Posts Tagged ‘honor’

Flag Atop San Francisco’s Ferry Building at Half-Staff to Remember Edward M. Kennedy

Friday, August 28th, 2009

As goes Massachusetts, so goes San Francisco…

As seen yesterday evening:

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“Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique” Continues at the Legion of Honor Museum

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Here are some more shots of the fantastic Artistic Luxury exhibit at the Legion of Honor Museum.

Read all about it.

Fabergé Imperial Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket, St. Petersburg, 1896. Yellow and green gold, silver, nephrite,pearl, rose-cut diamonds:

That was the Best in Show. Here are some more objets:

 

Coming up next - eggs, precious eggs, about eight or so…

See you there!

Fantastic New Exhibition at the Legion – Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Have you gotten a chance to get up to San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum to see the new show Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique.

You ought to. It’s fantastic.

See you there!

Kremlin Clock Tower, c. 1913, House of Fabergé Click to expand

Artistic Luxury: Fabergé · Tiffany · Lalique

Opens February 7 at the Legion of Honor

Exhibition Dates:   February 7 — May 31, 2009
 
SAN FRANCISCO (Feb 6, 2009) — At the end of the 19th century, three ateliers in New York, Paris and St. Petersburg were preparing the final touches on spectacular examples of decorative objects and jewelry for an event with global implications – the 1900 International Exposition in Paris, which would be attended by over 50 million visitors.  There the work of three artists, Peter Carl Fabergé, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Rene Lalique, would be exhibited at the same venue for the first and only time. Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique returns to that historic moment and explores the master techniques and artistry of the three prominent designers ― and the rivalry between them.  The exhibition is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and will be on view from February 7 through May 31, 2009, at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
 Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique brings together nearly 250 objects from more than 40 international lenders including Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Serene Highness Prince Albert of Monaco, as well as institutions and private lenders in London, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, and across the United States.
Exhibition highlights include:
· Seven Easter eggs by Fabergé, including Imperial examples such as the Imperial Blue Serpent Egg Clock owned by Princess Grace of Monaco, one rare Imperial Easter egg by Cartier, and the Imperial Basket of Flowers by Fabergé, as well as bibelots and jewelry designed for the Russian Tsars and their family and later sold by the Bolsheviks. 
· The United States debut of the Magnolia Window by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios.  This stained glass window was purchased in Paris in 1901 for the collection of Baron Stieglitz, a close courtier of Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg, and has only recently been exhibited in Russia.
· Major examples of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Favrile glass including vases and a large selection of his incomparable glass lamps.
· Spectacular jewelry featuring diamonds and rare gemstones by Tiffany & Co.
· René Lalique’s extraordinary Art Nouveau designs for artistic jewelry incorporating stylized insects and birds, plant forms, mythical creatures, and idealized female figures. Lalique’s glass will also be featured, including his Frogs and Lily Pads Vase.
· Stylized bronze sculptures of women metamorphosing into butterflies that decorated Lalique’s booth at the 1900 Exposition.

 Artistic Luxury takes a critical look at the development, design, and marketing of each artist and explores how Fabergé, Tiffany, and Lalique responded to the demand for luxury decorative objects at the turn of the 20th century. Although all three designers competed for the same commissions and customers – royalty, political leaders, actors, and captains of industry, each was known for his own characteristic style, which will be displayed through separate galleries devoted to each designer.  In the end, the three artists were united by a common purpose: to elevate the mundane object (umbrella handles, lamps, inkwells, etc.)  into the most luxurious and artistic creations imaginable for their illustrious clientele. Their work became the ultimate status symbol of the Gilded Age.
 The three designers drew inspiration from both historicism, reviving popular motifs from the past, and new currents in design such as Art Nouveau and Modernism.  Fabergé, who catered primarily to the tastes of the Russian and British royal families, was the most conservative in design of the three. Tiffany had the broadest range of customers and gained a reputation for providing the most extraordinary objects of personal adornment.  Lalique pushed the boundaries of his artistry towards the avant-garde and attracted the patronage of influential members of the artistic and literary circles. All three are credited with the elevation of indigenous multi-colored gemstones, in contrast to the profusion of white diamonds and pearls favored by the world’s aristocracy.  Likewise, the use of humble materials such as horn, ivory, glass and hard stones enabled the designers to spotlight their natural colorations and concentrate on the sculptural possibilities inherent in the material.

