The Legion of Honor (formerly known as The California Palace of the Legion of Honor) is a part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). The name is used both for the museum collection and for the building in which it is housed. Max Hollein currently serves as its Director and CEO.
History
The Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels. The building is a full-scale replica, by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume, of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panamaâ€"Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris, by Pierre Rousseau (1782). At the close of the exposition, which was located just a few miles away, the French government granted Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921.
The museum building occupies an elevated site in Lincoln Park in the northwest of the city, with views over the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of the surrounding Lincoln Park Golf Course is on the site of a potter's field called the "Golden Gate Cemetery" that the City had bought in 1867. The cemetery was closed in 1908 and the bodies were relocated to Colma. During seismic retrofitting in the 1990s, however, coffins and skeletal remains were unearthed.
"Between March 1992 and November 1995â€"its seventy-first anniversaryâ€"the Legion underwent a major renovation that included seismic strengthening, building systems upgrades, restoration of historic architectural features, and an underground expansion that added 35,000 square feet. Visitor services and program facilities increased, without altering the historic façade or adversely affecting the environmental integrity of the site. The architects chosen to accomplish this challenging feat were Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero."
The plaza and fountain in front of the Palace of the Legion of Honor is the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first improved road for automobiles across America. The terminus marker and an interpretive plaque are located in the southwest corner of the plaza and fountain, just to the left of the Palace. Dominating the classical plaza is "Pax Jerusalemme," a modern sculpture by Mark di Suvero.
Collections
The Legion of Honor displays a collection spanning more than 6,000 years of ancient and European art and houses the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts in a neoclassical building overlooking Lincoln Park and the Golden Gate Bridge.
European Art
The museum contains a representative collection of European art, the largest portion of which is French. Its most distinguished collection is of sculpture by Auguste Rodin. Casts of some of his most famous works are on display, including one of The Thinker in the Court of Honor. However, there are individual works by many other artists, including François Boucher, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, David, El Greco, Giambattista Pittoni, Rubens, and many of the Impressionists and post-Impressionistsâ€"Degas, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Seurat, Cézanne and others. There are also representative works by key 20th century figures such as Braque and Picasso, and works of contemporary artists like Gottfried Helnwein and Robert Crumb.
Hollein successfully launched a contemporary art initiative, bringing the work of living artists into dialogue with the buildings and collections of the de Young Museum and Legion of Honor. In 2017, the contemporary program at the Legion of Honor features exhibitions by Urs Fischer and Sarah Lucas in dialogue with the museum's acclaimed Rodin collection to commemorate the centenary of Rodin's death in 1917.
Collection highlights
- Icon of Saints John the Baptist and Minias, Bicci di Lorenzo (15th century)
- St. Francis Venerating the Crucifix, El Greco, 1595
- St. John the Baptist, El Greco, 1600
- The Tribute Money, Rubens, 1612
- Descent from the Cross, Giambattista Pittoni, 1750
- The Age of Bronze, Auguste Rodin, 1875
- Trotting Horse Edgar Degas, 1881
- The Kiss, Auguste Rodin, 1884
- The Grand Canal, Claude Monet, 1908
- Water lilies, Claude Monet, 1914
Symphonic organ
In 1924, John D. Spreckels commissioned the Ernest M. Skinner Company of Boston to build the symphonic organ. The museum organ, which is housed inside the museum above the main galleries, has 4 manuals and pedals, 7 divisions, 63 ranks, with a total of 4,526 pipes. Symphonic music is especially effective on the museum organ with its battery of pneumatically operated percussion instruments and set of tubular chimes. A thunder pedal is used for the musical representation of storms. All together, the organ comprises one Great Organ, a Swell Organ, a Choir Organ featuring a 16-foot Contra Dulciana, Choir Organ Echo, a Solo Organ, Solo Organ Echo, an Arch Organ outfitted with 8-foot Arch Clarion, a 64-foot Gravissima and a 32-foot Bourdon Profunda, in addition to the final Traps that were enclosed in the Choir: Bass drum, castanets, Chinese block, crash cymbal, gong snare drum (f), snare drum (ff), and a tambourine triangle.
Gallery
Film appearances
- The Palace is seen in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo (1958) when Scottie follows Madeleine Elster to the museum, where she stares at one painting for a considerable time. This painting, dubbed Beautiful Carlotta, was a prop created specifically for the production and is not housed at the museum.
- The Palace appears in the 1993 miniseries, Tales of the City, based on the first of the Tales of the City series of novels by Armistead Maupin. The character of Mary Ann Singleton (played by Laura Linney) arranges to meet her neighbor Norman Neal Williams (played by Stanley DeSantis) at the museum, where he meets his fate.
- The character Dr. Crippen in the spoof Maltese Falcon sequel The Black Bird has an office in the Palace.
See also
- 49-Mile Scenic Drive
- De Young Museum
- Holocaust Memorial
References
External links
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco â€" Legion of Honor page
- Photograph of Hôtel de Salm, Paris
