LEGION OF HONOR MUSEUM, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA

Tour of San Francisco's Legion of Honor Museum
Recorded July 6, 2024 Saturday

The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also administers the de Young Museum.

The land on which the Legion of Honor stands was once the city-owned Golden Gate Cemetery, established in 1870 and closed in 1909. It held about 29,000 remains and included a Chinese burial ground and a Potter's field.

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. After some persuading, Alma convinced Adolph to fund a museum project. To acquire more art and financial support, Alma embarked on to Europe and was successful in requesting donations of fine art from the French government and from Queen Marie of Romania, who donated a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room.

The building is a full-scale replica, by George Applegarth and Henri Guillaume, of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama–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. World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921. Dedicated as a memorial to California soldiers killed in the war, the museum opened on Armistice Day, November 11, 1924.

The museum building occupies an elevated site in Lincoln Park in the northwest of the city, with views over the nearby Golden Gate Bridge and the distant downtown skyline.
Between March 1992 and November 1995 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. The Court of Honor was pierced by a pyramidal skylight opening onto the new gallery space below, a quotation in miniature of the Louvre Pyramid. The architects for the project were Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero.

The plaza and fountain in front 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, next to the bus stop. Dominating the classical plaza is Pax Jerusalemme, a modern sculpture by Mark di Suvero that stirred controversy at its installation in 2000.

In 2023, US president Joe Biden held a state dinner at the Legion of Honor for world leaders, including Chinese president Xi Jinping.

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.
The Hall of Antiquities displays ancient works from Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome, including sculptures, figurines, vessels, jewelry, and carved reliefs. Notable works include a 4,000-year-old carved wood figure of Seneb, an Egyptian royal scribe. The collection is supported in part by the Ancient Art Council, which offers a speakers program focusing on the ancient world.
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. Other artists in the collection include El Greco, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, David, Tiepolo, Gainsborough and many of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists—Degas, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Seurat, Cézanne, van Gogh and others.

Source: Wikipedia