Friends Of Photography

Year in, year out, win or lose, Terry Donahue coaches a brand of football best described as ho-hum. Along with my bifocals and my rocking chair and my lap blanket, I have fond memories of the most exciting football I ever saw, coached by those unique masters--Tommy Prothro and Red Sanders. What terrific leaders. Tricky devils with strange, detached senses of humor, they got the most out of their troops with flair, intelligence and imagination.

The funky old Friends of Photography has gone uptown. The 22-year-old association has abandoned its homely digs at the Sunset Cultural Center in Carmel and moved into a smartly refurbished building in downtown San Francisco. Called the Ansel Adams Center, in honor of the organization's most prominent founder, the Friends' new home opened to the public Sunday.

The funky old Friends of Photography has gone uptown. The 22-year-old association has abandoned its homely digs at the Sunset Cultural Center in Carmel and moved into a smartly refurbished building in downtown San Francisco. Called the Ansel Adams Center, in honor of the organization's most prominent founder, the Friends' new home opened to the public Sunday.

Year in, year out, win or lose, Terry Donahue coaches a brand of football best described as ho-hum. Along with my bifocals and my rocking chair and my lap blanket, I have fond memories of the most exciting football I ever saw, coached by those unique masters--Tommy Prothro and Red Sanders. What terrific leaders. Tricky devils with strange, detached senses of humor, they got the most out of their troops with flair, intelligence and imagination.

The Friends of Photography, the world's largest organization devoted to photography as a fine art, is moving from its founding base in Carmel to San Francisco and will establish the Ansel Adams Center in the city as an exhibition, teaching and publishing facility. Adams, who died at age 82 in 1984, was the principal founder of the Friends of Photography 19 years ago and provided funding for it in his will, the organization's executive director, James Alinder, said.

Deborah Klochko, a veteran arts administrator in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been named director of the Museum of Photographic Arts. She becomes only the second director in the San Diego museum's 23-year history, replacing founding director Arthur Ollman, who left in April. He had announced last October that he wanted to pursue other challenges. For the last five years, Klochko has served as director of Visual Literacy Inc.

Charles Desmarais, director of the California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside, has been selected as the new director of the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, a post vacant since William Otton left the position in November. Desmarais, 39, has been in the museum field for 15 years. He was a curator at the Friends of Photography in Carmel in the early '70s and was director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography before assuming his current position.

Ten California arts institutions have been invited to submit proposals to the first round of AT&T's New Art/New Visions program, designed to promote the work of women and artists of color. Five proposals will be selected in March from a nationwide field of 50 candidates. Winners will receive challenge grants ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 to develop and present innovative exhibitions of new art and educational programs, and to acquire artworks.

Officials at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are planning a major reshuffling of the museums' art collections housed at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The plan is to move Old Master paintings and other European artworks currently housed at the De Young museum to the Legion of Honor.

The Community Redevelopment Agency is seeking five qualified individuals to serve on its Arts Advisory Committee, which will play a significant role in planning and implementing the new downtown Art in Public Places Program.

The first major historical survey of American black art to be organized in a decade arrives at the California Afro-American Museum Thursday and continues through June 2. "Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950" was organized by guest curator David C. Driskell for the Bellevue Art Museum and the Art Museum Assn. of America under the sponsorship of Phillip Morris Inc. The show contains 84 paintings, drawings and sculptures by 42 artists.

The Museum of Photographic Arts has been awarded a $400,000 grant to oversee the organization of a series of three exhibitions about immigration and the American Dream. Titled "Points of Entry," the shows are intended to "reveal ways immigrant communities became acculturated into the American mainstream," according to officials at the museum, and will contain work by established photographers as well as recent work by lesser-known artists who are immigrants to the United States.