A Very Strange Alcatraz Painting From a 1973 KQED Auction Is Back Up for Sale

Back in 1973, as KQED was preparing for its now infamous annual televised fundraising auction, a call was sent out to the public.

“Dear artists,” it read. “Please send us artwork that we can sell so we can keep our lights on.” (Yes, I am paraphrasing.) “Oh, and if you would be so kind, we would like that art to imagine the future of Alcatraz, inspired by the recent Native American occupation. Thaaaanks.”

That year — as donors have kindly done every year of KQED’s existence — supporters of the station contributed in droves. Ultimately, 1,100 donations of art were made to the auction. This being the early 1970s, the materials used covered every base imaginable (including but not limited to: stained glass, stoneware, collagraphs, metal, paper collage, batik, tie dye, plexiglass and wood). Fifty-seven of those pieces were so striking they wound up starring in their own exhibition at the Crown-Zellerbach building, now more commonly known as One Bush Plaza.

A team of local critics including the San Francisco Chronicle’s Thomas Albright and the Oakland Tribune’s Charles Shere (who also worked on KQED’s Newsroom at the time) all took a vote to pick their three favorite pieces. One was a red, brown and gray lamp base by a Corte Madera resident named Eric Norstad. Another was an abstract painting titled Yellow Series No. 1 by Jim Soult, from Richmond. But also honored that day was a very strange little oil painting by San Francisco’s Alexander Maldonado, titled Indian Culture Center, Alcatraz.

Maldonado’s painting portrayed Alcatraz Island as a modern development, complete with a welcome center, museum, runway, Space Needle-style viewing platform and a towering torch-bearing monument to Indigenous Americans. Maldonado’s futuristic vision of Alcatraz sold in the KQED auction to Richard Peters, a UC Berkeley professor of architecture. And for the last half century, the painting has stayed, revered and warm, with the Peters family.

If you’re feeling jealous about that last part, hold onto your britches, because Indian Culture Center is about to be up for sale once more as part of the Slotin Folk Art Auction. The painting, along with 737 other lots, has been billed as a “self-taught art masterpiece.” Bidding will take place in Buford, Georgia — and online, thankfully — on April 26 and 27, 2025.

“It’s a remarkable chance to revisit a forgotten chapter in Bay Area public television history,” Professor Peters’ nephew Reed Peters told KQED Arts in an email, “and maybe even spark a little nostalgia for those early, community-driven KQED auctions that helped shape both local culture and civic imagination.”

Not sold yet? It turns out that Alexander Maldonado was as interesting as his paintings. According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Mexican-born, San Francisco-based artist didn’t begin to paint until the age of 60, after a life employed as a professional boxer and factory worker.

“Maldonado is fascinated with astronomy and the technology of the future,” the Smithsonian’s website reports. “He envisions the possibility of high-speed transit via rocket-powered vehicles traveling through underground tubes. His work is also characterized by his use of symmetry, multiple spatial references, and captions that help clarify the subject of the painting.”

Maldonado died in 1989 at the age of 88. Some of the artist’s other works can be seen here.