Home|  Blog|  Blog Category: Collections

Blog Category: Collections

Art Animals at the de Young Summer Art Camp

Posted by Eileen Lew Morris on August 17, 2012

It’s hard to believe that the last week of the de Young Summer Art Camp is already here. During this final week, the sixth floor studio turned into a zoo as guest blogger Alida Jekabson reports.

Goodbye summer camp

Read more »
Filed under:

#MuseumOlympics Torch on Fire: A Story of Collaboration and Social Innovation

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on August 14, 2012

For the past two weeks, the world watched athletes from the world over compete and triumph in the 2012 Olympic Games. Meanwhile, museums the world over competed on Twitter in the tongue-in cheek competition #MuseumOlympics, which originated right here in San Francisco. Willa Köerner, digital engagement associate at SFMOMA and today's guest blogger, takes us behind the scenes of #MuseumOlympics and reveals the origins of what will surely become a new quadrennial tradition.

Taber Olympics

Isaiah West Taber (American, 1830–1912). Olympic Club Day, 1894. Gelatin silver print. California Midwinter International Exposition, through M.H. deYoung. 2502

Read more »
Filed under:

The Power of Painting and Printmaking at the de Young Summer Art Camp

Posted by Eileen Lew Morris on August 10, 2012

Guest blogger Kelsey Linton takes us inside the de Young Summer Art Camp where we catch up with the Apprentices, Artisans, and Muses and Masters as they learn about this week’s theme, "The Power of Painting and Printmaking."

In gallery

The Apprentices kicked off the week by examining the color wheel and discussing different types of colors, color mixing, and tinting. Using this newfound knowledge, each apprentice then made his or her own wheel.

Read more »
Filed under:

Life with René

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on August 9, 2012

In 2010 longtime trustee Denise Fitch gave the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco an extensive collection of drawings by her first husband, artist René Bouché (1905–1963). Bouché—who contributed illustrations to esteemed publications such as Vogue and Time Magazine—is the subject of the special exhibition René Bouché: Letters from Post-War Paris at the Legion of Honor. Friends with both Man Ray and Lee Miller, Mrs. Fitch and René Bouché led rich lives that sparkled with art, culture, humor, and glamour.

Bicycle

René Robert Bouché (French, 1905–1963). 139. La Parisienne 1945 from The Morning After: Paris, 1945. Pen, ink, and color wash on paper. Gift of Denise B. Fitch in memory of my late husband, René Robert Bouché (1905–1963). 2010.61.2.13.

Read more »
Filed under:

My Olympic Memories

Posted by Gregory Stock on August 8, 2012

Here at the de Young, we know Gregory Stock as “Mr. Friday Nights,” but he used to be an elite collegiate swimmer. As we enter the final week of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Gregory shares with us some of his favorite Olympic memories.

As a young competitive swimmer, my adolescence consisted of waking up early for practice before school, spending hours training in the pool, perfecting my technique, and focusing on the ultimate goal of touching the wall first.

GTS Backstroke

Read more »
Filed under:

Weird Sports: Olympic Oddities from the Ancient World

Posted by Arlo Crawford on August 4, 2012

The Olympic canoe sprint, an event that starts on August 6, looks pretty weird when you think about it: human beings wrapped in brightly colored fabrics, sitting in little plastic shells, racing on a simulated river. It would have looked even weirder to the ancient Greeks. The first Olympic event was actually pretty simple, the stadion: a foot race of exactly one stade, which was a length of about 180 meters. It was run naked, it was over in less than a minute, and nobody capsized. The ancient Olympics did include some pretty weird sports however, and Gifts From the Gods: Art and the Olympic Ideal, currently on view at the Legion of Honor, exhibits several ancient coins depicting some of the oddest ones. 

coin with man and torch

Jockey galloping right, holding torch (obverse), silver didrachm, ca. 280-272 BC, Tarentum, Calabria. Anonymous Loan

Read more »
Filed under: