de Young Museum

The de Young hosts an extraordinary exhibition of more than 100 masterpieces by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) from the permanent collection of Paris’s world-renowned Musée National Picasso. The once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, made possible only because of the temporary closure of the Musée Picasso until 2012 for extensive renovations, comprises paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints drawn from every phase of the artist’s career.

Considered the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica and recognized as America’s oldest civilization, the people known today as the Olmec developed an iconic and sophisticated artistic style as early as the second millennium BC. The Olmec are best known for the creation of colossal heads carved from giant boulders that have fascinated the public and archaeologists alike since they were discovered in the mid-19th century. The monumental heads remain among ancient America’s most awe-inspiring and beautiful masterpieces today. Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico, featuring more than 100 objects, drawn primarily from Mexican national collections with additional loans from over 25 museums, is presented at the de Young Museum.

To Dye For features over 50 textiles and costumes from the Fine Arts Museums’ comprehensive collection of textiles from Africa, Asia and the Americas. A truly cross-cultural presentation, the exhibition showcases objects from diverse cultures and historical periods, including a tie-dyed mantle from the Wari-Nasca culture of pre-Hispanic Peru (500–900 A.D.), a paste-resist Mongolian felt rug from the 15th–17th century and a group of stitch-resist dyed 20th-century kerchiefs from the Dida people of the Ivory Coast. These historical pieces are contrasted with artworks from contemporary Bay Area artists. The exhibition highlights several recent acquisitions, including important gifts such as a pair of ikat-woven, early-20th-century women's skirts from the Iban people of Sarawak, Malaysia and two exquisite hand-painted and mordant-dyed Indian trade cloths used as heirloom cloths by the Toraja peoples of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Photo/Synthesis highlights the dynamic trend in the field of contemporary photography, collages, assemblages, and other multi-part or composite photo-based projects. Dating from the 1960s to the present, the works in this exhibition transcend the limitations of traditional photography in which the camera simply captures a unique view or a decisive moment in time. Breaking free of the conventional frame, they are instead the products of various methods of assembling and organizing multiple photographic images into larger artistic statements. In each case, the sum communicates much more than the component parts.