Bouquets to Art at the deYoung

Bouquets to Art is an annual, week-long event at the deYoung Museum where floral artists are invited to present installations that reflect particular artworks in the permanent collection. It is also the setting for a gala fundraising dinner hosted by socialite Dede Wilsey along with a series of lunches and lectures. The event is hugely popular and when we visited on a Friday afternoon, it was difficult getting around because there were so many people who seemed to have never visited an art museum before.

The floral installations ranged from the brilliantly abstract...

...to the representationally imitative.

In a few cases, there was little connection with the surrounding art, which was just fine because some of the arrangements were gorgeous works of art in their own right.

For me, the event was a bit too redolent of Laguna Beach's annual Pagent of the Masters tableaux vivant kitschfest, but plenty of people enjoy both, and more power to them.

Without a bouquet to call its own, we were able to get close to Jess's 1954 Boy Party, one of my favorite paintings in the museum's permanent collection, which has recently been rehung.