The 1900 Paris International Exposition
From April through November of 1900, over 50 million visitors attended this international world’s fair where nearly 60 countries presented 85,000 exhibitions of the best of their art and culture, scientific innovations and manufacturing accomplishments.  Visitors were wowed by innovations such as the escalator, the moving sidewalk, the wireless telegraph, the first projected sound films and the world’s most powerful telescope.  The Exposition’s legacy included many grand Parisian buildings that were constructed as venues for the Exposition such as the Grand Palais, the Gare de Lyon, the Gare D’Orsay (now the Musee D’Orsay), the Pont Alexander III and the Petit Palais. The second Olympic Games were held in Paris during five months of the Exposition and included the first female athletes.

Organization
Artistic Luxury:  Fabergé Tiffany Lalique is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Credit Information
The San Francisco presentation is made possible by Major Patrons John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn, Lead Sponsor William Fries II, and sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Goss, II, Mr. and Mrs. Scott Gross and Diana Dollar Knowles.   Generous support was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Adolphus Andrews Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Phillip E. Bowles, Mr. and Mrs. Staffan Encrantz, Mrs. George Hopper Fitch and the Fifth Age of Man Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Clare C. McEvoy Charitable Remainder Unitrust and Jay D. McEvoy Trust, Hurlbut-Johnson Charitable Trusts, and through bequests from Alfred H. Peet, the Evelyn A. Westberg Trust, and the Michael J. Weller Trust.

Catalog
A catalog, Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique by Stephen Harrison, Emmanuel Ducamp and Jeannine Falino with contributions by Christie Mayer Lefkowith, Pilar Velez, Catherine Walworth and Wilfried Zeisler (Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2008) accompanies the exhibition. 

Visiting the Legion of Honor
The Legion of Honor displays a collection of over 4,000 years of ancient and European art and houses the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts in a Beaux-Arts style building overlooking Lincoln Park and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Address: Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street
  San Francisco, CA 94121, 415.750.3600
Hours:  Tuesday–Sunday, 9:30 am–5:15 pm; closed on Monday
Admission: $20 – adults
 $17 – seniors
 $16 – youths 13–17 and students with college I.D.
  Members and children 12 and under are free.
  ($10 admission for permanent collection only)
General admission is free the first Tuesday of every month ($10 surcharge for Artistic Luxury still applies).
Information: legionofhonor.org

Fantastic Leonardo da Vinci Show at the Legion of Honor Museum

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

Unlike last year’s “dreary” and ”overpriced” Leonardo show at the Metreon, the Legion of Honor’s new Leonardo da Vinci: Drawings From the Biblioteca Reale in Turin exhibit is the real deal.

Read this thumbnail sketch and this short review.

Leonardo’s drawing of a typical man (who looks a lot like actor Bill Murray) is on the other side of this piece so it appears like a ghostly image. The custom-built “pylons” at the Legion allow visitors to see both sides of one piece of paper. Leo liked to doodle on the backs of his sketches, you know.   

Here it is, straight out of Turin, something Bill Gates hasn’t yet purchased – the Codex on the Flight of Birds:

Exhibition Dates: November 15, 2008–January 4, 2009

Curator: James Ganz

More details after the jump.

da Vinci Coda: See you there!

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“State Museums of Berlin” Show Opens at the Legion of Honor Museum

Friday, October 17th, 2008

 

“The State Museums of Berlin and the Legacy of James Simon” exhibition will run at the Legion of Honor museum until January 2009. This show has a little bit of everything:

 

Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque sculptures, Old Master paintings, works on paper including eighteenth and nineteenth-century Japanese woodcuts, art of the Silk Road, and European folk art.

 

What these things have in common is that they are all on loan from the State Museums of Berlin and they were all originally donated by James Simon.

 

 

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Board President Diane “Dede” Wilsey recently took time out from raising half a billion(!) dollars for the UCSF Mission Bay campus to comment about how the James Simon show is “full of gems,” which it is.

 

This exhibit dovetails nicely with the next Cinema Supper Club Series: Berliner Film Fest, which will show Metropolis, Cabaret, Grand Hotel, Run Lola Run, and Wings of Desire.

 

See you there!

 

More details after the jump

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See the “What’s Up, Doc?” Movie Tonight at the Legion

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

The 1972 comedy “What’s Up, Doc?”  is on tonight at 8:00 PM up at everybody’s favorite raccoon hangout, San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum . It’s Cinema Supper Club featuring Women Impressionists.

What’s Up, Doc?(1972, 90 mins)
Mixed-up suitcases add to the screwball zaniness when a trouble-prone college dropout (Barbara Streisand) pursues a musicologist (Ryan O’Neal) at a San Francisco hotel.

Be on the lookout for the damage caused by all those cars going down the Alta Plaza steps at 8:40 here.

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via Johnny Grim’s photostream

See you there!

