Oscar Depre Wiseman
April 23, 1934 – April 28, 2022
Oscar Depre (Big O) Wiseman died in San Francisco, CA., at the age of 88 due to dementia. Born in El Dorado, Arkansas to ED Wiseman and Leona Née Davis Wiseman. Oscar was preceded in death by parents, older brother Clarence Wiseman, sisters May Delle Crisp, Mable Rea Wiseman, Ninevad Williams, and younger brother Robert Lee Wiseman.
The family originated in El Dorado, Arkansas. With an offer of employment in San Francisco, CA., (1943) ED and Leona packed up the family and headed west to California.
Oscar was the third of seven children and was fiercely independent since birth. He attended San Francisco public schools and graduated from Mission High School. Oscar attended San Francisco City College and obtained his certificate as a certified auto mechanic. He went on to establish a cleaning business for downtown offices in San Francisco. Once given a lease on a Union 76 Gas Station on Golden Gate Ave and Webster Street in SF. Ca., (1960-1976), he became a pillar within the Fillmore Community. The gas station became a family affair of laughter and hard work every weekend. The Big O became an established figure within the Fillmore Community. The Pink Palace, Smacks Diner, El Bethel & Second Union Baptist Church members, and staff at The Sunday Reporter, all utilized his mechanical expertise. The man could fix an automobile.
Oscar excellent at baseball in high school, never putting down his catcher’s glove. Oscar turned down an opportunity to play professional minor league baseball in order to stay local to provide and care for his young family. Still, he never let go of his love and devotion for baseball and played several years in the Negro Semi-Professional League in Northern California. The team and their families would travel throughout Northern California for regular-season games, tournaments, and playoff competitions.
Oscar was inducted into the United States Army and stationed in Alaska. He played baseball for the Army and he was an excellent shortstop. Oscar also received numerous certificates in the military for auto mechanics. His wish was to return to Alaska and see the countryside again. Unfortunately, he was not able to follow through.
When redevelopment took over and destroyed businesses and housing within the Fillmore community, Oscar’s gas station was also placed on the chopping block.
Wiseman’s Moving Company came about and was instrumental in placing all new appliances into the newly developed low-income housing within the Western Addition Community. Wiseman’s Moving Company closed its doors in 1990.
Oscar retired to his home on Gilman Avenue in San Francisco, CA., finding pleasure in long drives seeing the state of California.
Oscar Depre Wiseman was blessed with five children, Cynthia Wiseman-Kelly, Denise Thompson, Renna Neely, Christopher Wiseman, Oscar Wiseman Jr., and stepchildren Alonzo Bennett and Elisa Simone VanBuren. He has 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. He leaves behind his brother General Grant Wiseman, of San Francisco, CA., and a host of nephews, nieces, cousins, and friends.
A more traditional memorial service to celebrate his life will be held when Covid 19 subsides and larger events are safe again.

Published by San Francisco Chronicle on May 25, 2022.

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In an 1857 photograph so epic and populous that it resembles a history painting, Oscar Rejlander presents an allegory of the tension between virtue and debauchery. On display at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, a bearded sage escorts two young men onto the stage of life. An eager youth crouches to the right, toward an abundance of temptations: drinking, gambling, and a swarm of dreamy nudes. The other marches, eyes closed with delightful sobriety, towards a future of study and good works. There, patients are cured and penitents are acquitted, workers work with hammers and saws, and a scholar stabs a globe with his compass.

Your choice, the old man suggests: satisfy the body or uplift the soul?

As a bit of a sophisticated Victorian moral code, Rejlander’s “Two Ways of Life” is ambiguous. Yes, the path of devotion is its own reward and all that, but the tableau makes the voluptuous side appear much more appealing. If the sin has disadvantages, the photographer does not respond to it. Even the grizzled prophet in the center seems undecided; he tends to lust in one version and to light in another.

Rejlander, who began as a painter in his native Sweden and then settled in England as a photographer in the mid-19th century, was one of the forgotten pioneers of this art form. A trickster, darkroom virtuoso, and technological convertor, he had never had a retrospective until the Getty Center released 150 prints with insightful insights into his techniques. For example, “Two Ways of Life” is a composite of more than 30 negatives that were seamlessly joined together more than a century before Photoshop first shone in the eyes of a programmer.

