Monday, Apr. 14, 1952

The Night Side

Joseph Americus Oneto, San Francisco bachelor, had a problem seven years ago. He worked a 44-hour week as a clerk in the city water department, but that still left a lot of spare time, and he was "sick of sitting in bars." Joe decided that the solution to his heavy-hanging leisure was painting. He began spending his weekends haunting San Francisco's galleries, and devoted his evenings to reading books on oil-painting technique and experimenting with brush and canvas. By 1950, he had taught himself enough to win the $1,000 first prize at the California State Fair. Last week 40-year-old Joe Oneto (rhymes with no veto) got his first one-man show in San Francisco's Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Since Joe's painting day does not begin until most artists have put away their brushes, he has taken to painting San Francisco at night. He finds that when the lights come on, streets and buildings have a special "atmosphere not found in the cold, harsh light of day." Joe is not much interested in painting people. "You don't find people around the street lamps --especially in out-of-the-way places. It'd be phony to put them in. A guy and a gal would distract from the painting--they'd look all gooey and drippy."

As a result, Joe's San Francisco is a lonely place. Its deserted streets are eerily illuminated by glowing jar-shaped street lights ("my trademark"); deep shadows surround ghostly, luminous walls. Empty cable cars creep along phosphorescent tracks. To get his subjects, Oneto prowls San Francisco's hills and back streets, goes back night after night to verify troublesome details. On his jaunts, Oneto keeps an eye peeled for old-fashioned houses, especially those with plenty of gingerbread: "I'm only interested in San Francisco architecture before the fire." A good example of Oneto's preference is the turreted clapboard mansion in Circa 1880. "I liked the angular shadows the light made, and the way it hit the bay window."

Oneto pictures sometimes have a slick, posterish quality, rely too often on monotonous tricks of contrast for their dramatic effect. But at their best, as in his bleak Two Houses, they catch a lot of the mystery and melancholy of U.S. cities in the small hours.

Does he plan to try daytime painting some time? No, says Joe. "Why work the same side of the street as everybody else?"

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