The land on which the Legion of Honor stands was once the city-owned Golden Gate Cemetery, established in 1870 and closed in 1909. It held about 29,000 remains and included a Chinese burial ground and a Potter's field.[2]
The Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbredracehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels.[3]:9–10 After some persuading, Alma convinced Adolph to fund a museum project. To acquire more art and financial support, Alma embarked on to Europe and was successful in requesting donations of fine art from the French government and from Queen Marie of Romania, who donated a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room.[4]
The building is a full-scale replica, by George Applegarth and Henri Guillaume, of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur (also known as the Hôtel de Salm) in Paris, by Pierre Rousseau (1782). At the close of the exposition, which was located just a few miles away, the French government granted Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion. World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921. Dedicated as a memorial to California soldiers killed in the war,[3]:7 the museum opened on Armistice Day, November 11, 1924.[5]
The museum building occupies an elevated site in Lincoln Park in the northwest of the city, with views over the nearby Golden Gate Bridge and the distant downtown skyline.
Between March 1992 and November 1995 the Legion underwent a major renovation that included seismic strengthening, building systems upgrades, restoration of historic architectural features, and an underground expansion that added 35,000 square feet. The Court of Honor was pierced by a pyramidal skylight opening onto the new gallery space below, a quotation in miniature of the Louvre Pyramid. The architects for the project were Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero.[5]
The plaza and fountain in front of the Legion of Honor is the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first improved road for automobiles across America. The terminus marker and an interpretive plaque are located in the southwest corner of the plaza and fountain, just to the left of the Palace, next to the bus stop. Dominating the classical plaza is Pax Jerusalemme, a modern sculpture by Mark di Suvero that stirred controversy at its installation in 2000.[6] In 2023, US president Joe Biden held a state dinner at the Legion of Honor for world leaders, including Chinese president Xi Jinping.[7]
The Spreckels Gallery showcasing bronzes by Rodin; the pipes of the symphonic organ are hidden behind the trompe-l'œil canvas apse.
The Legion of Honor displays a collection spanning more than 6,000 years of ancient and European art and houses the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.
The Hall of Antiquities displays ancient works from Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome, including sculptures, figurines, vessels, jewelry, and carved reliefs. Notable works include a 4,000-year-old carved wood figure of Seneb, an Egyptian royal scribe. The collection is supported in part by the Ancient Art Council, which offers a speakers program focusing on the ancient world.[8][9]
The Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts (AFGA) is responsible for the museum's collection of works on paper. With more than 90,000 items, the AFGA is the largest repository of works of art on paper in the western United States. The department is named for Moore and Hazel Achenbach, who gave the bulk of their collection to the city of San Francisco in 1948, and the remainder upon Moore Achenbach's death in 1963. Many additional acquisitions form the basis for special collections within the department, such as the Anderson Collection of Graphic Arts.[10] Selections from the Logan collection, more than 400 books dating from the nineteenth century to the present, are regularly used in exhibitions in the Reva and David Logan Gallery of Illustrated Books located in a small room off the Hall of Antiquities.[11]
The museum's collection of European Decorative Arts includes a gilded Spanish ceiling from c. 1500; numerous items of furniture, including Horace Walpole’s commode of 1763 from Strawberry Hill House, west of London; and three period rooms, including the Salon Doré from the Hôtel de La Trémoille, Paris, said to be the only complete example of a pre-Revolutionary Parisian salon to be displayed anywhere.[12][13]
The Bowles Porcelain Gallery displays an array of porcelain and pottery from England and continental Europe with a strong emphasis on the eighteenth century. Adjacent to the gallery is the Ceramic Study Center.[14]
The Contemporary Arts Program, which brings the work of living artists into dialogue with the building and the collections, was inaugurated in 2017 with an exhibition of more than 30 works by Urs Fischer installed throughout the museum.[15] Subsequent exhibitions have featured works and interventions by artists including Lynn Hershman Leeson,[16]Julian Schnabel,[17]Alexandre Singh,[18] and Wangechi Mutu.[19]
Situated off the northwest corner of the Legion grounds is the Holocaust Memorial, a sculptural group of white-painted bronze by George Segal installed in 1984. Although not part of the Legion's collection, the sculpture is often seen by visitors to the museum.
