de Young 125
By Ann Heath Karlstrom, devorah major, Kim Shuck, Karin Breuer, Timothy Anglin Burgard, Jill D’Alessandro, Christina Hellmich, et al.
The de Young is San Francisco’s oldest art museum, treasured in a unique verdant setting. Beginning as the Golden Gate Park Memorial Museum in 1895, this museum has been a valued center of world art and culture, serving the Bay Area and, increasingly, national and international visitors and scholars. A city museum since 1924, it joined the Legion of Honor in 1972 to become part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, together preserving and exhibiting the most widely inclusive art collections in the city. Over years, the de Young buildings changed in telling ways, transforming to protect and present a continuously expanding array of objects and their histories.
Published to mark the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of the de Young, this volume offers a new path to artworks from across its departmental disciplines: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; American art; contemporary art and programming; costume and textiles; and works on paper. Poetic themes, curatorial insights, brief institutional histories, and an expanded historical timeline are accompanied by lavish new photography to present this beloved museum to audiences today. de Young 125 presents a selection of one hundred twenty-five works from around the world and spanning more than two millennia to convey a shared human experience and creative achievement.
Authors
Ann Heath Karlstrom, former director of publications for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is an independent author and editor.
devorah major, poet laureate of San Francisco 2002‒2004, is a writer and word performer who has taught in the Museums’ Poets in the Galleries program since 1987.
Kim Shuck, poet laureate of San Francisco 2017‒2020, is a writer, weaver, and beadwork artist who teaches in the Museums’ Poets in the Galleries program.
At the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Karin Breuer is the curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.
Timothy Anglin Burgard is the senior distinguished curator and Ednah Root Curator in Charge of American Art.
Jill D’Alessandro is the curator in charge of costume and textile arts in The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Department of Textile Arts.
Christina Hellmich is the curator in charge of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art.
Claudia Schmuckli is the curator in charge of contemporary art and programming.
Araceli Bremauntz-Enriquez is the archives assistant in the Library and Archives.
Laura L. Camerlengo is the associate curator of costume and textile arts in The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Department of Textile Arts.
Janna Keegan is the assistant curator of contemporary art and programming.
Hillary C. Olcott is the associate curator of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
Lauren Palmor is the assistant curator of American Art.
