Calling someone an “icon” is often an overused sentiment. However, when it comes to the late multi-hyphenate Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), the moniker is appropriate, especially in San Francisco, where he thrived artistically and socially since his arrival in 1951.
The official count was 1,387 cakes (and at least that many participants) at the Cake Picnic on the morning of March 29, on the front lawn of the Legion of Honor Museum.
One of California’s most famous visual artists, Wayne Thiebaud (1920-2021), is so much more than his iconic (and unironic) paintings of comforting confections. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) is about to prove that with a complex exhibition called, “Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art,” opening March 22 at the Legion of Honor.
On Saturday afternoons at the Legion of Honor, the artwork hanging on the walls is not the only thing that is on display. Jonathan Dimmock, the principal organist at the Legion of Honor, has been captivating audiences for decades with his performances. Every Saturday at 4 p.m., Legion of Honor museum guests are dazzled by his work.
On Nov. 9, the Legion of Honor began its 100th anniversary celebration with festivities including a cake picnic, screen-printing press and portrait station with the museum’s most prominent sculpture, a bronze cast of “The Thinker,” by Auguste Rodin (1904). A performance from the George Washington High School marching band ushered in the party with heavy drums and harmonic brass. As part of the Free Saturdays program, Bay Area residents delighted in free admission to the museum.
On Oct. 5, the Legion of Honor opened “Mary Cassatt at Work,” a new retrospective exhibit detailing the life and work of American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. This is the first retrospective of Cassatt’s work in North America in 25 years. The Legion of Honor is the sole west coast venue. The exhibit was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in conjunction with the Legion of Honor and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The Legion of Honor kicks off its yearlong centennial celebration with an almost non-stop weekend of free performances, exhibits, educational talks and art activities, Nov. 9-11.
Bundled up from dealing with the fog and cold of a brisk September morning, on Sept. 14, museum goers crowded inside the galleries of the Legion of Honor to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month with a “Celebration of Bay Area Latine Composers.”
A century after the Legion of Honor’s founding by the tour de force Alma de Bretteville Spreckels and her husband, Adolph B. Spreckels, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (“Fine Arts Museums”) look forward to celebrating the Legion of Honor 100, a once-in-a-generation series of festivities commemorating the 1924 founding of the beloved San Francisco institution.
“Botticelli Drawings,” the newest exhibition at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, is not going for the obvious in exploring the work of the Italian painter of the early Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli (full name: Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filippa). Viewers won’t see his most iconic painting, “The Birth of Venus” (1485-1486). Nor will they be disappointed.
Martin Chapman, curator in charge of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), describes England’s Tudor dynasty, which only ruled for three generations (1485 to 1603), as “ambitious, ruthless, visionary and utterly magnificent.”
The exhibit, which was first staged last fall at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., unfolds thematically in six sections, focusing on Sargent’s seven visits to Spain, from 1879 to 1912. He spent significant time in 26 cities and towns, including Madrid, Seville and the island of Majorca.
China’s premier fashion designer Guo Pei knew her structural, intricately embroidered couture gowns belonged in a museum. So did the people in charge of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who have staged the largest presentation of her 40-year career titled, “Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy.”
Rare Painting by Groundbreaking French Artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist Acquired by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
designer Guo Pei creates a couture fantasy that fuses the influences of China’s imperial past with export art, the grandeur of European court life, architecture, and the botanical world.
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 