The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England
From Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, the monarchs of England’s Tudor Dynasty have captured the public imagination for 500 years.
The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is the first major American exhibition of Tudor portraiture and decorative arts, and the Legion of Honor is the exclusive West Coast museum to showcase these masterworks. Featuring paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and stained glass by some of the finest European craftspeople of the sixteenth century, this talk will take you back to the lavish court of the Tudors and show how the arts flourished under their patronage.
Don’t miss the opportunity to learn how the Tudors reshaped the royal image in England during a turning point in world history.
Botticelli Drawings is the first exhibition ever dedicated to the drawings of the renowned Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510). Organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the exhibition features rarely seen and newly attributed works of an artist whose name is synonymous with the Italian Renaissance. From Botticelli’s earliest recorded drawings through expressive designs for his final painting, the works on view reveal the artist’s experimental drawing techniques and quest for ideal beauty. Botticelli Drawings will provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to understand the artistic process behind some of the best-known works of the Renaissance.
FAMSF Docent Speaker: Christina Crosby
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
Explore the fascinating and diverse details of how woodblock prints are created, and the magnitude of their impact on art throughout the world.
Woodblock printing made art accessible to the masses. Japanese art is known for the beauty and variety of its woodblock prints. The techniques and characteristics of woodblock prints have influenced other art forms, especially the Impressionists, and have evolved over the years. They served multiple purposes from advertising posters to printed books to promoting fashion icons. Take a journey to heighten appreciation of the beauty of woodblock prints and understand the elements which had such influence.
Asian Art Museum Docent: Jim Brown
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
Fashion has been a major focus of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s exhibitions since the opening of the new de Young in 2005. Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style offers the opportunity to explore a facet of our city through the Museum’s significant collection of twentieth and twenty-first century women’s high fashion and haute couture. This exhibition will
be the first major presentation of the Museum’s costume collection in over three decades. Featuring outstanding works by Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Issey Miyake, and Alexander McQueen, Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style will reflect the city’s international sophistication, bohemian tendencies, appreciation of global cultures, and long-standing practice of using clothing as a form of personal expression.
FAMSF Docent: Maureen Murry-Fox
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
Join us in Council Chambers for our FIRST face-to-face Art Talk since March 2020!! *
In the early 20th century, a time of astonishing, rapid, and unsettling technological change, artists searched for styles that expressed the disruption of the age. They explored art’s limits and broke boundaries, setting in motion a process that continues today. One of the most fascinating approaches was Surrealism. In many ways a reaction to the chaos of the first World War, the Surrealists rejected rational, logical processes and embraced dream, fantasy, and chance as the sources of their art. In doing so, they produced some of the century’s most memorable images and objects, witty, brash, and slightly erotic.
This talk will not be hybrid, nor will it be recorded.
* Location of this talk may change to online via Zoom, depending on Covid conditions. If via Zoom, a link will be provided here. Please check this page on the day of the event for any changes.
Legends never die.
Erased from history. Reborn as legend.
Phoenix Kingdoms reveals the masterful fabrication and eye-catching flamboyance of Chu and Zeng art, as well as its deep spiritual and cultural underpinnings. Chu religious beliefs were enacted in solemn rituals, elaborate offerings, lavish festivals, and sophisticated funerals that evolved and matured into Daoism, a rival to the Confucianism. Before they were conquered by a powerful emperor and buried by 2,000 years of imperial history, the Yangzi River Valley states were highly advanced cultures with luxurious tastes, imaginative styles, and a yearning for immortality.
The largest and most resource-rich state of its time, Chu was well known among its peers for the production of jade, bronze, lacquer, and textiles. Experience the splendor, sophistication, and extravagance of two mysterious kingdoms that flourished at the dawn of China’s Bronze Age.
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
AAM Docent: Debbie Ottman
This exhibition is at the Asian Art Museum in SF from April 19 – July 22, 2024.
Yayoi Kusama was a Japanese artist who was a self-described “obsessional artist,” known for her extensive use of repetitive polka dots and for her infinity installations. She employed painting, sculpture, performance Art, and installations in a variety of styles, including Pop Art and Minimalism. This exhibition is at SFMOMA through Sept 7, 2024.
Independent Docent Speaker: Avril Angevine
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
In 1868 Japan’s shogun was overthrown, marking the end of feudal military rule and ushering in the Meiji era (1868–1912), a period of modernization and exchange with other nations. As Japan’s society shifted, so too did its print culture. The delicately colored ukiyo (floating world) woodcut prints of actors, courtesans, and scenic views that had flourished for over a century were replaced with brightly colored images of Western architecture, technology (trains, steam-powered ships, telegraph lines), Victorian fashions and customs, and modern military warfare. Featuring permanent collection works from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts that haven’t been displayed for a more than a decade, this two-part exhibition (the floating world and the modern world) highlights this stylistic transition and the work of one artist, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who successfully spanned them both. His distinctive, sometimes eccentric, images serve as a link between the two eras. At the Legion of Honor April 6 – August 18, 2023.
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
Irving Penn is widely recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Vogue’s longest-standing contributor, Penn revolutionized fashion photography in the postwar era. Using neutral backgrounds, he emphasized models’ personalities through their gestures and expressions. The exhibition includes 196 photographs, spanning every period of Penn’s nearly 70-year career. The works range from early documentary scenes, celebrity portraits, and workers with the tools of their trades to abstract nudes and fashion studies. A special section of images from San Francisco’s Summer of Love features hippies, members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and local rock bands the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the de Young March 16 – July 21, 2024.
FAMSF Docent Speaker: TBD
Please register in advance or on the day and time of the event.
Celebrate the once-in-a-lifetime exhibit at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, which brings together an unprecedented 28 of Vermeer’s 37 known works—even he never saw this many of his works together.
Preview the exhibition and learn why Vermeer’s magical works are so beloved.
Little is known about his life, but much has been written about his style, his controversial method of painting, and what his works can tell us about life in 17th century Holland.
“The absolute Vermeer, in a show more precious than pearls.”
The New York Times
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) lived and worked in Delft. His work is best known for his tranquil, introverted indoor scenes, his unprecedented use of bright, colorful light and his convincing illusionism.
In contrast to Rembrandt, Vermeer left a remarkably small oeuvre with about 35 paintings. As his paintings generally considered the most prized treasures of every museum collection, Vermeer paintings are rarely lent out.
International Loans
The exhibition will include masterpieces such as:
The Girl with a Pearl Earring (Mauritshuis, The Hague)
The Geographer (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main)
Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid (The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)
Woman Holding a Balance (The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC).
Works never before shown to the public in the Netherlands will include the newly restored Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.
Explore the fascinating and diverse details of how woodblock prints are created, and the magnitude of their impact on art throughout the world.
Join us in Council Chambers for our FIRST face-to-face Art Talk since March 2020!! 
Phoenix Kingdoms
Irving Penn is widely recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Vogue’s longest-standing contributor, Penn revolutionized fashion photography in the postwar era. Using neutral backgrounds, he emphasized models’ personalities through their gestures and expressions. The exhibition includes 196 photographs, spanning every period of Penn’s nearly 70-year career. The works range from early documentary scenes, celebrity portraits, and workers with the tools of their trades to abstract nudes and fashion studies. A special section of images from San Francisco’s Summer of Love features hippies, members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and local rock bands the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the de Young March 16 – July 21, 2024.
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