The de Young and Legion of Honor are temporarily closed. Visit our COVID-19 Updates page for more information.
Enrico Donati (b. 1909) is perhaps the last living Surrealist artist closely associated with the movement’s acknowledged leader, André Breton. He was a key figure in the community of European expatriate artists in World War II–era New York. This exhibition recreates the extraordinary assemblage of objects in the artist’s New York studio.
The cool glamour, spare elegance, and iconic style of the late Mrs. Thomas L. Kempner, one of the most renowned members of the Best-Dressed List's Hall of Fame, is celebrated through a selection of her favorite designers and couture ensembles.
The extraordinary 30-year career of Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948) is celebrated in this retrospective of more than 100 luminous photographs, made from 1976 to the present. This presentation, in an installation designed by Sugimoto, constitutes the first major survey of Sugimoto’s oeuvre.
The de Young presents an exhibition of the work of Peter Max in conjunction with the community celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. The exhibition features fifty works by Max. As a prolific, multi-dimensional artist and Pop art icon, Max continues to create colorful paintings and posters. The psychedelic imagery, bright color palette, and “Cosmic ‘60s style” of his works express the spirit of the Summer of Love.
Download the Chim PodTour! Join exhibition curator Robert Flynn Johnson in an in-depth look at Chim's life and work.
Chim PodTour MP3 (18.9MB)
Enhanced Chim PodTour with images M4A (29.2MB)
Contemporary artist Michael Arcega reinterprets the Oceanic collections at the de Young with Homing Pidgin, a Collection Connections exhibition. Arcega is known for sculpture and installations that revolve around language, a subject he dealt with early in his life when his family emigrated from the Philippines to California. At the de Young, he shows common Oceanic objects that have become altered after frequent interactions with Western culture. He compares this phenomenon to the pidgin languages (dialects that blend Western and Oceanic words) spoken throughout Oceania.
Louise Nevelson's life (1899–1988) and work are a story in sculpture. The story is a weaving together and intermingling of several histories: her personal history as a woman artist, the history of Jewish migration to this country, and the history of 20th-century art, including major movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism.
Renowned Santa Fe collector Sandy Besser has assembled an extraordinary array of objects in almost every conceivable medium. This exhibition features a selection of his finest objects, drawn from three major collection areas.
This exhibition features selected masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums' extraordinary collection of Turkmen carpets and tent trappings from Central Asia. More than 40 examples are on view in the Textile Gallery, almost all given to the Museums in the past twenty years by four major donors: H.T.
San Francisco-based artist Lynn Hershman Leeson is a pioneer in new media, and her Internet-based works have won her much acclaim. For No Body Special, part of the Collection Connections program, she creates an image of a red coat from the de Young Museum’s permanent collection that is featured in performances around the city. The exhibition will exist in the galleries and on the Internet, where it will inhabit a “second life.”
