Inside the Stephen Wirtz Gallery the white walls — once covered in massive photographs, paintings, and prints — are mostly bare. In place of dynamic pieces works there is a new style of multi-media: an assortment of half-opened cardboard boxes scattered beneath the photography, bundles of wooden planks leaning against a statue, and giant piles of framed artworks wrapped in bubble-wrap and packing tape. Unfortunately, this is not part of a new installation — after 35 years, the Stephen Wirtz Gallery is closing its doors.
The undisturbed quiet we experienced in our few moments looking at the lack of pretension, and quality of taste, at the Wirtz Gallery, was a welcomed relief from the bustling street below. The diversity of works we saw in a single visit included a shot of a glamorous woman collapsed beside a moving subway under a hazy aquamarine glow, a series of canvases streaked with abstract black and gray in Mark Katano's current exhibition, Angels' Share, and a model of what seemed to be a verklempt baby bear, but maybe we're just projecting now. The Stephen Wirtz Gallery was the first of its kind in San Francisco. The husband-and-wife couple behind the gallery met in Berkeley when Connie Wirtz was an artist and Steven Wirtz (as we shall call his younger self) studied politics. He says, “Connie taught me how to see.”
We sat down with Stephen Wirtz in his office overlooking a sunny part of Geary that
was once heavily populated with galleries. Out of custom we asked Wirtz, co-founder of the gallery with his wife Connie, to spell his name. “When we moved to San Francisco Connie named the gallery Stephen Wirtz so there was somebody who was the front person, but my name is spelled with a “v”, but she didn't like the graphic. So for many years I didn't really even identify with the gallery because it wasn't my name.” Wirtz added, “I go by the “ph” now because it’s the name of the gallery. In other words, the gallery took over my name. Connie liked the fact that the p came down and the h came up, whereas with v it went straight across.”
