Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

By Madelia Hickman Ring

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen often referred to the city as “Baghdad by the Bay,” a nickname that alluded, in part, to a vibrant multiculturalism that recalled that of the Middle Eastern city during its heyday. A multifaceted art scene that equally embraces Old World and contemporary aesthetics on display in the area’s many museums contribute significantly to the vitality of the area. One of the museums — the Legion of Honor, which in 1972 became the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco alongside the M.H. de Young Museum — is taking a year to celebrate the 100th birthday of its 1924 founding.

A century after sugar magnates Alma de Bretteville Spreckels and her husband, Adolph B. Spreckels, founded the museum, “Legion of Honor 100” commemorates its history, collections and future aspirations. Helming the anniversary festivities are curators who will steer it into the museum’s next century, including a battery of new appointments in the departments of European paintings, European decorative arts and sculpture, graphic arts, photography, prints and drawings, ancient art and, a new chief curator.

“When the Legion of Honor opened its doors a century ago, the nascent art museum represented the ambitions and singular vision of an extraordinary civic-minded couple,” said Thomas P. Campbell, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “Over the course of the past 100 years, as the Legion and its collection have grown in international renown, the museum has also come to embody the collective aspirations of generations of San Franciscans and Bay Area residents. The Legion of Honor centennial provides us the occasion to celebrate with the communities we serve and to reflect on the museum’s role as a cornerstone of cultural life in San Francisco.”

The Legion of Honor under construction. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives.

Planning for “Legion of Honor 100” commenced several years ago, beginning with discussions on what form the centennial exhibition might take; the idea of a timeline of the museum’s history was cemented as its theme in 2023. Isabella Lores-Chavez, PhD, associate curator of European paintings and the leading curator for the exhibition, shared her concepts for the exhibition with Antiques and The Arts Weekly.

“When I began devising the finer points of the exhibition, I made the timeline the main element of the installation. Taking into account that the timeline would consist primarily of text and photographic reproductions, I proposed animating it and interspersing it with works of art that could represent key moments in the history of the Legion of Honor.”

In adopting this exhibition strategy, Lores-Chavez was able to feature works of art from across the curatorial departments at the Legion of Honor: European paintings, European sculpture and decorative arts, ancient art and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts. The presentation showcases both old favorites and works that may not be as familiar to visitors thoroughly versed with the museum’s collections.

“The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin, 1888 (enlarged 1902-03, cast circa 1914), bronze, 74-3/8 inches tall by 38-5/8 inches wide by 55-1/8 inches deep, inscribed: “A. Rodin and A. Rudier / Fondeur. Paris.” Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, Randy Dodson photo, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

“Rodin’s marvelous large bronzes, including ‘The Thinker’ and the ‘Saint John the Baptist Preaching,’ are essential pieces of the Legion of Honor’s history,” Lores-Chavez elaborated. “They were among the Rodin sculptures brought to San Francisco by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels on the occasion of the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. There, they were shown in the French Pavilion, a temporary replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, which inspired Mr and Mrs Spreckels to create a permanent replica in San Francisco as an art museum for the city. Other works of art in the exhibition that are quintessential to the Legion of Honor’s history are the Book of Gold, commissioned by Mrs Spreckels to commemorate the 3,600 California soldiers who died during the First World War; and the Joan of Arc tapestries, magnificent gifts from the French Republic woven at the renowned Gobelins Manufactory in Paris and presented to the museum upon its founding.”

Several revelations were experienced as the exhibition took shape. “One of the most fascinating preconceptions that the production of the exhibition has dispelled about the Legion of Honor is the assumption that the museum has always prioritized French art and historic European art more generally. As the early exhibition program clearly demonstrates, the Legion of Honor also regularly hosted the work of contemporary artists from its founding days. During the first few decades, the museum’s collection was still growing, largely through gifts, which created an opportunity to bring into the museum’s galleries countless temporary exhibitions featuring artists with strong ties to the Bay Area, including Diego Rivera in 1930,” shared Lores-Chavez.

The Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, seen here in a lithograph by J. Devicque, dated 1861, was the architectural model for the new museum in San Francisco. FAMSF Archives, image by Joseph McDonald.

Also surprising to the curator was the volume and diversity of the contemporary art exhibitions presented at the museum, particularly in its first 50 years. She was also amazed by the institution’s rich repository of architectural drawings by George Adrian Applegarth, the building’s architect.

“As a result of the exhibition, we have new photography for the dozens of architectural drawings detailing specific design elements of the building. For the exhibition, I selected the drawing of the dome over the vestibule, which describes the trompe l’oeil fabrication of the rotunda in fabric, in order to accommodate the pipes of the organ incorporated into the building.”

The timeline takes visitors through the decades after the 1930s, observing the museum’s merger with the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, the seismic upgrade and expansion after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and recent exhibitions featuring interventions by contemporary artists such as Wangechi Mutu.

Thomas Carr Howe, Jr, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, and Adolph B. Spreckels, Jr, at Palace of the Legion of Honor.

“‘Legion of Honor 100’ seeks to reintroduce our visitors to the inspiring and idiosyncratic story of the Legion of Honor’s founding and evolution,” Lores-Chavez concluded. “The timeline provides so many points of access to key moments in the development of the museum we know and love today, while the secondary timeline above it calls out major historical events with global impact. Every visitor who stops by brings with them a third timeline — their own personal story, which may intersect or resonate with the Legion of Honor’s story in unexpected ways. Ideally, the experience of the exhibition will encourage visitors to remember that the Legion of Honor is a special gift to the people of San Francisco and the Bay Area, for their enjoyment as a one-of-a-kind place of respite, contemplation and enchantment in the modern city.”

Residents and visitors to the Bay Area can enjoy “Legion of Honor 100” before it closes after November 2.
The Legion of Honor is at 100 34th Avenue. For information, 415-750-3600 or www.famsf.org.