Legion of Honor

Museums you live near, no matter how cool, often get ignore simply because they are 'always going to be there.'  This year, I created my 2011 bucket list and included visiting the Legion of Honor -- I have lived in San Francisco for almost ten years and never set foot in that pretty pretty building.

Last Saturday, sun and fog duked it out and I made my way to the LofH.  I, for certain, found the museum quickly and did not, no did not, get lost in the Presidio, which would have been silly since that is not the part of the city where the museum is.....

LofH is a beautiful building idyllically set along Lands End -- the views alone are a reason to make a visit out there.  The museum itself has a fair share of baroque, impressionist, and neo-classical art and a sizable collection of Rodin sculptures (the Rodin museum is my favorite in Paris.  If you ever have the opportunity, you should go there). I have discovered that the type of art I lean towards can vary on any given day, but I have a general appreciation for usable art: railings, coins, common glassware.  I like to picture the item as it was intended, being passed around a table, grasped while walking down stairs, or passed from hand to hand in a market.     

The LofH generally has at least one exhibit running at any given time.  While I was sad to just miss the Magna Carta exhibit, I was so glad catch the last day of Pulp Fashion:  The Art of Isabelle Borchgrave.  Borchgrave is an incredibly detail oriented artist who recreated past fashions and costumes out of paper.  We weren't allowed to take photos of the exhibit, but you can cruise through her website (image below).  Keep in mind -- that is all constructed from paper, even the lace!.  Absolutely stunning -- I walked through it three times.  Slowly. 

And now, some cool things I saw when wandering:
 

Odilon Redon (French1840-1916)

Vase of Flowers 1901, oil on canvas

 "Flowers are the confluence of two river banks, that of representation and that of memory.  It is the soil of art itself, the good earth of the real, harrowed and tilled by the spirit." -Redon

 Detailed Bust: Victorian.

 A room from King Henry the somethings house.  Same mirror!

 A dad super excited about Rodin, explaining to his son how the artist made the face from a block of marble.  Rodin's Bust of Edward H. Harriman was a great contrast example between the raw material and artistic representation.

Some basics.  Parking: awesome, free, got one right up front.  Ticket: booyah, 20% discount on-line.  Photos: throughout museum, exception exhibits. Crowds: minimal.  Views: awesome.  Building Amazing.  Coffee: Peet's.  Time: FUN.