June is now just around the corner, and - for San Franciscans - June is synonymous with Pride, the joyous month-long jamboree that culminates in the 52nd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade. San Francisco is one of the few cities that requires little in the way of preparation for Pride.
LGBTQ+ culture and history are baked into its urban fabric, some of the most prominent manifestations of such cultural vitality being the queer artistic excellence lining San Francisco’s bustling streets in the form of murals. We’ve assembled a list of some of the most striking murals - some easy to find and others more concealed - fashioned by the city’s preeminent queer artists to help kindle your Pride flame as June’s many festivities approach.
See also: How To Celebrate Pride Month In San Francisco
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1800 Market St
Painted by the two-artist team Simon Malvaez and Juan Manuel Carmona, Queeroes is an abstract pop-art tribute to historical queer excellence. The exuberant, polychromatic composition features the likeness of many LGBTQIA+ figures in the form of silhouettes: author James Baldwin, artist Frida Kahlo, musician Freddie Mercury, and famed San Francisco activist Harvey Milk all make a cameo in the piece, which you can find on the exterior of the SF LGBT Center on Market Street.
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493 Sanchez St
Juanita MORE! ranks among San Francisco’s most beloved drag queens. Whether DJ-ing electric events or raising money for local queer-oriented non-profits, MORE!’s unabashed effervescence radiates throughout the city. You can find her artistically enshrined in multiple murals across San Francisco, though we’re platforming Juan Manuel Carmona’s regal rendering of the queen herself in illustrious black-and-white, her figure framed by a rainbow flag tumbling in the wind. Find it just a block away from Dolores Park on Sanchez Street.
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298 11th St
Occupying what used to be San Francisco bathhouse, OASIS is the city’s mammoth-sized cabaret-themed gay nightclub on the outer walls of which is a stunningly elaborate mural created by a team including respected local artists Serge Gay Jr. as well as Manuel Carmona and Malvaez. The mural, apropos of its location on the exterior of a cabaret club, is a kaleidoscopic assemblage of jazzy 1930s iconography and contemporary drag aesthetics.
View this post on Instagram
Between Market St & Ellis St
Comprising six blocks of the San Francisco’s Tenderloin area is world’s first legally defined transgender district, founded by three Black trans women in 2017. The Transgender District now spearheads several community outreach projects, including a trans tenant protection program. The area boasts a sprawling mural painted directly on the street by Kin Folkz, Xara Thustra, and Sen Mendez which magnificently declares “Black Trans Lives Matter” in bold text shot through with the colors of the trans flag.
See also: Liminal Space Is San Francisco's New Trans-Centering Gallery
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653 Commercial St
Serge Gay Jr., the local queer artist who made contributions to both the OASIS mural and the series of Juanita MORE! murals, has an arresting project that can’t be found on a stroll through the city’s many mural-trimmed alleys. Nestled behind the bar of the Hotel San Francisco, a dazzlingly extravagant lounge and hotel, is a psychedelic rendering of the Transamerica Tower submerged in a sea of bright green tropical flora. The bar has since been dubbed “the kissing lounge”, as many visitors use the mural as a glamorous backdrop for kissing pics.
View this post on Instagram
100 Larkin St
Our last stop is another hidden gem resting inconspicuously on a roof of the San Francisco Public Library. Partners Mark Evans and Charley Brown, over the course of a year-and-a-half, designed this staggeringly detailed ceiling mural to evoke the neoclassical period. The piece - entitled Into the Light - depicts many historical figures either known or thought to have been queer; among them are classical philosopher Aristotle, revered sculptor Donatello, inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci, and poet Walt Whitman. This work is informed by a logic characteristic of queer aesthetics wherein historical figures and events are “queered”, which is to say are spectacularly re-imagined as queer, an artistic strategy which helps combats the violent erasure of queerness from history.
Before June formally commences, it is worth acknowledging queerness does not stop and start with Pride Month, and there is no better example than these murals, which can be found year-round colorfully embellishing the city, a beautiful testifying to San Francisco’s robust, enduring LGBTQIA+ culture.
