de Young Museum

The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly referred to as the de Young, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco along with the Legion of Honor. The de Young is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young. Since Nov 1, 2018, Thomas P. Campbell serves as the Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums.

History

The museum opened in 1895 as an outgrowth of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 (a fair modeled on the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of the previous year). It was housed in an Egyptian revival structure which had been the Fine Arts Building at the fair. The building was badly damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and was closed for a year and a half for repairs. Before long, the museum's steady development called for a new space to better serve its growing audiences. Michael de Young responded by planning the building that would serve as the core of the de Young facility through the 20th century. Louis Christian Mullgardt, the coordinator for architecture for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, designed the Spanish-Plateresque-style building. The new structure was completed in 1919 and formally transferred by de Young to the city's park commissioners. In 1921, de Young added a central section, together with a tower that would become the museum's signature feature, and the museum began to assume the basic configuration that it retained until 2001. De Young's efforts were honored with the changing of the museum's name to the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Another addition, a west wing, was completed in 1925, the year de Young died. In 1929 the original Egyptian-style building was declared unsafe and demolished.

By 1949, the elaborate cast concrete ornamentation of the original de Young was determined to be a hazard and removed because the salt air from the Pacific had rusted the supporting steel.

As part of the agreement that created the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1972, the de Young's collection of European art was sent to the Legion of Honor. In compensation, the de Young received the right to display the bulk of the organization's anthropological holdings. These include significant pre-Hispanic works from Teotihuacan and Peru, as well as indigenous tribal art from sub-Saharan Africa. The building was severely damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It in turn was demolished and replaced by a new building in 2005. The only remaining original elements of the old de Young are the vases and sphinxes located near the Pool of Enchantment. The palm trees in front of the building are also original to the site.

The de Young’s Artist Studio is an artist-in-residency program to encourage arts community engagement and support emerging artists and since 2010 is part of the Cultural Encounters initiative.

Located in: Golden Gate Park
Address: 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118, United States
Departments: de Young Museum Store
Hours: Closed ⋅ Opens 9:30AM
Founded: March 24, 1895
Phone: +1 415-750-3600
Parent organization: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco