would also later end up on the college’s campus. Rivera was so impressed by Carter that he made the process of the Ram’s creation and its sculptor the centerpiece of the mural. One Dudley Carter was not enough for Rivera; to show what he so admired, he painted three Carters.

Continue reading “Art with Soul and History: City College Works on the Move”