Most of us have our favorite museums which stimulate and enlighten our innately curious nature. We visit to view the ancient iconography and artistic creations of our world’s diverse cultures,…and also to experience the creativity of the new. The first museum I visited as a small boy was the De Young in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. As an eight-year-old I was fascinated by a World War I tank on display.

The De Young opened in 1895 and the new structure seen in the above two photos opened to the public in 2005. The De Young’s Osher Sculpture Garden and the outdoor seating for the cafe are shown above.

Being “older” rock & rollers of a certain era we absolutely loved the De Young’s 2017 exhibit, “The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll.” The show made me love my old Grateful dead concert posters and old leather embellished bell-bottom jeans even more! Our good friend Lea Isetti joined us and helped my Mom navigate around the museum rooms. Mom was a real trooper!

Marla and I are in front of one of my very favorite museums, Legion of Honor Museum, in San Francisco’s Lincoln Park.

The Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels. After some persuading, Alma convinced Adolph to fund a museum project. To acquire more art and financial support, Alma embarked to Europe and was successful in requesting donations of fine art from the French government and from Queen Marie of Romania, who donated a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room.

The building is a full-scale replica, by George Applegarth and Henri Guillaume, of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris by Pierre Rousseau (1782). At the close of the exposition, which was located just a few miles away, the French government granted Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion. World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921. Dedicated as a memorial to California soldiers killed in the war, the museum opened on Armistice Day, November 11, 1924.

Marla and I took our grandsons, Paxton and Logan, to see the “Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter” at the Legion of Honor in 2017.

There is always something exciting to see at the Palace of the Legion of Honor!

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum Is a place I truly love to savor slowly from room to room. I previously wrote a blog post on what ignited my interest in Asian Art: A LOVE OF JAPANESE ANTIQUES. HOW MY MOTHER’S CERAMIC BOWL AND A FAVORITE GARDEN WERE AN INSPIRATION.

A Hindu deity of Vishnu from Cambodia is dramatically displayed.

A large pediment (triangular gable) from a Buddhist temple in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia, with the demon magician “Mahiravana” from a Southeast Asian version of the epic of Rama. Years ago, I found a smaller antique pediment (shown below) in a shop north of Chiang Mai and had to have it. After three days of price negotiations, we finally bought it.

The Denver Art Museum is truly amazing inside and out. The exciting and bold Hamilton wing above was designed by Daniel Libeskind. The new Martin building opened in 2021.

Marla and I donated this Burmese Buddha shrine and were overjoyed to see it on display when the museum reopened this year in October.

The new Martin Building (on the right) during construction last year. It opened to the public in October 2021. Designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti and Denver-based James Sudler Associates, the museum opened in 1971. Its seven-story silhouette is one of the first-ever high-rise art museums and is the only completed building in North America by the renowned Italian modernist Gio Ponti.

Marla admires a beautiful work by Monet last year at the Denver Art Museum. The massive exhibition, “Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature,” featured more than 120 paintings spanning the French Impressionist’s career. 

In 2019, Marla and I both enjoyed the Denver Art Museum’s “Dior: From Paris to the World” which surveyed 70 years of the house of Dior’s enduring legacy and its global influence. The gown above is by Gianfranco Ferre, the Dior director from 1989-96. He brought Italian influenced high design to Dior.

The Denver Botanical Garden is an “outdoor museum” of natural beauty. I’m at the 2017 “Calder: Monumental” featuring a number of iconic large steel sculptures by American artist Alexander Calder.

Our granddaughter is mesmerized by a modern sculpture on display at the “Crow Museum of Asian Art” in Dallas, Texas, in 2018.

Trammell and Margaret Crow bought their first piece of Asian Art in the mid-1960’s. The idea for the museum came about when Mr. and Mrs. Crow decided they would like to keep the collection intact as a legacy for their children and grandchildren, and the general public. The artwork ranging from Chinese jades and Buddhist sculpture to Japanese screen paintings, had been displayed in lobbies, reception, and office areas of the Trammell Crow Center, other office buildings, marts, hotels, and in the homes of the Crows and their children prior to the formation of a museum. “Because the art was scattered between commercial buildings and our families’ homes, we had little notion of what kind of a collection we had until pieces were gathered for the exhaustive selection process,” Mrs. Crow said.

The Crow family had amassed more than 4,000 pieces of Asian art, among which the 569 best were selected after extensive analysis by a noted curator for inclusion in The Crow Collection. The University of Texas acquired the museum in 2019.

The Grandkids found the Crow Museum of Asian Art very interesting.

The Twins were fascinated by an Egyptian mummy at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Since Marla and I spent most of our career in the world of textiles, we loved the DMA’s exhibit on Asian Textiles.

The learning experience.

We took the Twins back to the Dallas Art Museum in 2019.

Marla shows them a cubist painting.

Marla taught the girls some Mudras (Spiritual hand gestures) similar to the 13th century Khmer sculpture of Buddha Shakyamuni.

They found the Picasso painting very intriguing.

The Nasher Sculpture Center is adjacent to both the Dallas Art Museum and the Crow Museum of Asian Art. Fascinating sculptures are placed in a serene garden setting.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts wonderful exhibits beautifully displayed in their Louis I. Kahn designed buildings.

I’ll post on more on my favorite museums soon.

Photos: Dick Gentry. Not to be used without permission.