The Legion of Honor, founded in 1924, is one of San Francisco’s oldest art museums. Perched on a hill in the quiet splendor of Lincoln Park, overlooking a panorama of hills, water, and sky, the museum draws visitors and scholars from all over the world. A city museum since its founding, the Legion united with the de Young in 1972 to become the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, conserving and presenting an inclusive, wide-ranging collection that dates from the fourth millennium BC to the twenty-first century.

Published to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Legion of Honor, this volume presents one hundred artworks selected from the Legion’s curatorial departments: ancient art; European paintings; European decorative arts and sculpture; costume and textile arts; and works of art on paper. Engaging curatorial introductions to the objects, poetic essays exploring the theme of each section, concise histories of the Legion and its curatorial departments, and an illustrated timeline of the museum’s history, all accompanied by sumptuous new photography, present this cherished museum to audiences today and offer new ways of connecting with its artworks. The diversity of permanent-collection objects featured in Legion of Honor 100 represents the deep and varied perspectives on view in the museum’s galleries, conveying the centrality of art in the human experience.

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 from 2002 to 2004, is a poet, novelist, and essayist who taught in the Museums’ Poets in the Galleries program for twenty-eight years.

Kim Shuck, poet laureate of San Francisco from 2017 to 2020, is a writer, weaver, and beadwork artist who teaches in the Museums’ Poets in the Galleries program.

Araceli Bremauntz-Enriquez is the former archives assistant in the Fine Arts Museums Library and Archives.

Karin Breuer is the former curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Jill D’Alessandro is the director and curator of the Avenir Institute of Textile Arts and Fashion at the Denver Art Museum.

Kirk Nickel is the Marc and Lillian Rojtman Consulting Curator of European Art at the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee. 

Thomas Wu is assistant curator of European Decorative Arts at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, Washington, DC.

At the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco:

Emily A. Beeny is the curator in charge of European paintings.

Laura L. Camerlengo is the curator in charge of costume and textile arts for the Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Department of Textile Arts.

Martin Chapman is the curator in charge of European decorative arts and sculpture.

Renée Dreyfus is the George and Judy Marcus Distinguished Curator and Curator in Charge, Ancient Art.

Furio Rinaldi is the curator in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.

Louise Chu is the associate curator of ancient art.

Isabella M. Holland is the curatorial assistant of European paintings.

Isabella Lores-Chavez is the associate curator of European paintings.

Mary Pedraza is the Museums’ archivist.