The debut of the work provoked allegations of impropriety and humiliation. One critic praised Rejlander’s technical ability, but claimed that “such a photo has neither art nor decency”. It was one thing to idealize a bare Venus, as painters had done for centuries, and quite another to “see the public realistically and in great detail photographs of naked prostitutes in flesh and blood.”

‘The Juggler’ (around 1865) © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

‘Mourning’ (1864) © Museum of Fine Arts of San Francisco

Some saw the picture as an attack by industrial production on the realm of the handmade. “Works of high art cannot be carried out by a mechanical device,” snorted one critic.

Prince Albert loved the epic tableau, and Queen Victoria bought a print for each of the royal residences: Windsor, Osborne House, and Balmoral, where it was intended for the Prince’s wardrobe. Rejlander’s most famous work often appears in the history of photography as a vulgar copy of Victorian kitsch. In the 20th century, sober modernists evaded a path they found bathing. Compound narratives fell into disrepute, and artists endorsed Alfred Stieglitz’s definition of “linear photography” – “brutally direct, without flicker; free of tricks and any ‘ism’. “

This retrospective offers a counter-narrative that suddenly appears contemporary. Postmodern practitioners with little interest in authenticity – such as Gregory Crewdson or Cindy Sherman – have taken up the theater model. And digital tinkering has finally shattered any remaining belief that the camera is telling the unvarnished truth. The Getty celebrates a sensitivity that undermines strong realism with sentimentality, but that is also heartbreaking, hilarious, and tech-savvy.

‘Non Angeli sed Angli’ (1854–56) © Emile Askey

Rejlander was at his best taking pictures. He approached the subjects the way a director treats actors and persuaded them to project emotions as if they were on stage. He was so effective that Darwin recruited him to document the full spectrum of human facial expressions.

For his part, Rejlander pushed children, friends, neighbors and passers-by into his studio and dressed them from his well-stocked costume box. There he could control the lighting and take his time – and later, if necessary, exchange a background from the Scottish Highlands or a charming stream. His favorite subjects were the most available: his wife, his dog, and himself. The three appear with reassuring regularity. “Happy Days (Returning from the Fair)”, for example, shows Oscar and Mary arm in arm in matching hats.

‘Ah!’ (1865) © The J. Paul Getty Museum

‘Mental Distress’ (1871) © Victoria and Albert Museum

This picture suggests that even the most brazen forgery can have a real streak: an expression of marital affection binds the two spouses together. As Thespian-Manqué, Rejlander assumes a variety of comical poses, inexplicably sits at the table with a handkerchief on his head or stares at his desk, while a parrot seems to mock his profession as nothing but stupid facial expressions.

Rejlander adored Garibaldi, the Italian nationalist and revolutionary, with whom he bore an uncanny resemblance. He posed as the wounded Patriot more than once, comforted and encouraged by Hope (his wife again). In a quasi-religious image, St. Peter’s Basilica hovers in a balloon over his head, a vision of the liberator’s dream of wresting Rome from the Pope.

‘Hard Times’ (1860) © George Eastman Museum

Like Garibaldi, Rejlander thought he was a man of the people and went out into the streets to find subjects among the poor. His chimney sweeps, organ grinder and laundresses are marked by cliché and condescension, similar to Dickens or Doré in their most kitschy form. But his depictions of children almost always hit the right note. The boys in their ragged clothes and bare feet maintain dignity, beauty and grace despite their circumstances – or, to be more precise, despite the circumstances Rejlander created for them. We see “Poor Joe”, folded in his rags to seek protection from a brutal London night that is only visible through the photographer’s affectionate sympathy for elegant society. The same boy appears in another picture during the day and rages in undisguised exuberance.