In 1924, John D. Spreckels commissioned the Ernest M. Skinner Company of Boston to build the symphonic organ, which is centrally located in the Spreckels Gallery (gallery 10). It was designed to blend into the museum's structure; its 4,500 pipes are not visible to visitors. The ceiling of the gallery is canvas so that the organ can be heard throughout the gallery and museum; the canvas ceiling is painted as a trompe-l'œil to resemble a marble apse.[20] Organ concerts are performed every Saturday at 4:00p.m.[21]
The 316-seat James A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Theater, located downstairs off the Hall of Antiquities, is a venue for chamber music concerts by the San Francisco Symphony and for lectures and other programs. Architect George Applegarth designed the circular theater and decorated it in the style of Louis XVI. The descending entrance stairways on either side are decorated with portraits by Nicolas de Largillière.[22][23] The ceiling mural is The Apotheosis of the California Soldier by Spanish artist Julio Vila y Prades.[3]:95
Film appearances
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor at night.
The museum plays a major part in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo (1958) when Scottie (played by James Stewart) follows Madeleine Elster (played by Kim Novak) to the museum, where she stares at one painting for a considerable time. The painting, a portrait of the fictitious Carlotta Valdes, was a prop created specifically for the production by artist John Ferren and is not housed at the museum.[24]
Antoine Bourdelle, born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important figure in the Art Deco movement and the transition from the Beaux-Arts style to modern sculpture.
The Spreckels Organ is a pipe organ that was designed by Ernest M. Skinner. It was installed in 1924 at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, California. Public performances are held on Saturdays, 4:00–4:45 pm.
Charles Cottet was a French painter, born at Le Puy-en-Velay and died in Paris. A famed post-impressionist, Cottet is known for his dark, evocative painting of rural Brittany and seascapes. He led a school of painters known as the Bande noire or "Nubians" group, and was friends with such artists as Auguste Rodin.
The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Honor. The de Young is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. FAMSF's combined attendance was 1,158,264 visitors in 2022, making it the fifth most attended art institution in the United States.
Maryhill Museum of Art is a small museum with an eclectic collection, located near what is now the community of Maryhill in the U.S. state of Washington.
Adolph Bernard Spreckels was a California businessman who ran Spreckels Sugar Company and who donated the California Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum to the city of San Francisco in 1924. His wife, Alma, was called the "great grandmother of San Francisco". His 1912 mansion is in Pacific Heights and is San Francisco Landmark #197.
Alma de Bretteville Spreckels was a wealthy socialite and philanthropist in San Francisco, California. She was known both as "Big Alma" and "The Great Grandmother of San Francisco". Among her many accomplishments, she persuaded her first husband, sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels, to donate the California Palace of the Legion of Honor to the city of San Francisco.
Jacques de Caso is a French-born American historian who specializes in the literature and history of pre-modern art in Europe, principally late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and German neo-classicism and Romanticism.
Fletcher C. Benton was an American sculptor and painter from San Francisco, California. Benton was widely known for his kinetic art as well as his large-scale steel abstract geometric sculptures.
Thomas Patrick Campbell is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. He served as the director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2009 and 2017. On 30 June 2017, Campbell stepped down as director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under pressure and accepted the Getty Foundation's Rothschild Fellowship for research and study at both the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and at Waddesdon Manor, in the UK.
Serge Petrovitch Ivanoff was a French painter of Russian origin.
Roland Conrad Petersen is a Danish-born American painter, printmaker, and professor. His career spans over 50 years, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and is perhaps best-known for his "Picnic series" beginning in 1959 to today. He is part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.
Arthur Putnam was an American sculptor and animalier who was recognized for his bronze sculptures of wild animals. Some of his artworks are public monuments. He was a well-known figure, both statewide and nationally, during the time he lived in California. Putnam was regarded as an artistic genius in San Francisco and his life was chronicled in the San Francisco and East Bay newspapers. He won a gold medal at the 1915 San Francisco world's fair, officially known as the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, and was responsible for large sculptural works that stand in San Francisco and San Diego. Putnam exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913, and his works were also exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Paris, and Rome.
Betty Merken is an American painter and printmaker who lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
Howard Edwin Hack was an American representational painter and graphic artist, with works in numerous museum collections. Known for an innovative approach to a variety of media, as well as use of traditional oil paints, Hack began working in the late 1940s. He was active in the San Francisco Bay Area.
George Albert Harris, also known as George Harris (1913–1991), was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, and educator. He was a participant in the WPA Federal Art Project and was among the youngest artists on the mural project at Coit Tower. Harris' style is California Modernism, often working in abstraction, focusing primarily on still lifes and portraits.
Charles Stafford Duncan (1892–1952) was a San Francisco painter and lithographer perhaps best known for his mural in the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. He won the Benjamin Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design in 1937.
Stephanie Skalisky is an American artist who is best known for her series of works she made while working for The New Yorker as a cartoonist.
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El Cid Campeador by Anna Hyatt Huntington (1927), on the grounds of the palace, facing the Golden Gate.
The Thinker by Auguste Rodin (1904), in the inner courtyard of the palace.
