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Statement of Purpose

American art from colonial times to the 20th century. also textiles, ancient art, and arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

The de Young Museum, the city's first public museum, opened on March 24, 1895 in commemoration of the California Midwinter International Exposition. It was first known as the Memorial Museum. In 1921 the museum was renamed the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in honor of the fair's organizer and founder. The permanent collection at the de Young features one of the best survey collections of American art in the country. Over 200 paintings present a continuous spectrum of American art from colonial times through the mid-twentieth century.

Among the many artists represented are John Singer Sargent, Thomas Anshutz, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Moran, Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and Richard Diebenkorn.

The paintings collection is enhanced with sculpture by such artists as Herbert Haseltine and William Wetmore Story, and the beauty of American craftsmanship is represented with works by, among others, Paul Revere and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Highlights & Collections

The museum also features an African art collection which has been growing steadily since the 1950s. The gallery is primarily devoted to figurative sculpture and over 70 objects are on view, among them a power figure from Zaire, a Makonde helmet mast from Mozambique, and from Nigeria an imposing five-foot high male figure, and a playful Elephant Mask.

In the museum's gallery of the Art of the Americas are objects of the highest calibre, many not to been seen in any other collection--from Mesoamerica, Central and South America as well as the West Coast of North America. Among the highlights of this collection are the largest group of Teotihuacan wall murals anywhere in the world outside of Mexico, an important group of Olmec stone and ceramic objects including a rare portrait mask in serpentine from 1500 B.C., and one of the world's five Aztec masks--particularly significant as it is the only known example in onyx. Also on view at the de Young is an important collection of textiles which includes a large selection of ethnographic textiles from Central and South America, the Near East, and Central Asia and Africa.

The ethnographic display includes selections from the Caroline and H. McCoy Jones collection of tribal carpets. Also on view are changing displays of costume and textiles from Europe and America.

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

This update was issued 6/16/99. For a current schedule of exhibitions, you may news01@artcom.com 24-hour information Hot Line, (415) 863-3330 and its web site at www.thinker.org.

Masterworks of Theater and Dance from the Permanent Collection: A Tribute to Nancy Van Norman Baer

• Through 5 September 1999
• This tribute to Fine Arts Museums Theater and Dance Curator Nancy Van Norman Baer (1944–1998) presents an overview of her career and highlights the riches of the museums' Theater and Dance Collection. Objects on display from the collection include posters, costume and stage set designs, prints, and drawings. Also included in the exhibition are works pertaining to theater and dance from the museums' permanent collection by artists as far ranging as Degas, Dürer, Picasso, and the Walt Disney Studio.

Contemporary Fiber and Art to Wear: Recent Acquisitions

• Through 28 November 1999

The Art of Craft: Contemporary Works from the Saxe Collection

• 26 June–17 October 1999
• Over the last two decades, the Bay Area's George and Dorothy Saxe have formed one of the premier collections of contemporary craft in the United States. The Saxe Collection contains over 600 works in glass, ceramic, wood, fiber, and metal, and is distinguished by both its high quality and its depth, with many major artists represented by works from different periods in their careers. Prominent Bay Area and West Coast artists represented include Robert Arneson and Peter Voulkos (ceramics), Lia Cook (fiber), Kay Sekimachi (paper), Dale Chihuly and William Morris (glass), Sam Maloof (furniture), and Bob Stocksdale (turned wood). Also included in the collection are works by artists better known for their work in other media, including Larry Bell, Linda Benglis, Nicolas Africano, Kiki Smith, and Christopher Wilmarth.
• The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco celebrates the promised bequest of the Dorothy and George Saxe Collection with a major temporary exhibition of its works. The Art of Craft features 223 works by 132 different artists, and demonstrates the de Young's new prominence in the exciting and innovative field of studio craft. A 250-page catalogue, including a scholarly essay, full-color plates, and an artists' bibliography accompanies the exhibition.

Wedding Dresses from the Permanent Collection

• 7 August 1999–23 January 2000

Herzog and de Meuron: Model for the New de Young

• 14 October 1999–2 January 2000

Narratives of African-American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection

• 20 November 1999–12 February 2000
• Approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper provide a thematic journey that documents strategies employed by 20th-century African American artists in creating artistic and racial identities. The works are borrowed from the collection of David C. Driskell, University of Maryland professor and a pioneering scholar of African American art history, and represent many of the key figures in 20th-century African-American art. Incorporating Driskell’s personal recollections, anecdotes, and historical records, this exhibition illuminates the development of 20th-century African American art and art history and shares the intriguing story of how this impressive collection of art and artifacts was assembled.
• Organized by The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland, The David C. Driskell Collection is curated by Dr. Juanita Holland and includes a catalogue with essays by prominent scholars.