‘Night in Town (Poor Jo, Homeless)’, (before 1862; printed after 1879) © National Gallery of Canada

Self-portrait with a parrot (c1865) © NPG

Rejlander was one of the earliest advocates of photography to realize it could rival painting, and he made his strongest case in an 1866 portrait of Mary Constable and her brother. The young couple crouch thoughtfully, temple to temple gazing at a fireplace backstage and faces lit by the embers. Actually, Rejlander probably used a more reliable source – sunlight streaming through a window – but the resulting double portrait has a kind of romantic glamor that the film studios would eventually perfect all over again.

Had he lived a few generations later, Rejlander would surely have made it straight to Los Angeles. It’s good to know that it has finally arrived.

“Mary Constable and Her Brother” (1866)

Until June 9th getty.edu

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OAKLAND (BCN) – A coalition is pushing a campaign to recall Alameda District Attorney Nancy O’Malley after she has decided not to seek re-election.

O’Malley announced Tuesday that she will not seek a fourth term in 2023.

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The Justice 4 Oscar Grant Coalition continues the recall campaign after O’Malley decided not to prosecute BART cop Anthony Pirone for his part in the death of Oscar Grant III. Grant died after BART policeman Johannes Mehserle shot him dead on New Year’s Day 2009 at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland.

“O’Malley did not deserve to be considered for the district attorney’s office because she has shown her willingness to disregard the law and moral standards in police killing black people,” said Rev. Wanda Johnson, Grant’s mother made a statement.

“There is a mountain of evidence to prove this criminal murder case, but O’Malley has refused to put that evidence to a jury,” said Johnson.

Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for murder. Pirone kneeled at Grant before shooting and used a racist bow multiple times while holding Grant to the ground. Pirone later said he was repeating what Grant said to him.

A 2009 report by former Oakland City attorney Jayne Williams and then attorney Kimberly Colwell of the law firm Meyers Nave, published a decade later, stated, “The overly aggressive and unreasonable acts and behaviors of officers Pirone, violating guidelines and acceptable standards, contributed significantly to the escalation of the hostile and volatile atmosphere as the incident progressed. “

It was this report that led Grant’s family to ask O’Malley to reopen the case. The Grant family claims Pirone played a bigger role in the death of their family member than just holding the young man to the ground.

Pirone brutally attacked Grant and held him on the BART platform so Mehserle could shoot him in the back, according to the coalition.

The charge against Pirone would have to be a premeditated murder as the statute of limitations for the lesser murder charges has expired.

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“While Pirone’s overly aggressive behavior contributed to the chaotic nature of what was happening on the BART platform,” prosecutors said in a report of their decision not to prosecute Pirone, “there was no evidence that Pirone knew in advance Mehserle would go. ” Shoot Mr. Grant. “

Elected officials from across the Bay Area have called on O’Malley to bring charges, including Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Oakland and now Attorney General Rob Bonta.

O’Malley told Johnson April 29 that prosecutors would not bring charges against Pirone.

Once O’Malley’s term expires, her successor could bring premeditated murder charges against Pirone as the statute of limitations for first degree murder does not expire.

Additional support for an investigation into Pirone came from Keith Carson, the Alameda County’s board member who is now president of the board and the board himself, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Oakland City Council, Oakland Police Commission and its own board of directors by BART.

Still, the coalition said, O’Malley will not weigh a jury.

The coalition believes that O’Malley is not fit for office and does not want her to retire with benefits and possibly ordain her successor.

“Nancy O’Malley’s recall will not only guarantee that O’Malley will never be able to obstruct the judiciary again, but will also send a strong message to anyone who wants to become Alameda County DA that the people of this county that Oakland headquarters will not vote for anyone who has not committed to taking the Oscar Grant case to justice, ”said Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter and longtime supporter of the Justice for Oscar Grant movement, in a statement.

The coalition said the recall efforts are gaining ground.

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San Francisco is now a city passionately divided on many issues, from naming schools to whether or not the Ferris wheel in Golden Gate Park should keep spinning. In 1882, the arrival of a 28-year-old Irish dandy was the main cause of furore in the city.

More than a century before gay marriage was legalized in the city, Oscar Wilde visited lavender pants and sealskin cuffs and wowed the city with his biting wit and ivory cane, though many tried to tear him down from the moment his Italian brogues kicked off the ferry.

