Street artist ‘Momo’ delighted North Beach

Richard Anderson, known throughout North Beach as the artist “Momo,” has died. His death at 74 was confirmed by District Three Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a friend and neighbor for decades.

The singularly named artist was believed to have died on Nov. 20 or 21, according to his daughter Peggy Anderson, who did not know the cause of death.

Momo had lived at the Tower Hotel, a single-room-occupancy residence run by the Chinatown Community Development Corp. near the neighborhood’s historic bohemian nexus, Peskin said.

“North Beach meant the world to my dad,” Anderson told The Chronicle. “He met my mom (there), and I grew up in North Beach, at Caffe Trieste and Washington Square. He was friends with the homeless and the employees of every cafe and restaurant. The city literally took care of my dad for the last 10 years, watching out for him, calling him out when he got rowdy, and loving him and his work.”

With his long gray hair, beard and walker, Momo was a distinctive, often paint-splattered presence on upper Grant Avenue. In the 1980s and ’90s, he became

known for leaving paintings on materials such as plywood and cardboard in alleyways and against buildings in North Beach, as well as selling works on the street. He also wrote poetry and in 2016 published

the collection “A Guy Looks for Friends Where He Can” with Exit Press. With his quirky, neo-expressionism-byway-of-street-art aesthetic, Momo developed a loyal neighborhood following, said friend and

North Beach

Stauter.

“Long before I knew Momo, I knew his name and would see his work,” said Stauter, the artistic director emeritus for the San Francisco Unified School

resident Susan

District. “He was a trickster, like the fool in ‘King Lear’ who tells the truth but hops around wearing bells being witty. And he was also an artist who dealt with deep personal issues in his work, like life, death and loneliness.”

Peskin called Momo “part of the landscape” at the famed Caffe Trieste and nearby Live Worms Gallery. Both businesses posted remembrances of him.

“Momo’s art was like Momo,” Peskin said. “It was zany, poignant, ironic, funny as hell. In some ways he was a kind of a shy, gentle guy, but (when) he would come out he saw the world in all of its tumultuous hilarity. He always had a sweet, warm wisecrack or sage observation.”

Peskin said he plans to adjourn the Nov. 29 Board of Supervisors meeting in Momo’s memory.

Momo primarily created drawings and paintings in a primitive-referencing, figurative style that often used visual puns and text for humor. It was the kind of art that sold both to tourists looking to take home a piece of the neighborhood’s Beatnik character and locals who collected Momo’s work.

“His work was constantly

surprising.” said Elizabeth Ashcroft, the owner of Live Worms. “They were simple, but they weren’t simple, and I think they touched people.”

Momo frequently presented at Live Worms after Ashcroft took it over in 2020. His art wasn’t technically cartoon or graffiti, Ashcroft said, although there were elements of that. To the uninitiated the work, could frequently appear “clunky” or even childlike, Ashcroft said, but that was part of his intention.

“We all really respected his sense of humor, wit and the fact that it was often on the edge,” Ashcroft said.

A recent grouping of Momo’s works at Live Worms included “The Four Corndogs of the Apocalypse,” one of several pieces about the carnival food; “Sometimes There Are Witches,” showing an octet of classic Halloween hags; and a self-portrait titled “I’m White Sorry!”

Momo was born Richard Brien Anderson on June 17, 1948, in Cranford, N.J., to Richard Anderson and Margaret O’Brien. According to his daughter, he attended Boston University and moved to San Francisco after a stint living in a commune in Oregon with his first wife, Camille Alain. He worked as a preschool teacher at a school in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, and it was during that time that her father began his art practice, creating works with his students using materials found on the streets.

Eventually, Momo began painting with poet and City Lights Booksellers co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Anderson said her father adopted the

“Momo” moniker in the 1980s because “one of the surreal poets said that Momo was the king of fools, and my dad clung on to that title.” Jesse James Ferrell created a short documentary about the artist titled “American Outsider Momo: King of the Idiots.”

Over the years, Momo became a well-known figure in a neighborhood that valued eccentric, artistic personalities, part of what Peskin called the “pantheon of characters who give North Beach its soul.”

Writer Scott Lettieri, a friend of Momo’s for more than three decades, said of the artist, “He was the comic relief in a world that takes itself too seriously.” Lettieri, who leads literary tours of North Beach, said that Momo was sometimes an impromptu attraction on the walks, telling jokes and reciting poetry.

In recent years, Momo was often bound to the blocks of upper Grant near his room because of chronic emphysema and mobility issues. The death of daughter Erica Michelle Johnson in 2020 was another major setback for the artist that also worsened his health, Anderson and others said. But still, he continued to create and showed new work in the weeks before his death.

In addition to Peggy Anderson, he is survived by his eldest daughter, Caitlin Rose Anderson, and five grandchildren, including Joel Johnson, Jacques Benazra and Juliette Benazra. Plans for a memorial have not been announced. Ashcroft said a showing of Momo’s art is being planned at Live Worms.

Dennis Hearne Richard Anderson, known as “Momo,” often left paintings in alleyways and against buildings.

Live Worms Gallery North Beach artist Richard Anderson, known as “Momo,” infused his work with puns and whimsical observations.