At 90 years old, San Francisco artist Toby Klayman has become an unexpected sensation among tech industry workers, with her bold, playful artwork commanding high prices and dedicated followings at companies like Google, Microsoft, Instagram, and Airbnb. Her recent large-scale canvas "Garden of Eden" sold to a private collector for $100,000, marking a significant milestone in a career that spans more than six decades in the city.
Klayman's whimsical plywood cutouts - featuring monochromatic animals and figures of women - peek out from her house on the steep Prentiss Street in Bernal Heights, offering just a glimpse into the world of art, texture, and color she has created as one of San Francisco's most prolific artists. Her work, which includes paintings, prints, and ceramics, draws inspiration from Japanese print artist Toshusai Sharaku, French artist Jean Cocteau, and German painter Max Beckmann, creating a unique style that is part naive, part modernist.
The artist's connection to the tech world began when Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky discovered her work and invited her to participate in the company's Experiences program. "Brian invited me to come to the campus to present in front of 400 people," Klayman recalls. "He said, 'I know it's your nap time, but we'll send a car for you.'" Many of the people she met in that room have since become her core circle of collectors, even as they have scattered across the world and the tech industry.
Bola Akinsanya, global operations lead at Airbnb and one of Klayman's collectors, explains the appeal of her work: "Toby's art initially is appealing because it is deceptively simple, with bold brush strokes on different mediums with contrasting forms that feel almost childlike. Her art just makes me happy."
Klayman's artistic journey began at Brandeis University in the 1950s, where she initially focused on sculpting until a boyfriend challenged her to try painting. "He said, 'Sculpting is easy! Try painting on a flat surface - it's much harder,'" she remembers. She fell in love with the medium and began hanging out with other artists around Harvard Square, selling her first painting for $100 after it dried.
In 1966, with just $10 and three suitcases, Klayman moved to San Francisco to escape Boston, where her acquaintances were experimenting with drugs that were "kind of scary." She found a house on 30th Street and worked as a temp typist at Bank of America, which she describes as "a horrible job" where "we had to raise our hand to go to the bathroom." In her spare time, she frequented jazz clubs, City Lights Bookstore, and Vesuvio Cafe.
Her big break came when a manager at Maxwell Galleries bought one of her pieces. One introduction led to another, landing Klayman more gallery connections and a teaching position at City College that she held for nearly three decades. Larry Friedlander, a literature and theater professor emeritus at Stanford University who has known Klayman since her Harvard Square days and was her roommate in San Francisco for 14 years, reflects on her journey: "Toby didn't have a patron. She came out to San Francisco with almost no money and found a way to survive and flourish, and has been a mentor to many students."
Klayman shares her Bernal Heights home and sprawling 1,000-square-foot studio with her husband of 28 years, fellow artist Joe Branchcomb, also 90. The space is crammed with a lifetime of art and memories, including a standout sculpture by Ruth Asawa of Klayman's face, which she keeps in a padded shoe box. Branchcomb's colorful assemblages and watercolors mingle with her mostly black-and-white acrylics, prints, and ceramics, creating a home bursting with life and color.
Throughout her career, Klayman has emphasized mentoring others in the practical aspects of being an artist. "I've taught thousands of people [how] to stay artists, in spite of the husband not liking it, the parents not liking it, even if you have to get a second job," she says. The AIDS epidemic took many of her students and friends, including collector and collaborator Cobbett Steinberg and photographer Crawford Barton.
Over the years, Klayman has witnessed the increasing difficulty of pursuing an artistic path in San Francisco, with the closing of art schools and a reduction in galleries willing to host emerging talent. "Why was City College campus at Fort Mason closed? Why did the Art Institute close? It's all the cultural money going away," she observes. However, she doesn't blame the tech industry for these changes.
Instead, Klayman embraces modern technology, with Instagram and Pinterest being her favorite platforms for quick communication and engagement. She remains unbothered by AI's encroachment on the art world. "They're just people," she says of her tech-world collectors. "They've got their passions; I've got mine." She even laughs about one Google-affiliated buyer who works on longevity research: "If he figures out how to make me live longer, I'll be thrilled."
The relationship between Klayman and Branchcomb, who affectionately refers to her as his "young wife," is maintained with humor and lightness. During interviews, Branchcomb has been observed leaving the kitchen only to return with fresh-cut roses from their garden, prompting Klayman to exclaim, "That's beautiful, dear!" When they argue, she says Branchcomb starts singing in pretend Italian to diffuse the tension, calling him "so ridiculous!"
Collector Becca Jones, who met Klayman through Airbnb and whose husband Joe Zadeh was one of the company's first employees, speaks to the artist's lasting impact: "Toby has an amazing effect on people. I fell in love with her and Joe, and she became a core person who inspired me and continues to do so."
Despite approaching her tenth decade, Klayman shows no signs of slowing down and is actually gaining in visibility. When asked about her legacy, she prefers not to think about it just yet, remaining focused on her daily practice. "I have to be in the studio every day," she explains. "It's just like brushing my teeth and saying hello to my husband." Far from retirement, this 90-year-old artist continues to create, inspire, and capture the hearts of a new generation of collectors in San Francisco's ever-evolving cultural landscape.
