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| Established | March 23, 1895 |
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| Location | 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive,San Francisco,California, United States |
| Coordinates | 37°46′17.288″N122°28′7.234″W / 37.77146889°N 122.46867611°W /37.77146889; -122.46867611 |
| Type | Art museum, Ethnographic museum |
| Visitors | 999,645 (2023)[1] |
| Public transit access | |
| Website | famsf |
Thede Young Museum, formally theM. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is afine artsmuseum located inSan Francisco,California, named for early San Francisco newspapermanM. H. de Young. Located on theWest Side of the city inGolden Gate Park, it is a component of theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with theLegion of Honor. In 2024, the two combined museums were ranked 15th in theWashington Post's list of the best art museums in the U.S.[2]
The museum received 999,645 visitors in 2023, ranking 21st in theList of most-visited museums in the United States,[1] and was 70th in theList of most-visited art museums in the world.[3]
The museum opened in 1895 in one of the buildings originally constructed for theCalifornia Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 (a fair modeled on the ChicagoWorld's Columbian Exposition of the previous year). It was housed in anEgyptian revival structure which had been the Fine Arts Building at the fair. The building was badly damaged in the1906 San Francisco earthquake, and was closed for a year and a half for repairs. Before long, the museum's steady development called for a new space to better serve its growing audiences.Michael de Young responded by planning the building that would serve as the core of the de Young facility through the 20th century.Louis Christian Mullgardt, the coordinator for architecture for the1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, designed theSpanish-Plateresque-style building. The new structure was completed in 1919 and formally transferred by de Young to the city's park commissioners. In 1921, de Young added a central section, together with a tower that would become the museum's signature feature, and the museum began to assume the basic configuration that it retained until 2000. De Young's efforts were honored with the changing of the museum's name to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Another addition, a west wing, was completed in 1925, the year de Young died. In 1929 the original Egyptian-style building was declared unsafe and demolished.
By 1949, the elaborate cast concrete ornamentation of the original de Young was determined to be a hazard and removed because the salt air from thePacific had rusted the supporting steel.
The building was severely damaged by the1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.[4] When the structure was demolished and replaced by a new building, which opened in 2005, the only remaining original elements of the old de Young were the vases and sphinxes located near the Pool of Enchantment. The palm trees in front of the building are also original to the site.
As part of the agreement that created theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1972, the de Young's collection of European art was sent to theLegion of Honor. In compensation, the de Young received the right to display the bulk of the organization's anthropological holdings. These include significant pre-Hispanic works fromTeotihuacan and Peru, as well as indigenous tribal art fromsub-Saharan Africa.
The de Young showcasesAmerican art from the 17th through the 21st centuries, internationalcontemporary art,textiles, andcostumes, and art from the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. Collections on view at the de Young Museum include:American Art,African Art,Oceanic Art,Arts of the Americas,Costume andTextile arts,Graphic arts,Photography andSculpture. Some of the collection is accessible online on the museum website andGoogle Arts and Culture.[5]
The American art collection consists of over 5,000 objects including 1,000 paintings,[6] 800 sculptures, and 3,000 decorative arts objects.[7] It includes works ranging from 1670 to the present day.
In 1978, the American art collections were transformed by the decision ofJohn D. Rockefeller III andBlanchette Hooker Rockefeller to donate their renowned collection of 110 paintings, 29 drawings, and 2 sculptures to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The de Young's chronological survey of American art includes galleries devoted to art in the following areas:Native American and Spanish Colonial; Anglo-Colonial; Federal era art andNeoclassical;Victoriangenre andrealism;trompe-l'œilstill life; theHudson River School,Barbizon, andTonalism;Impressionism and theAshcan School;Arts and Crafts;Modernism;Social Realism and American Scene;Surrealism andAbstraction;Beat,Pop, and Figurative; and Contemporary.
Although the permanent collection is national in scope, art made in California from theGold Rush era to the present day is also on display in the de Young. Important California collections with national significance include examples of Spanish colonial, Arts and Crafts, andBay Area Figurative andAssemblage art. Important among them are the most significant museum collections of works byBay Area painterChiura Obata and sculptorRuth Asawa.
The permanent collection galleries integrate decorative arts objects with paintings and sculptures, emphasizing the artistic, social, and political context for the works on display. While essentially chronological, the installation also juxtaposes works from different cultures and time periods to emphasize the historical connections between works in the collection. Painters with paintings in this art museum include;Mary Cassatt,John Singleton Copley,John Vanderlyn,Thomas Cole (Prometheus Bound),Thomas Hill,Thomas Wood (Newspaper Vendor), Samuel Brookes,John Peto,Childe Hassam,Edmund C. Tarbell (The Blue Veil),George Hitchcock,Louise Nevelson,Maynard Dixon,Otis Oldfield,Georgia O'Keeffe,Granville Redmond,Elizabeth CatlettThomas Hart Benton (Susannah and the Elders),Pat Steir,David Park,Betye Saar,Kiki Smith,Richard Diebenkorn,Mel Ramos,Beth Lipman,Wayne Thiebaud, andMary Lovelace O'Neal.
