Young and Talented: SF State's 26th Stillwell Student Exhibition

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN -- The Stillwell Student Exhibition is San Francisco State University’s annual showcase of undergraduate and second-year Master of Fine Arts artwork celebrated in the name of Leo D. Stillwell, an amateur artist who died at the young age of 22 in 1947. Mark Johnson, director of the Fine Arts Gallery at SF State, explained that the generosity of Stillwell’s mother, Josephine, created opportunities for student artists all in loving memory of her son. “When Josephine herself was elderly and aware that her days were short, she contacted San Francisco State University to offer us the collection of about 500 works of her son that she had saved 40 years after his death,” Johnson said. “In 1988, the whole collection came to the University, and she bequeathed her house. It was sold in 1988 for $250,000, and that money endowed a scholarship.”