Nothing about the ancient Egyptians has captured the imagination more than their mummies. There is something spellbinding about peering into the face of a person who lived several thousand years ago, and few things make the ancient Egyptians come to life more than their remains.

The priest Irethorrou was buried in a vast but little-known cemetery in Akhmim (an important city in Middle Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile) about 2,600 years ago. The result of examinations on this mummy represents the core of the exhibition. It is currently undergoing a state-of-the-art, non-invasive technological study as part of the effort of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium to gather computer-scanned images of mummies from this site. Together with other examples, these examinations are bringing to life Egypt’s final era of greatness during the Late Period from the 26th Saite Dynasty (664–525 b.c.) and later. By means of CT (computerized tomography) scans and other tests, these Egyptologists and scientists pinpoint the age, sex, and health of these individuals, and through forensic facial reconstruction they observe family resemblances.  In addition to the mummy of Irethorrou and three-dimensional images gleaned from its CT scans, this exhibition also includes other Egyptian “cult of the dead” antiquities and historic prints that reveal our ongoing fascination with mummies.

This exhibition brings together a selection of rarely seen portraits and figure studies by European and American photographers from the collection of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, including works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Roger Fenton, Thomas Eakins, Lewis Hine, Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Robert Frank. In the 1850s, the French poet Charles Baudelaire characterized the public’s obsession with photographic portraiture as a form of “industrial madness,” and it is a pandemic that has continued to the present day. Not only has the camera fueled the modern cult of celebrity, it has preserved the likenesses of countless ordinary individuals who have appeared in everything from amateur snaps to professional studio portraits, passport photographs and mug shots. No longer an unfamiliar exercise, posing before a camera’s lens has become as natural and commonplace as taking a breath. The exhibition includes a number of recent gifts to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from Paul and Anima Katz, Jeffrey Fraenkel, and Mrs. Jeanne S. Overstreet that are being shown for the first time.

Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay
(de Young) (back to top)

In 2010, the de Young Museum, in conjunction with the Musée d’Orsay, presents the North American debut of two consecutive special exhibitions from the Orsay’s permanent collection.  The first exhibition, The Birth of Impressionism, which opens on May 22, documents the master painters of the mid-19th century, from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognizable of all artistic styles, Impressionism. Among these was American expatriate James McNeil Whistler, whose painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1—better known as “Whistler’s Mother”— is among this exhibition’s many highlights. A selection of stunning works by Manet, including The Fife Player and his portrait Stéphane Mallarmé, and Impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne and Pissarro are featured. The exhibition also presents the work of Degas including his renowned images of the ballet, the racetrack, and life in la belle époque. Paintings by Bouguereau and Courbet represent the era’s parallel themes of academicism and naturalism.

La Ville-Lumière––“the City of Light”: Paris earned this nickname during the 19th century with the proliferation of gas lamps that lit up the French capital, turning night into day and boosting its economic vitality.  Moreover, the radiance of the metropolis transcended the glow of its streetlights as Paris ascended to its role as the cultural capital of Europe.  Authors, composers, and especially visual artists––painters, sculptors, printmakers, and photographers––thrived in this dazzling setting.  Impressionist Paris: City of Light explores various aspects of life in and around the city in which these artists came of age.  Visitors to the exhibition are transported to Impressionist Paris as represented in over 100 paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, and illustrated books from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and several distinguished private collections. The exhibition is on view at the Legion of Honor May 22 to September 6, 2010, concurrent with Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the de Young Museum.

The second of two exhibitions from the Musée d’Orsay’s permanent collection, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond, opens on September 25, and follows on the heels of the first with a selection of the most famous late-Impressionist paintings by Monet and Renoir, as well as works representing the individualist styles of the early modern masters, including van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and the leaders of Les Nabis, Bonnard and Vuillard. It is here where the Orsay’s collection shines brightest with masterpieces such as van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone, a haunting Self-Portrait, and Bedroom at Arles. The exhibition includes a superior collection of paintings from the Pont-Aven school, including Gauguin’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ. The exhibition concludes with the Orsay’s spectacular collection of pointillist paintings, represented by the masters Seurat and Signac.

The Japanese Print in the Era of Impressionism traces the development of the Japanese print over two centuries (1700–1900) and reveals its profound influence on Western art during the era of Impressionism.  Culled from the permanent holdings of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, the exhibition identifies the aesthetic of the Japanese print and the concept of Japonisme with approximately 125 examples.  Included is a selection of prints by French and American artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist era who were influenced by the Japanese print.  The exhibition is on view at the Legion of Honor September 25, 2010, to January 2, 2011, concurrent with Van Gough, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the de Young Museum.

Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico
(de Younng) (back to top)

Olmec, America’s oldest civilization and Mesoamerica’s “mother culture” (B.C. 1200-400) is famous for their colossal heads carved from giant boulders that have fascinated the public and archaeologists alike since the early 20th century.  Colossal Masterworks consists of approximately 150 objects, primarily drawn from Mexican national collections, including large-scale sculptures—colossal heads, thrones, and stelae. The exhibition brings together new finds and monuments that have not traveled before. The bilingual exhibition is a collaboration between three institutions: Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  On view February 19 to May 30, 2011, Colossal Masterworks is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.