Oakey will oversee the Museums’ holdings ranging from late medieval to modern times, including furniture, porcelain, period rooms, and sculpture.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 13, 2025 — The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the “Fine Arts Museums”) today announced the appointment of David Oakey as Curator in Charge of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture. In this role, Oakey will oversee collections that range from late medieval to modern times and embrace furniture, porcelain, period rooms, and sculpture, including the Legion of Honor’s renowned collection of works by Auguste Rodin.

Oakey brings a history of robust scholarship and curatorial expertise to the position, including roles at  prominent  private collections, museums, and in the commercial art world.

“We are delighted to welcome David Oakey, an internationally recognized scholar of 18th- and 19th-century French and British furniture and ceramics, to lead the curatorial department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture,” states Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “European decorative arts and sculpture are core to the Legion of Honor, and I look forward to supporting David and his team as they continue to study and deepen the collection.”

Prior to joining the Fine Arts Museums, Oakey served as curator of one of the world’s most prestigious private collections and was the Director of Research for Carlton Hobbs LLC, a leading dealer of European decorative arts in New York. Oakey is currently pursuing a doctorate from the University of Cambridge. His thesis explores evidence of Anglo-French rapprochement in late eighteenth-century decorative arts and architecture.

“I am interested in how decorative arts reveal transnational interactions and exchange between different cultures, interests that are well aligned with the globally spanning collections of the Fine Arts Museums,” says Oakey. “I am also fascinated by what decorative art objects can reveal about technological and scientific developments—a subject I look forward to exploring further in the innovation and tech hub of the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Oakey began his career at the Royal Collection Trust working as Assistant to the Deputy Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art. In this role, he developed projects including The Queen’s Year, an exhibition presented in 2010 at Buckingham Palace. In tandem with his work at the Royal Collection, Oakey pursued a master’s degree from the University of Buckingham in decorative arts and historic interiors.

Oakey has lectured widely in the field including for the Society of Court Studies, the Furniture History Society, the English Ceramics Circle, the London Ceramics Circle and the Attingham Trust, and has presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum London, the Wallace Collection London, and has appeared on BBC television and radio.

In 2022 Oakey was nominated as a fellow of the 300-year-old Society of Antiquaries of London, a UK society for historians and archaeologists, and he served as a member of the furniture vetting committee at London’s Masterpiece Art Fair for three years. He has been prominently involved with the Furniture History Society, currently as one of its Trustees, and previously served as Co-Chair of its Events Committee between 2019 and 2023. He organized specialist study tours, research days, conferences, and a series of online lectures for the society during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His scholarly articles have appeared in the journals of the Furniture History Society and the English Ceramics Circle, and his book contributions include an essay on the lost palace Carlton House for the Royal Collection catalogue George IV: Art & Spectacle (2019) and a chapter in Bloomsbury’s Cultural History of Furniture (2021).

“David Oakey’s areas of expertise correspond perfectly to core strengths of our collection at the Legion of Honor,” says Emily Beeny, Chief Curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara A. Wolfe Curator in Charge of European Paintings. “I know he will bring these exquisite objects to life for our visitors.”

Oakey will join his new colleagues in San Francisco on April 28. 

About European Decorative Arts and Sculpture
European decorative arts and sculpture is one of the founding collecting areas of the Legion of Honor, comprising material from the late medieval period through the modern era. At the core of the sculpture collection is a corpus of important works by Auguste Rodin formed by Legion of Honor founder Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, including The Thinker, which has become the emblem of the museum. The collection of European decorative arts is similarly strong, with collection highlights including examples of French 18th-century furniture, Sèvres and Meissen porcelain, a Spanish palace ceiling, pietre dure (hard stone) from Florence, a canapé (sofa) designed for French queen Marie Antionette, Russian Fabergé objects, and three period rooms, including the renovated Salon Doré.

About the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Together, the de Young in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park make up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest in the United States. Opened in 1895, the de Young is home to American art from the 17th century through today; costume and textile arts; arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; and contemporary art. Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2024–2025, the Legion of Honor presents European painting, sculpture, and decorative arts; ancient art; works on paper; and contemporary art.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco respectfully acknowledge the Ramaytush Ohlone, the original inhabitants of what is now the San Francisco Peninsula, and we further acknowledge that the greater Bay Area is the ancestral territory of the Miwok, Yokuts, and Patwin, as well as other Ohlone peoples. Indigenous communities have lived in and moved through this land over hundreds of generations and Indigenous peoples from many nations make their home in this region today. Please join us in recognizing and honoring their ancestors, descendants, elders, and all other members of their communities.

Media Contact
Francisco Rosas \ frosas@famsf.org