Opening Weekend of Chihuly at the de Young in Golden Gate Park a Huge Success

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

The first two days of ChihulyPalooza in Golden Gate Park were well attended, despite the admonishment of New Republic Art Critic Jed Perl:

Everybody rushes to the Museum of Modern Art and the De Young, two overblown buildings with sporadically important collections, while the most beautiful museum in the city–the Legion of Honor, in which masterpieces by Watteau, Le Nain, and Seurat have been given a thrillingly elegant installation- -is hardly ever mentioned.

Well, consider the Legion mentioned, Mr. Perl. Now on with the show:

Director John Buchanan speaking with Dale Chihuly earlier at the preview. Click to expand:

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Let’s head outside to see the spectacle in front of the museum. A man controlling his metallic fire animals obscured by propane gas:

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The Crucible’s Educational Response Vehicle. Have anvil, will travel:

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The thrill of sending a plume of fire skyward the first time:

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A bed of nails with a fretful ballerina on top:

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And inside the museum, cherubs everywhere:

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See you there!

It’s “Chihulypalooza!” – Dale Chihuly Glass at San Francisco’s de Young Museum

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

John Buchanan, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, calls it “Chihulypalooza.” Dale himself says that he and Team Chihuly “went all out” to put on Chihuly at the de Young. This thing is huge. It’s the Largest Show He’s Ever Done.

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Strike a pose. Dale Chihuly in front of Neodymium Reeds

It all starts Saturday. This weekend is called Chihuly Opening Weekend Sponsored by Target. So admission will be free. But things will get start getting hectic on Saturday so be sure to check out the rules.

You might even be tempted to sign up for a Participating or Family Membership just for the perks. (It’s cheaper than you’d expect and about half the cost of similar memberships at the soon to be completed California Academy of Sciences.)

Download the MP3 (or even a picture enabled M4A) to hear all about it, or wait and then pay a small fee for the Antenna Audio Tour.

The Schedule of Events. On both Saturday and Sunday, you’ll be able to see: 

The Crucible’s Educational Response Vehicle (stations will be set up near and around the vehicle showcasing demonstrations of blacksmithing, arc welding, glass flame working and oxy-acetylene torch cutting - plus they will be pouring bronze!), the Von Stilt Family stilt walkers, and the Chihuly at the Hot Shop documentary.

For Saturday only, you’ll be able to see:

Sideshow Spectacular by $teve Ra$pa Productions (DJ Neon Bunny, extreme jugglers, contortionists, acrobatics, hula hoops, and musical saws and accordions), Japonize Elephants (ten-piece musical ensemble includes glockenspiel, junk percussion, and accordion, along with guitar, bass, flute, saxophone, trumpet, fiddle, banjo, and vocals), and they’ll be hands-on art activities for the entire family, including Texture Tower, Color Collage, and Undersea World Creatures.

And on Sunday, you’ll be able to see:

Blue Monk Combo (jazz ensemble of recent graduates from San Rafael High School), Space Heater Blast Furnace (a combination of woodwind melodies and harmonies with noisy, machine funk), Bellow and Pluck: Rich Kuhns and Seward McCain (an eclectic combo of jazz, tango, Latin styles, and the occasional Beatles selection), Fishtank Ensemble (a unique blend of Gypsy, Balkan, Flamenco, Klezmer, and original tunes), Loop!Station: Robin Coomer and Sam Bass (live sampling and looping), Gregangelo and Velocity Circus, Les Aerials: Trapeze Arts, Foo Foo Ha! (mini circus vignettes and dance routines), Musical Chanteusse Nicolette (performance, side show artist Herbie Hatman entertains with body deyfying feats), Dale Chihuly presenting a one-hour talk about his life’s work with an introduction by Timothy Anglin Burgard, Ednah Root Curator-in-Charge of the American Art Department (tickets no longer available, sorry), and the day will end with book signing with Dale himself).

See you there!

The eleven rooms, in order. Almost all the things here are much taller than you are - they’re huge.  

Click to expand: 

Room 1: Glass Forest 3, milk-glass and neon: 

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Room 2:

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Room 3, Persian Wall:

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Room 4, Tabac baskets plus Pendletons:

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Room 5:

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Room 6, Neodymium Reeds: 

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Room 7, Float Boats:

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Room 8, Five Chandeliers: Ruby Red, Turquoise Icicle, Orange Hornet and Eelgrass, Chiostro di Sant’ Apollonia, and Palazzo de Loredana Balboni:

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Room 9:

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The view of Room 11 from Room 10 (the installation you can see through the doorway is 18 yards long):

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Room 10, ceiling, looking up:

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Room 11, Mille Fiori:

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