See also: The Ultimate Guide To The Castro's Gay Bars & Clubs
Photography by: Nadine Shaabana/Unsplash
June is now just around the corner, and - for San Franciscans - June is synonymous with Pride, the joyous month-long jamboree that culminates in the 52nd Annual San Francisco Pride Parade. San Francisco is one of the few cities that requires little in the way of preparation for Pride.
LGBTQ+ culture and history are baked into its urban fabric, some of the most prominent manifestations of such cultural vitality being the queer artistic excellence lining San Francisco’s bustling streets in the form of murals. We’ve assembled a list of some of the most striking murals - some easy to find and others more concealed - fashioned by the city’s preeminent queer artists to help kindle your Pride flame as June’s many festivities approach.
See also: How To Celebrate Pride Month In San Francisco
View this post on Instagram
1800 Market St
Painted by the two-artist team Simon Malvaez and Juan Manuel Carmona, Queeroes is an abstract pop-art tribute to historical queer excellence. The exuberant, polychromatic composition features the likeness of many LGBTQIA+ figures in the form of silhouettes: author James Baldwin, artist Frida Kahlo, musician Freddie Mercury, and famed San Francisco activist Harvey Milk all make a cameo in the piece, which you can find on the exterior of the SF LGBT Center on Market Street.
View this post on Instagram
493 Sanchez St
Juanita MORE! ranks among San Francisco’s most beloved drag queens. Whether DJ-ing electric events or raising money for local queer-oriented non-profits, MORE!’s unabashed effervescence radiates throughout the city. You can find her artistically enshrined in multiple murals across San Francisco, though we’re platforming Juan Manuel Carmona’s regal rendering of the queen herself in illustrious black-and-white, her figure framed by a rainbow flag tumbling in the wind. Find it just a block away from Dolores Park on Sanchez Street.
View this post on Instagram
298 11th St
Occupying what used to be San Francisco bathhouse, OASIS is the city’s mammoth-sized cabaret-themed gay nightclub on the outer walls of which is a stunningly elaborate mural created by a team including respected local artists Serge Gay Jr. as well as Manuel Carmona and Malvaez. The mural, apropos of its location on the exterior of a cabaret club, is a kaleidoscopic assemblage of jazzy 1930s iconography and contemporary drag aesthetics.
View this post on Instagram
Between Market St & Ellis St
Comprising six blocks of the San Francisco’s Tenderloin area is world’s first legally defined transgender district, founded by three Black trans women in 2017. The Transgender District now spearheads several community outreach projects, including a trans tenant protection program. The area boasts a sprawling mural painted directly on the street by Kin Folkz, Xara Thustra, and Sen Mendez which magnificently declares “Black Trans Lives Matter” in bold text shot through with the colors of the trans flag.
See also: Liminal Space Is San Francisco's New Trans-Centering Gallery
View this post on Instagram
653 Commercial St
Serge Gay Jr., the local queer artist who made contributions to both the OASIS mural and the series of Juanita MORE! murals, has an arresting project that can’t be found on a stroll through the city’s many mural-trimmed alleys. Nestled behind the bar of the Hotel San Francisco, a dazzlingly extravagant lounge and hotel, is a psychedelic rendering of the Transamerica Tower submerged in a sea of bright green tropical flora. The bar has since been dubbed “the kissing lounge”, as many visitors use the mural as a glamorous backdrop for kissing pics.
View this post on Instagram
100 Larkin St
Our last stop is another hidden gem resting inconspicuously on a roof of the San Francisco Public Library. Partners Mark Evans and Charley Brown, over the course of a year-and-a-half, designed this staggeringly detailed ceiling mural to evoke the neoclassical period. The piece - entitled Into the Light - depicts many historical figures either known or thought to have been queer; among them are classical philosopher Aristotle, revered sculptor Donatello, inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci, and poet Walt Whitman. This work is informed by a logic characteristic of queer aesthetics wherein historical figures and events are “queered”, which is to say are spectacularly re-imagined as queer, an artistic strategy which helps combats the violent erasure of queerness from history.
Before June formally commences, it is worth acknowledging queerness does not stop and start with Pride Month, and there is no better example than these murals, which can be found year-round colorfully embellishing the city, a beautiful testifying to San Francisco’s robust, enduring LGBTQIA+ culture.
See also: The Ultimate Guide To The Castro's Gay Bars & Clubs
Photography by: Nadine Shaabana/Unsplash
