Satirical Herb Caen Painting, Oil on Canvas. Skewering "Herb" with an image of "Tripe a la Mode de Caen," and a column written in Hebrew. Title written on stretcher and a Friday article taped to the back. 

Overall: 8 3/4 X 10 3/4 in. 

Sight: 7 1/2 X 9 1/2 in. 

#3893 . 

Herbert Eugene Caen was born on April 3rd, 1916 in Sacramento, California. His father was Jewish and his mother non-Jewish, and he grew up with a skeptical and analytical attitude towards life, religious, and public policy. In high school he gained notoriety as a writer for the school paper with his column titled "Corridor Gossip," then covered sports for the Sacramento Union after graduating, referring to himself as "the Sacamenna Kid." He became a well-known humorist and journalist who peppered his analysis of Sacramento (and later San Francisco) society and life with offbeat puns and anecdotes, making him a household name before he was twenty. In 1936 Caen began writing a radio programming column for the San Francisco Chronicle, which was discontinued in 1938. He proposed a daily column on the city itself called "It's News to Me" that first appeared on July 5 of that year. Except for the four years Caen spent in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and a 1950 to 1958 stint at The San Francisco Examiner, his Chronicle column appeared every single day except Saturday until 1990, when it dropped to five times per week, for a stunning total of more than 16,000 columns at least 1,000 words each in length, an unduplicated feat that makes it by far the longest-running newspaper column in the country. Caen had considerable influence on popular culture, particularly its language, and is credited with coining the term "beatnik" in 1958. He also popularized the term "hippie" during San Francisco's 1967 Summer of Love, and invented obscure‍ and playful‍ ‌terms like "Frisbeetarianism" and ribbed nearby Berkeley as "Berserkeley" for its "radical" politics. His many recurring if irregular features included "Namephreaks",‍ ‌people with names (aptronyms) peculiarly appropriate or inappropriate to their vocations or avocations, such as "substitute teacher Mr. Fillin," "piano teacher Patience Scales," "orthopedic specialist Dr. Kneebone," and "the Vatican's spokesman on the evils of rock 'n roll, Cardinal Rapsong." His column carried a drawing of the San Francisco skyline starting in 1976 that made it instantly recognizable around the world, and he was given the moniker "Mr. San Francisco."  Although Caen prided himself on his wit and ability to be naughty, whimsical, and insightful all at once, he occasionally dropped the facade to write about serious matters, such as his stance against execution and certain politicians. In 1993, he told an interviewer that he declined to retire because "my name wouldn't be in the paper and I wouldn't know if I was dead or alive," adding that his obituary would be his last column. In April of 1996 Caen received a special Pulitzer Prize for "extraordinary and continuing contribution as a voice and conscience of his city." The following month doctors who were treating him for pneumonia discovered he had inoperable lung cancer, and gave him less than a year to live. June 14th was officially celebrated in San Francisco as Herb Caen Day, with many politicians and celebrities including Walter Cronkite paying tribute to him. Caen continued to write as long as he could, and died on February 1st, 1997. The Chronicle experienced an immediate and significant decline in subscriptions, and reprints of his columns remain a feature of the Chronicle to this day.