In January 2017, the institution announced a significant new addition to its collection of American Art through the acquisition of 62 works by 22 contemporary African American Arts, includingThornton Dial'sBlood And Meat: Survival For the World (1992) andLost Cows (2000-1), Joe Light'sDawn (1988),Jessie T. Pettway'sBars andString-Pierced Columns (1950s),Lonnie Holley'sHim and Her Hold the Root (1994) andJoe Minter'sCamel at the Watering Hole (1995) The works were first exhibited inRevelations: Art from the African American South in 2018[12]. and subsequently in the museum's permanent collection galleries dedicated to Modern and Contemporary American Art.
In July 2023, the Fine Arts Museums announced the promised gift by Bernard and Barbro Osher of 61 works of American Art to the museums’ collection.ARTnews reported that the gift included works by well-known American artists like Georgia O’Keeffe,Winslow Homer,John Singer Sargent,Charles Sheeler, andAlexander Calder. They figure alongside lesser-known ones likeBoston School painterWilliam McGregor Paxton, the influential artist-teacherFrank Vincent DuMond, and theAmerican ImpressionistsEdward Henry Potthast,Frederick Carl Frieseke, andRichard Edward Miller.[8]
Since 1991, the American Art Department has housed a set of theSmithsonian Institution’sArchives of American Art microfilm collection. In conjunction with the Bothin Library and department research files, the American Art Study Center is the most important research center for American art on theWest Coast.
In 1988, the Fine Arts Museums made a commitment to collect international contemporary art. In addition to works in traditional media, this commitment has expanded the museums’ holdings of works in new or multiple media––including installation and conceptual works, video and other time-based media, and photography and other lens-based media––to more accurately reflect contemporary art practice.
Contemporary acquisitions includeWall of Light Horizon (2005), bySean Scully and signature sculptures byZhan Wang andCornelia Parker. The strength of the collection lies in artists associated with California, includingPiotr Abraszewski,Christopher Brown,Squeak Carnwath, Jim Christensen,Robert Colescott,Hung Liu,Bruce Nauman,Rachel Neubauer,Ed Ruscha andMasami Teraoka.
Lens-based and time-based media works include those byNigel Poor,Catherine Wagner,Rebeca Bollinger,Alan Rath, thePropeller Group,Firelei Baez,Carrie Mae Weems, andLisa Reihana. The museums have also acquired works by artists such asAnish Kapoor,Odd Nerdrum,Gottfried Helnwein,Doris Salcedo,David Nash,Rose B. Simpson,Barbara Hepworth,Richard Deacon, andFrank Bowling.
With a $1 million grant from the Svane Family Foundation, in 2023 the Fine Arts Museums acquired works by 30 Bay Area artists, including Wesaam Al-Badry,Rupy C. Tut, Woody D. Othello, and Chelsea Ryoko Wong.[9] The exhibition Crafting Radicality: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift, on view at the de Young museum in 2023, displays works from the gift, "captures the local moment, as reported by KQED"[10]
The de Young also organized the first-ever retrospective ofFeminist Art pioneerJudy Chicago in 2020, forty years after her landmark installationThe Dinner Party (1974–79) made its debut in San Francisco.[11]
Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI organized at the de Young in 2021 was the "first major exhibition to unpack this question through a lens of contemporary art and propose new ways of thinking about intelligence, nature, and artifice."[12]FRIEZE magazine named it one of the top 10 exhibitions of the year.[13]
In 2021, the de Young organized artist Hung Liu's solo show, Golden Gate (金門), an exhibition that centered on the immigrant and migrant experience in California.[14]
Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence, which was first seen at the 2022 Venice Biennale, opened in February 2023 at the de Young. The US debut of the exhibition was notable for its inclusive, sensitive interpretative approach, spearheaded by FAMSF's Director of Interpretation Jackson Abrams.[15] A particularly notable aspect was the creation of a "respite room" where visitors could pause after visiting the exhibition.[16] The presentation also included special programming with community partners, such as workshops on grief.[17]
The Fine Arts Museums’ textiles collection[18] boasts more than 13,000 textiles and costumes from around the world. It is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of its type in the United States. It comprises costume and costume accessories;loom-woven textiles; non-woven fabrics; and objects whose primary decoration is produced through techniques such asbeading andembroidery.
