Numinosity

Richard Louis Perri (aka Luckey) artistically captures the soul of urban San Francisco. Eschewing the more guilded scenes of the city, Perri in his paintings seeks to portray forgotten figments of little-known structures. His iconic Red's Java House, for example, displays a cafe of San Francisco's waterfront reminiscent of the city's fabled maritime past, now, alas, no longer. In an instant, the painting conjures up both a lost scenario and a relic of this past. One is able to ingest the continuation of a communitarian gathering-place that was once part of the vital fabric of San Francisco's maritime world. An accomplished colorist, Perri's paintings portray a palette of the city's colors that are not usually identified with San Francisco. The urban world that Perri paints is reminiscent of vibrant Mediterranean cities. San Francisco is a multi-faceted metropolis. Some of its fascinating facets are captured in the art of Richard L. Perri. (Charles A. Fracchia).

Well, it was too good to last, and it didn't. You might date the end of the old watefront with the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when the old Embarcadero Freeway, which was ugly as sin, was torn down. Suddenly, the waterfront and all its denizens--the dives, the flop house hotels, the bars, were out in the sunlight, blinking in a new day. They built a beautiful ball park on King Street, not far from Bouncers, a bar so tough that even bad guys were afraid to rob it. The customers would beat them up. Who needed cops? One by one, the denizens of places like Red's Java House and other waterfront joints were replaced by patrons who wore designer jeans instead of Frisko jeans. A lot of the old coffee joints closed up. The ones that remained became remnants of their former self. The waterfront is much better looking these days, much safer, much different. And much has been lost. (Carl Nolte)

In many of our minds the images of certain places or dwellings occur in dreams or as backdrop to waking experience. Imbued with subtle yet powerful feelings and meanings, they may represent a more ancient and inclusive way of thinking. Richard Louis Perri has worked for many years, continually refining his art. Here he has given us an array of diners which have in bygone years been temporary hearths to unknown numbers of workers, artists, and vagrants who gravitated to them. In his paintings we see them in timelessness, ringing with numinosity. Those of us who were born in San Francisco and have had the good fortune to grow old recall many such places. If there is indeed a universal memory, as some believe, it is by such icons that our city will be remembered. (Sterling Bunnell, M.D.)

In San Francisco. there are small cafés and diners scattered along the waterfront and industrial parts of town known as Java Huts which uniquely emanate the cities strength and character, Numinosity presents paintings of these iconic structures.
Richard Louis Perri was born in Rockville Centre, New York in 1944. He attended the College of Santa Fe, Arizona State University (BA), and the San Francisco Art Institute.

FOREWORD

San Francisco is pretty classy these days, shops selling caviar in the Ferry Building, upscale restaurants on the waterfront, bars that offer three kinds of martinis.

Richard Perri remembers a different San Francisco, a place where the waterfront was full of working men, tough guys, whose idea of an evening cocktail was a shot and a beer after work.

The city--and the waterfront in particular--was full of small coffee joints, where the coffee was strong and black and a cheeseburger was haute cuisine.

A different city, Perri remembers, easy to get around, tough to dislike. Parts of the waterfront were shabby and run down and you had to be careful at night, watch your step. It could be rough, but it was as real as a ten cent baloney sandwich.

Perri started painting this San Francisco just before it vanished. He hung out in places where you washed down a hamburger with a Budweiser, and the literary life consisted of reading the Sporting Green. He visited junk yards full of old streetcars, and streets lined with rusty railroad tracks.

The city was changing and everybody knew it. The ships were going to Oakland, and along with them the old warehouses, the drayage companies, and the men who worked there. So he painted this world.

This book is a sampling of what he saw. San Francisco only yesterday.

--- Carl Nolte

San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer