In the summer of 1964, San Francisco was ground zero for a historic culture clash as the site of the 28th Republican National Convention and the launch of the Beatles’ first North American tour. In the midst of the excitement, a young photographer was snapping pictures not of the politicians or musicians, but of the people on the streets.

Arthur Tress made more than nine hundred negatives in San Francisco during the spring and summer of 1964—here's your chance to see them...

Exulting in juxtapositions of the mundane and the absurd, Tress captured the chaos of civil rights demonstrations and political rallies, the idiosyncratic moments of San Francisco’s locals, the peculiar contents of shop windows, a miscellany of odd signs and much more.

Tress developed and printed his black-and-white negatives in a communal darkroom in the city’s Castro district before departing San Francisco in the fall of 1964. The vintage prints were packed away in his sister’s house, coming to light again only in 2009. The rediscovery of this forgotten body of work inspired the photographer to revisit his early negatives, andArthur Tress: San Francisco 1964is the delightful outcome. This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The catalogue is published with the assistance of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment for Publications.