For our clients’ San Francisco pied-à-terre, they wanted to commission a work that celebrated the city they love while also creating a personal connection to their home within it.
Artist Derek Lynch was a natural choice. His work explores idealized urban landscapes, particularly the distinctive neighborhoods and architecture of San Francisco. Combining digital photography, painting, screen printing, and architectural forms, Lynch reconstructs the familiar into richly layered cityscapes that feel both recognizable and imagined.
For this commission, we gave the artist photographs of our clients’ building, which he incorporated into the composition, placing their pied-à-terre quite literally within the landscape of San Francisco.
The finished piece is exuberant and wonderfully detailed: colorful Victorian façades, neighborhood landmarks, architectural fragments, and the unmistakable silhouette of the city all come together in Lynch’s distinctive visual language. Yet tucked within this expansive portrait of San Francisco is something belonging specifically to our clients.
It is one of the things I love most about commissioning artwork. A piece can be created not simply for a particular wall, but around a story, a place, or a memory that gives it meaning. In this case, the artwork became both a portrait of San Francisco and a personal marker of our clients’ place within it, and a lasting connection between art, home, and city.