The de Young has exhibited fashion since the 1930s, with pieces byDior,Balenciaga,Madame Grès,Yves Saint Laurent,Chanel,Ralph Rucci, andKaisik Wong. There are equally compelling collections of 18th and 19th-century Europeanfans, an excellentlace collection, a spectacular group of Europeanecclesiasticalvestments and furnishings, and a growing collection of contemporary wearable art.
In August 2017, The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love[19] and featured fashion from the late sixties from the museum's permanent collection and on loan from Bay Area independent designers. The exhibit hosted 270,000 visitors.[20]
In the fall of 2018, the de Young organized Contemporary Muslim Fashions. The exhibition explored Muslim female dress codes from multiple communities, cultures and religious interpretations, starting at the turn of the millennium.[21] It was the first large scale exploration of the topic at an art institution,[22] and included emerging and established designers and artists from Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia and the US.[23] The exhibition travelled to Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt in 2019.[24]
More than 1,400 examples from the eastern Sudan, the Guinea coast, west and central Africa, eastern and southern Africa, and elsewhere on the continent are included in the Fine Arts Museums’ African art collection[25] at the de Young. The African art collection is presented thematically rather than geographically, emphasizing the aesthetic and expressive qualities of the art.
The Oceanic collections[26] were charter collections of the de Young, their nucleus formed in 1894 at the California Midwinter International Exposition in Golden Gate Park. Additional Oceanic works ofsculpture,basketry,tapa,ceramics, andlithics have since been acquired, bringing the holdings to more than 3,000. Highlights of the collection include a 10-foot (3.0 m) housepost from theIatmul people of theSepik River inPapua New Guinea, a group of brightly painted carvings used inmalanggan ceremonials ofNew Ireland, a roll of feather money from Nindu Island of Santa Cruz, a fan from theMarquesas Islands ofPolynesia, a rare navigation figure from theCaroline Islands ofMicronesia, and a selection of powerfulwood carvings from theMaori peoples of New Zealand.
The Art of the Americas collections[27] are of national significance toart history,anthropology, andworld history, and they have helped establish the de Young as a primary source for cultural research and study. The extensive collection of ancient American and Native American art comprises nearly 2,000 works of art from Meso-America, Central and South America, and the West Coast of North America. Art from cultures indigenous to the American continents was a defining feature of the museum's charter collection and continues to be an area of significant growth. Special galleries are devoted to ancient objects from Mexico, including an outstanding grouping ofTeotihuacan murals.
The current building was completed by architectsJacques Herzog,Pierre de Meuron and Fong + Chan and opened on October 15, 2005. Structural, civil and geotechnical engineering was provided byRutherford & Chekene;Arup provided mechanical and electrical engineering.Herzog & de Meuron won the competition in January 1999 beating out other short-listed architectsTadao Ando andAntoine Predock. The terrain and seismic activity in San Francisco posed a challenge for the designersHerzog & de Meuron and principal architects Fong & Chan. To help withstand future earthquakes, "[the building] can move up to three feet (91 centimeters) due to a system of ball-bearing sliding plates and viscous fluid dampers that absorbkinetic energy and convert it to heat".[28]
A new museum structure located in the middle of an urban park was initially controversial. San Francisco voters twice defeated bond measures that were to fund the new museum project. After the second defeat, the museum itself planned to relocate to a location in thefinancial district. However, an effort led by generous supporters arose and kept the museum in the Golden Gate Park.
The designers were sensitive to the appearance of the building in its natural setting.Walter Hood, a landscape architect based inOakland, designed the museum's new gardens. The entire exterior is clad in 163,118 sq ft (15,154.2 m2) of copper, which is expected to eventually oxidize and take on agreenish tone and a distinct texture to echo the nearbyeucalyptus trees. In order to further harmonize with the surroundings, shapes were cut into the top to reveal gardens and courtyards where 48 trees had been planted, the giant tree-ferns that form a backdrop for the museum entrance are particularly dramatic. 5.12 acres (20,700 square meters) of new landscaping were planted as well, with 344 transplanted trees and 69 historic boulders. The building is clad with variably perforated and dimpled copper plates, whosepatina will slowly change through exposure to the elements. This exterior facade was developed and fabricated by engineers at Zahner.[29] A 144 ft. (44 m) observation tower allows visitors to see much of Golden Gate Park's Music Concourse (see below) and rises above the Park's treetops, providing a view of theGolden Gate andMarin Headlands.
The twisting 144 foot (44 m) tall tower is a distinctive feature, and can be seen rising above the canopy of Golden Gate Park from many areas of San Francisco. The museum offers a two-floor museum store, free access to the lobby and tower, and a full-service cafe with outdoor seating in the Osher Sculpture Garden.
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Media related toDe Young Museum at Wikimedia Commons
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