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Blog Category: Community

Through the Looking Glass: December Artist-in-Residence Genevieve Quick

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on December 14, 2011

December Artist-in-Residence Genevieve Quick examines the history and wonder of telescopes, Victorian projectors, photography and space-age satellites. In The Lens Lab (on view through December 31, 2011, in the Kimball Education Gallery), Quick invites the public to interact with her hand-fabricated cameras. Participants are encouraged to use her modified cameras to photograph the museum and its grounds. The resulting photographs will be projected as a slide show in the gallery as the project evolves throughout the residency.

Courtesy Genevieve Quick

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FRAME|WORK: Virgin and Child with Putti by Andrea della Robbia

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on December 14, 2011

FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums' permanent collections. As we approach the Christmas holiday, it seems only appropriate to examine one of the many works in the European Decorative Arts and Sculpture department that deals with the subject of the Holy Family. This poignant Virgin and Child with Putti by Andrea della Robbia is currently on display in Gallery 4 at the Legion of Honor.

Virgin and Child with Putti

Andrea della Robbia (Italian, Florence, 1437–1525). Virgin and Child with Putti, ca. 1490–1495. Glazed terracotta. Museum purchase, Alfred S. Wilsey Memorial Fund. 2003.1

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Turpitudes Sociales Occupies the Legion of Honor

Posted by Jim Ganz on December 12, 2011

One of the most remarkable moments in Pissarro’s People (on view at the Legion of Honor through January 22, 2012) comes toward the end of the exhibition in the form of an album of pen and ink drawings entitled Turpitudes sociales (“social turpitude,” or disgraces).

Title page

Turpitudes sociales, 1889–1890. Thirty pen and brown ink over graphite drawings on paper pasted in an album. Album: 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 in. (31 x 24 cm). Collection of Jean Bonna, Geneva. Photo by Patrick Goetelen, Geneva, courtesy of Jean Bonna.

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A Tour with Trevor

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on December 9, 2011

Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” With this in mind, we recently toured the de Young with a precocious eight-year-old named Trevor to learn what we could about the experience of the museum and its art from a child’s perspective. Needless to say, we learned a lot.

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Art of the Radical Left (Coast)

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on December 8, 2011

Throughout art history, politics have inspired, informed and incited the cultural production of artists throughout the world. In today’s context of social and political unrest, the subject seems particularly relevant. Two major exhibitions in San Francisco and New York currently bookend the country with the art and politics of the radical left. In both Pissarro’s People (on view at the Legion of Honor through January 22, 2012) and Diego Rivera: Murals for the Museum of Modern Art (on view at the Museum of Modern Art through May 14, 2012), the political beliefs of the artists are placed front and center.

Pissarro Harvest

Camille Pissarro. The Harvest, 1882. Tempera on canvas. 27 11/16 x 49 9/16 in. The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, donated by the heirs of Mr. Kojiro Matsukata, P.1984-3

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FRAME|WORK: "Two Women and a Child" by Diego Rivera

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on December 7, 2011

FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums' permanent collections. Tomorrow is the 125th anniversary of Diego Rivera’s birth, so this week we feature his iconic Two Women and a Child, which is currently on display at the de Young.

Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957). Two Women and a Child, 1926. Oil on canvas. Gift of Albert M. Bender to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. 1926.122. © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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