De Young Museum facts for kids
The de Young Museum, officially known as the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a cool fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. You can find it inside the beautiful Golden Gate Park. It's part of a bigger group called the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also includes the Legion of Honor. The museum is named after M. H. de Young, an important San Francisco newspaperman from the past.
You can easily get to the museum using public transit. The N Judah Metro train stops at the 9th Avenue and Irving station, which is about half a mile away. Also, several Muni bus lines, like the 44 O'Shaughnessy, and the Golden Gate Park Free Shuttle, stop right at the museum's entrance.
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| Established | March 23, 1895 |
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| Location | 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, California, United States |
| Type | Art museum |
| Visitors | 797,444 (2022) |
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Contents
Visiting the de Young Museum
The de Young Museum is a very popular place! In 2022, nearly 800,000 people visited. This made it one of the most visited museums in the United States and among the top art museums worldwide.
A Look at the Museum's History
The de Young Museum first opened its doors in 1895. It was located in a building from the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. This fair was like a smaller version of the famous Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. The first building was designed in an Egyptian revival style.
Sadly, the building was badly damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It had to close for repairs for about a year and a half. As the museum grew, it needed a bigger and better space. Michael de Young helped plan a new building.
The new building was designed in a Spanish-Plateresque-style and finished in 1919. Michael de Young gave it to the city. In 1921, he added a central part and a tall tower. This tower became a famous symbol of the museum. The museum was then renamed the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum to honor him. Another part was added in 1925, the year de Young passed away. The original Egyptian-style building was taken down in 1929 because it was unsafe.
Over time, the museum's outer decorations started to rust from the salty air. They were removed in 1949 to keep the building safe.
In 1972, the de Young's European art collection moved to the Legion of Honor. In return, the de Young received many amazing artworks from different cultures. These included ancient works from Teotihuacan and Peru, and tribal art from sub-Saharan Africa.
The museum building was severely damaged again by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Because of this, the old building was taken down. A brand new building was constructed and opened in 2005. Today, only a few original pieces remain. These include the vases and sphinx statues near the Pool of Enchantment. The palm trees in front of the museum are also from the original site.
What You Can See: The Collections
The de Young Museum has an amazing variety of art! You can see American art from the 1600s to today. There's also international contemporary art, cool textiles, and costumes. Plus, you can explore art from the Americas, Oceania, and Africa.
Some of the main collections include:
- American Art
- African Art
- Oceanic Art
- Arts of the Americas
- Costumes and Textile arts
- Graphic arts
- Photography
- Sculpture
You can even explore some of the collection online! Check out the museum's website or Google Arts and Culture.
American Art Collection
The American art collection is huge! It has over 5,000 items. These include paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts. They cover art from 1670 all the way to the present day.
A big part of this collection came from John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller. In 1978, they donated their famous collection of 110 paintings, 29 drawings, and 2 sculptures.
The de Young shows American art in order of time. You can see art from different periods like:
- Native American and Spanish Colonial art.
- Art from the Federal era and Neoclassical styles.
- Victorian genre and realism.
- Hudson River School landscapes.
- Impressionism.
- Modernism and Abstraction.
- And much more, right up to Pop and Contemporary art.
The museum also highlights art made in California. This includes art from the California Gold Rush era to today. You can see important works by Bay Area artists like Chiura Obata and Ruth Asawa.
The galleries mix different types of art together. This helps you understand the art's historical and social background. You might see paintings, sculptures, and decorative items all in one place.
Some famous painters whose works are in this museum include:
- Mary Cassatt
- John Singleton Copley
- Thomas Cole
- Childe Hassam
- Georgia O'Keeffe
- Wayne Thiebaud
- And many others!
In 2017, the museum added 62 new works by 22 contemporary African American artists. These amazing pieces were first shown in an exhibition called "Revelations: Art from the African American South."
More recently, in 2023, the museum received a gift of 61 American artworks from Bernard and Barbro Osher. This gift includes pieces by well-known artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
The de Young Open
The de Young Museum started a special exhibition called "The de Young Open." It's a show for artists from the San Francisco Bay Area. Artists can submit their work, and a jury chooses pieces to display. It's a huge show, with hundreds of artworks filling the galleries! All the chosen artworks are available for sale. The museum announced that this open exhibition will happen every three years.
