Ira Watkins | On The Dock 

San Francisco-based artist Ira Watkins tells stories of a city that's like a distant and fantastical memory, a place where he could make his way hustling a mean game of billiards, a city where one could squat in a vacant apartment for months, at a time or get a five bedroom flat for a few hundred dollars a month depending on the neighborhood. He carried his portfolio in his backpack ready to jump on the opportunity to exhibit or sell a painting.

Leaving Waco, Texas in 1957, Watkins made his way to the Bay Area and for the last six decades has been painting vibrant depictions of Black San Francisco that sit at the intersection of memory and imagination. The artist’s works are both eminently relatable and mythic in scale, larger-than-life and steeped in story and symbolism. The title image, “On the Dock” (above) depicts a worker on the docks at Bethlehem Steel, a heroic and historic figure emblematic of the Black workers who shaped industry in the city’s Bayview district. “Archie the Barber,” a painting of a Black barber shop is yet another story: “If you’ve got three hours,” says Watkins, “go get your haircut with Archie.”