The year-long tour of America – supposedly a lecture tour on aesthetics and interior design – got off to a memorable start when he told New York customs agents that he had “nothing to explain but his genius.” This Kanye-type selfishness was a gift to newspaper people and arguably gave birth to the concept of modern celebrity.

The Irish poet and playwright has been described as the most sardonic joke in the history of the English language. And when Wilde made it from New York to Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, and eventually California, the San Franciscans prepared for the arrival of the one-man show.

Oscar Wilde in New York City, 1882.

Thousands gathered at Platt’s Hall (now destroyed) on Montgomery Street to hear Wilde’s thoughts on the artistic world, though most of them just wanted to take a look at the flamboyant poet.

Everyone in San Francisco apparently had an opinion, as the San Francisco Chronicle noted: “The city is divided into two camps, those who thought Wilde was a committed speaker and an original thinker, and those who thought he was the most pretentious fraud. ever committed to a groaning audience. “

During his stay in the city, Wilde stayed at the Palace Hotel, the largest hotel in California at the time. At night he drank everyone under the table (absinthe is his drink of choice) at the Bohemian Club – the secret brotherhood also known for ceremonial owl sacrifices and endless conspiracy theories. “I have never seen so many well-dressed, well-fed, business-like-looking Bohemians in my life,” he later wrote of society.

Between lectures, he took the ferry from San Francisco to Oakland and back, and was met by thundering crowds everywhere who worshiped women and bitter newspaper people.

Most of the criticism against Wilde came from reporters and their barely hidden homophobia.

As writer Bill Lipsky wrote in the San Francisco Bay Times, ancient American archetypes gave way to a more urban “tender ideal” of masculinity in the age of the strong peasant and the sturdy pioneer. But Wilde’s aesthetic values ​​- a love of art, beauty, taste, and pleasure – were still a little too much for American men and promoted a “dreaded femininity”.

In a whirlwind of scathing comments, reporters excelled in mocking him gleefully. Stories from this period show that educated men viewed his new style with disdain while women adored him. The City of San Francisco Museum writes that long tight pants, tall stiff collars, and full mustaches were commonplace in San Francisco by the 1880s, and Wilde’s radical short breeches, long silk stockings, and shoulder-length haircut were apparently an affront to American society.

While sexuality could not be discussed in inches in the 1880s, reporters intentionally chose their words to convey that Wilde was “unmanly” and “unnatural”. A Newark newspaper described his eyebrows as “the type desired by women,” while the New York Times described him as a “mom’s boy” with “affected femininity.”

Even the twist of one of the greatest speakers in the English language has been ridiculed in the press. Reporters were appalled by wild expressions such as “too absolute”, “just too too” and “do you long?”

This cartoon, published during his visit to the San Francisco Wasp, needs some explanation but is not flattering to the Irish poet.

“The Modern Messiah,” The San Francisco Wasp, March 31, 1882.

The San Francisco Wasp

The devastating work of art, which was published in the now defunct satirical weekly magazine during his visit, is titled “The Modern Messiah” and features many well-known members of the SF Society who attended his first lecture in town.

The sunflowers are the symbol of Wilde’s aesthetic movement. The sack of money alludes to the $ 5,000 fee he received for his American tour, and the padlock depicts the theater manager, Charles E. Locke, who is in charge of booking the poet’s lectures in town.

Amid this gruesome flurry of slander, Wilde may have protested his own famous words: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and it’s not talked about.”

On April 8, 1882, Wilde left San Francisco after a two-week visit and would never return. After Wilde’s life had seen great success and recognition over the next ten years for the publication of his masterpieces “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Importance of Seriousness”, Wilde’s life would take many cruel turns and end in imprisonment and poverty.

In 1895, he was sentenced to two years in Reading Prison for gross indecency towards men, a story that made a front-page cover in San Francisco.

He would never live freely in England again and spent his final years in poverty in France before dying of meningitis at the age of 46.
Oscar Wilde’s visit to San Francisco – a city he described as “the most beautiful setting in a city except Naples” – shaped the author.

As he later wrote in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, “It’s a strange thing, but anyone who disappears is supposed to be seen in San Francisco. It has to be a delightful city with all the attractions of the next world.”

More San Francisco history

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