Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Front entrance, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco could be thought of as the museum built by Avery Brundage.  Brundage is best remembered today as a devotee of 'amatuerism' which he promoted as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from the time of his admittance until his death in 1975. However, when coming through London in 1936 after the controversial Olympic Games hosted by Nazi Germany, he saw his first exhibition of Chinese art, and, according to him, he came away so enamored that "I've been broke ever since".  Over the next thirty years, he collected over 17,000 pieces of Asian art from all over the continent.  He was quick to offer for pieces being sold in distress before and after the second world war in both China and Japan.  He took advantage of the collapse of both the Chinese and Japanese economies to swell his collection.  He engaged a French scholar who was a visiting professor at the University of California as his curator and had a long standing agreement with him no piece was purchased unless they both agreed.  By 1960, he was keeping priceless pieces of Asian Art in shoe boxes under his beds.

The City of San Francisco was ultimately the big winner.  Brundage left his Asian Art collection to the City and it is currently housed (along with a few other pieces) in what is now entitled the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.  The current building housing the museum was built in 1917 as the library in the Civic Center Plaza.  It was designed after the great earthquake of 1906.  It still retains the 'grand staircase' so prevalent in art nouveau architecture.

The Grand Staircase - made entirely of marble including the carvings on the ceiling

In addition to a world class presentation of Asian Art, we got to see several seminal pieces owned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  The SFMOMA is currently closed for renovation, and they have loaned out pieces all around the United States as well as to all the other art museums scattered throughout San Francisco.  The exhibit currently at the Asian Art Museum is called "Gorgeous" and consists of 70 diverse works of art.  This exhibit blew me away with the depth and breadth of the art pieces.  There are pictures, of course, of my favorite pieces not only of the Gorgeous exhibition, but of the rest of the museum as well.

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