Our Local Garden - San Francisco, Ca

Every Thursday 6:00 – 8:00 pm For an enhanced NightLife experience, join us on a NightLife VIP Tour. The one-hour behind-the-scenes tour includes a closer look at the unique native species of California’s largest living roof, a private viewing of the Academy's renowned gem and mineral collection, and interaction with Academy researchers. In addition to the tour, guests receive VIP access to the Rainforests of the World exhibit, reserved planetarium show seats, and an open bar and hors d’oeuvres in a reserved cocktail area prior to the tour. 6:00- 8:00pm

Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler

Approximately 55 ceramic and bronze works spanning the career of sculptor Stephen De Staebler (1933–2011) will be installed in the American art galleries at the de Young Museum from January 14 to April 22, 2012. Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler and its accompanying monograph commemorate the life and work of the renowned Bay Area artist, who died earlier this year in his Berkeley home. For more than 50 years, De Staebler created figurative sculptures from clay—a medium that derives from the primordial earth. Drawing inspiration from childhood experiences with nature, a transformative adolescent encounter with human mortality, and adult studies in the history of art and religion, he explored and extended a tradition of human representation that includes the religious monuments of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance humanism of Michelangelo’s finished and unfinished figures, and the modern existentialism embodied in the works of Alberto Giacometti. De Staebler’s diverse artistic ancestors were linked by their engagement with universal aspects of the human condition, including struggle, suffering, and the search for meaning. The validity of this engagement was seriously challenged during World War II, when the human body—and even humanity itself—seemed to be threatened with extinction. Maturing as an artist in the decades following the War, De Staebler thus confronted the challenge of whether art—and the human figure—retained any relevance in a world that had been forever altered by the Holocaust and by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Compounding the problem, belief in the existence of a higher spiritual power was also called into question by these cataclysmic events.

Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler

For more than 50 years, Stephen De Staebler (1933–2011) created figurative sculptures created from clay—a medium that derives from the primordial earth. Drawing inspiration from fundamental childhood experiences with nature, a transformative adolescent encounter with mortality and adult studies in the histories of art and religion, he explored and extended a tradition of human representation that includes the religious monuments of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance humanism of Michelangelo’s finished and unfinished figures, and the modern existentialism expressed in the works of Alberto Giacometti. Matter + Spirit installed in the American art galleries includes 55 of De Staebler’s works.

The Art of Anatolian Kilim: Highlights from the McCoy Jones Collection

A significant collection of great kilims gifted to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco by Caroline McCoy-Jones in 1989 is showcased in an exhibition of 20 of the finest examples. Presented in the textile arts gallery at the de Young, the pre-19th-century Anatolian kilims on view include a variety of design types, regional styles, as well as superb examples of technical and structural features.

New Dimensions: Prints and Multiples from the Anderson Collection

When the Los Angeles-based Gemini G.E.L. relocated to expanded workshop spaces in 1969, artists working at the fine arts press increased their exploration of producing small-scale editioned sculptures, known as multiples. By doing so, artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg pushed what were then considered the boundaries of printmaking. Within a short period of time, the fine arts press had published a large number of multiples by these artists, in addition to prints that put to fine arts ends a number of recently developed commercial techniques and materials. New Dimensions shows multiples alongside prints where (in most cases) paper is not the primary ground. In the exhibition of over 20 works, prints on experimental industrial materials like anodized aluminum mingle with the small-scale brass figure and relief that Lichtenstein produced as part of his Modern Head series.

The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860–1900

The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860–1900, coming to the Legion of Honor on February 18, 2012, is the first major exhibition to explore the unconventional creativity of the British Aesthetic Movement, tracing its evolution from a small circle of progressive artists and poets, through the achievements of innovative painters and architects, to its broad impact on fashion and the middle-class home. Over 180 superb artworks on view express the manifold ways that avant-garde attitudes permeated Victorian material culture: the traditional high art of painting, fashionable trends in architecture and interior decoration, handmade and manufactured furnishings for the “artistic” home, art photography and new modes of dress. The exhibition debuted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and is currently on view at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The Legion of Honor is the exclusive U.S. venue. British Aestheticism radically redefined the relationships between the artist and society, between the “fine arts” and design, and between art and both ethics and criticism. The iconoclastic belief in that art’s sole purpose is to be beautiful on its own formal terms stood in direct opposition to Victorian society’s commitment to art’s role as moral educator. Aestheticism is now recognized as the wellspring for both the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. The Cult of Beauty showcases the entirety of the Aesthetic Movement’s output, celebrating the startling beauty and variety of creations by such artists and designers as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeill Whistler, Edward Burne-Jones, E. W. Godwin, William Morris and Christopher Dresser. Originating curator Dr. Lynn Federle Orr explains in her catalogue essay, “Like a fine Victorian novel, the story of the Aesthetic Movement is one centered around serious social debates—shifting class structures, the confrontation between science and religion, art’s place in society, the impact of new market forces and a unique emphasis on the middle-class home.”