International Contemporary Art
Since 1988, the Fine Arts Museums have been collecting international contemporary art. This means they collect art from all over the world made in recent times. They have traditional art, but also new types of art. This includes installations, video art, and photography.
Some of the cool contemporary artworks you might see are:
- Wall of Light Horizon by Sean Scully.
- Sculptures by Zhan Wang and Cornelia Parker.
The museum has a strong collection of artists connected to California. These include Hung Liu, Bruce Nauman, and Ed Ruscha. They also have works by famous international artists like Anish Kapoor and Odd Nerdrum.
In 2023, the museums received a grant to buy works by 30 more Bay Area artists. These works were shown in an exhibition called "Crafting Radicality: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift."
The de Young also hosted the first big show about Feminist Art pioneer Judy Chicago in 2020. In 2021, they had an exhibition called "Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI," which explored art and artificial intelligence.
In 2023, the museum showed "Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence." This exhibition was first seen at the Venice Biennale. It was special because it offered a "respite room" where visitors could relax after seeing the powerful art.
Textiles and Costumes
The Fine Arts Museums have an incredible collection of over 13,000 textiles and costumes! These pieces come from all over the world. It's one of the biggest collections of its kind in the United States.
The collection includes:
- Costumes and accessories.
- Fabrics made on a loom.
- Other types of fabrics.
- Objects decorated with beading and embroidery.
The de Young has shown fashion since the 1930s. You can see pieces by famous designers like Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel, and Yves Saint Laurent. There are also beautiful collections of 18th and 19th-century European fans, amazing lace, and church vestments. They also have a growing collection of modern wearable art.
In 2017, the museum had a popular exhibition called "The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll." It celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. The show featured fashion from the late 1960s and attracted over 270,000 visitors!
In 2018, the de Young organized "Contemporary Muslim Fashions." This was the first big exhibition at an art museum to explore Muslim female dress codes. It showed designs from many different communities and cultures.
Art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
The de Young Museum has more than 1,400 amazing pieces of African art. These come from different parts of Africa, like the eastern Sudan and the Guinea coast. The African art collection is shown by themes, focusing on the beauty and meaning of the art.
The Oceanic collections were some of the first pieces the de Young collected. They started with items from the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition. Now, the museum has over 3,000 Oceanic works. These include sculptures, basketry, tapa, ceramics, and stone tools.
Some highlights include:
- A 10-foot housepost from the Iatmul people of Papua New Guinea.
- Brightly painted carvings from New Ireland.
- A rare navigation figure from the Caroline Islands of Micronesia.
- Powerful wood carvings from the Maori people of New Zealand.
The Art of the Americas collections are very important for understanding art history and world history. They make the de Young a key place for cultural research. This large collection has nearly 2,000 artworks from ancient America and Native American cultures. It includes pieces from Meso-America, Central and South America, and the West Coast of North America. Special galleries show ancient objects from Mexico, including amazing Teotihuacan murals.
Selected Collection Highlights
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Rainy Season in the Tropics by Frederic Edwin Church
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Winter in the Country by George Henry Durrie
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Sacramento Railroad Station by William Hahn
The Museum's Architecture
The current de Young building was designed by architects Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Fong + Chan. It opened on October 15, 2005. Building a new museum in the middle of a park was a big discussion at first. San Francisco voters actually voted against funding the new museum twice! But thanks to generous supporters, the museum stayed in Golden Gate Park.
The architects wanted the building to fit in with its natural surroundings. Walter Hood, a landscape architect, designed the museum's new gardens. The outside of the building is covered with over 163,000 square feet of copper. This copper will slowly turn a greenish color over time, just like the nearby eucalyptus trees.
To make it blend in even more, shapes were cut into the top of the building. These shapes reveal gardens and courtyards where 48 trees were planted. The giant tree-ferns at the entrance are especially cool. The museum also added over 5 acres of new landscaping, with 344 transplanted trees and 69 historic boulders.
A unique feature of the museum is its twisting, 144-foot (44 m) tall observation tower. From the top, you can see much of Golden Gate Park and even views of the Golden Gate and Marin Headlands.
The museum also has a two-floor museum store, and you can visit the lobby and tower for free. There's also a cafe with outdoor seating in the Osher Sculpture Garden.
See also
In Spanish: De Young Museum para niños
- List of largest art museums
- List of most-visited art museums
- List of most-visited museums in the United States
- Bouquets to Art, an annual floral exhibition inspired by the museum's collections
