Airplane Photography By William T. Larkins Presented In New Exhibition At San Francisco International Airport

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Airplane Photography by William T. Larkins
Presented in New Exhibition At San Francisco International Airport

SAN FRANCISCO -- A new exhibition at San Francisco International Airport, Arriving SFO: Photographs by William T. Larkins, celebrates four decades of commercial aircraft that have served San Francisco.

Twenty-one black and white images depicting vintage airliners in use from 1939 to 1968 are on view. All of the aircraft were photographed on the airfield at SFO. Some fifteen airlines are represented including well-known carriers American, Continental, Pan Am, Philippine Air Lines, Japan Air Lines, TWA, Qantas, and United. Other regional airlines include Bonanza, California Central, California Hawaiian, Pacific, and cargo carrier Slick Airways. The aircraft types include examples from Boeing, Convair, Curtiss, Douglas, Fairchild, Lockheed, Martin, and other manufacturers.

Well-known aviation photographer and author William T. Larkins is the founder of the American Aviation Historical Society. He participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program at SFO in 1941, and is a graduate of the University of San Francisco. He served three years in the U.S. Army Air Force, graduating from the Army Air Force Photography School at Lowry Field, Colorado and spent three years in aircraft recognition training. After World War II, he joined the Intelligence Section of the AAF Reserve and was a photographic officer in the California Air National Guard. In civilian life, he worked as an audio-visual specialist and administrative assistant at the University of California, Berkeley.

Larkins presents his subjects in brief repose, at rest on the ground and seen from eye level. They are composed as solitary individuals in the way most photographers approach portraiture. While these aircraft are now virtually gone from service, and many of the airlines themselves have long since departed, each conveys the feeling of its time when it carried generations to and from SFO. The photographer has donated the photographs in the exhibition to the aviation collection at San Francisco Airport Museums.

Arriving SFO: Photographs by William T. Larkins is located pre-security in the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, located on the Departures/Ticketing Level of the International Terminal. The exhibition is on view through May 31, 2005. The museum is open Sunday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free of charge. For directions visit www.sfoArts.org/maps/directions.html or call (650) 821-9900.

San Francisco Airport Museums

The San Francisco Airport Museums program was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. Today, the San Francisco Airport Museums features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, a permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation.

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