Museum Pieces: Bay Area Artists Envision the de Young

• 20 November 1999–12 March 2000
• Organized by guest curator Glen Helfand, this exhibition explores the changing role of the museum in society, focusing specifically on the de Young. Museum Pieces will consist of 18 commissioned works in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, video, photography, installation, and digital media and sound, by San Francisco Bay Area artists and collaborative teams, including David Ireland, Tom Marioni, Deborah Oropallo, and Rigo '99.
• Many of the works on display in Museum Pieces will concern the de Young itself, addressing its origins, history, the challenges posed by its present-day condition, and its future, while some will address both the de Young and museums as a whole. The exhibition will take place concurrently with the display of plans for the New de Young building by architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Between the Black Desert and the Red: Turkmen Carpets from the Wiedersperg Collection

• 18 December 1999–25 June 2000
• This important collection of Central Asian carpets and textiles was donated to the Fine Arts Museums by Wolfgang and Gisela Wiedersperg in 1997. The Wiedersperg collection consists of 82 carefully chosen Turkmen rugs, bags, and decorative hangings. Objects in the collection include outstanding examples by the major Turkmen rug-producing tribes as well as many rare examples, some of which are considered the finest of their type, and serve to create a cross-section of the Turkmen weaving tradition.
• This exhibition celebrates the Wiederspergs’ generous donation to the Fine Arts Museums and will feature more than 20 of the finest objects from the collection. It is accompanied by a catalogue written by Robert Pinner and Murray Eiland.

2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story Part II

• 21 May–30 July 2000
• Famous for his landmark nylon-shrouded assemblages from the 1950s and 1960s and as a leading independent post-war era filmmaker, Bruce Conner has explored painting, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture, and printmaking throughout his remarkable 40-year career. This exhibition of nearly 150 works
• in all media, the first major survey of Conner’s art, highlights his lifelong engagement with the physical, metaphorical, and metaphysical properties of light and dark. Organized around Conner’s film work, this installation allows audiences to experience the originality and variety that have made him a major figure in the contemporary art scene.
• 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story Part II is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is being jointly curated by Peter Boswell, former curator at the Walker and currently arts director at the American Academy in Rome, who has been working with Conner for more than a decade; Walker film/video curator Bruce Jenkins, a specialist in experimental cinema who has coordinated the restoration of Conner’s film work; and Walker associate visual arts curator Joan Rothfuss, a specialist in mid-century intermedia work who has worked with Conner at the Walker. Each of the curators will contribute an essay to the exhibition’s catalogue.

The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks

• 24 September 2000–7 January 2001
• The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco host the first major exhibition devoted to the life and works of Edward Hicks, a 19th-century Quaker minister and painter, whose interpretations of The Peaceable Kingdom are among the most beloved paintings in American art. Since their re-discovery in the 1930s, Hicks’s deceptively simple, seemingly child-like depictions of the animal world have delighted viewers of all ages. They also won him the admiration of modern artists early in this century who saw in his almost surreal compositions executed in his flat, signboard-like style a provocative parallel to their own vision.
• This exhibition focuses new attention on the Quaker beliefs and church politics that inspired both Hicks’s subject matter and his self-consciously naive style. Hicks was both an artist and a prominent member of a society that shunned art. The paradox of his life brought out his creative genius, a genius that has been little understood even as we have grown to appreciate Hicks’s paintings as some of the most joyous and memorable in American art.
• The exhibition has been organized by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which holds the greatest concentration of Hicks’s works in any collection. The show includes more than 50 paintings, ranging from his well-known Peaceable Kingdom variants to other historical subjects, showing the entire range of Hicks’s artistic interests.

Hours:

Tues-Sun 9:30 am to 5 pm

Admission & Directions:

• $5.00 Adults
• $3.00 Seniors
• $2.00 Youths 12 - 17
• Admission is free on the first Wednesday of the month

Key Personnel:

Harry S. Parker III, Director

• Ms. Vas Prabhu, Director of Education.

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