Treasures of the Pharaohs

A dazzling Egyptology show called Treasures of the Pharaohs opened at the deYoung Museum this week.

There's one major problem for San Francisco Fine Arts Museums members, though, which is that their membership is good for only one visit during the six-month run of the exhibit.

After their one visit, members can buy "discounted" $28 dollar tickets if they want to return, which feels like a middle finger, especially since there is no notice of this policy to be seen except in small print in the museum magazine.

I heard an unsubstantiated rumor from a museum employee that the policy was at the behest of the Egyptian government who want to maximize revenue.

It's too bad because this really is an extraordinary exhibit, and I only wish it had been installed in the usual basement space for traveling exhibitions rather than the narrow, strangely shaped rooms on the second floor.

Unlike the Ramses II exhibit in the same museum in 2022, which felt a bit like a crowded amusement park ride, this installation actually tries to teach Egyptian dynastic history.

The signage is excellent, though most of us barely looked at it while snapping pictures of the treasures with cameras and phones.

There are lots of gold objects and jewelry, which drew chrysophiles (a new word for me too) like moths to a flame.

My favorite piece was the above coffin lid from the 21st Dynasty, hidden in the back of a small room. Don't miss it.

The Etruscans Visit the Legion of Honor

After visiting the Vatican Museums in Roma for the first time last December, with its fascinating treasures and horrifying mass tourism crowds, it was a joy to attend this summer's human-sized exhibit at San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum about the Etruscan civilization. The show, entitled The Etruscans: From the Heart of Italy, even includes quite a few pieces from the Vatican Museums, minus the hordes.

The Etruscans were an extraordinary civilization in northwestern Italy that lasted from about the 9th century BC to the beginning of the Roman Empire in the first century. It was a collection of city-states, sharing the same culture and language, that stretched from just north of present-day Rome to the top of Tuscany.

Some of the relics are so old that they feel like they are from another civilization altogether. (Pictured is Bronze Cauldron (lebes) with lion protomes, 675-650 BC.)

They are reminiscent of some of the ancient relics from China you can find at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, which are bizarrely sophisticated. (Pictured is Cauldron (olla) on stand (holmos) 675-625 BC.)

Most of the relics on display were taken from tombs, which were extravagant, jolly places with murals on the wall and happy looking statues of people who were waiting out the purgatory between this life and the afterlife. (Pictured is Sarcophogus lid.)

Besides having a vibrant religious and artistic culture, the Etruscans were also much more accepting of women as public figures than the Mediterranean cultures that came after them. (Pictured is Cinerary urn of the spouses, 520-500 BC.)

The exhibition is beautifully laid out with with a reproduction of a banquet mural in one room...

...and naked line drawings on another room featuring sculptured heads. (Pictured is Head of a young man, bronze, 375-350 BC.)

This painted sculpture reminded me of a better-looking Mike Pence. (Pictured is Portrait head of a man, terracotta with polychromy, early 1st century BC.)

Though the exhibit is small, there are strange treasures galore... (Pictured is Round boss with head of Acheloos, early 5th century BC.)

...including proto-Giacometti statues. (Pictured is Attenuated statue of priestess holding serpent, bronze, 2nd century BC.)

See it before the word gets out and Vatican Museums crowds arrive. (Pictured is Votive statue of a seated boy, late 4th-3rd century BC.)

Monet and Venice at the de Young Museum

My late friend Jerry Morgan once described Venice, Italy as "the greatest tourist trap in the world, perfected over centuries." (Pictured is Canaletto's 1745 painting, The Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day.)

Evidently, the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet was not interested in visiting such a well-trod location, but was finally cajoled into a visit by his second wife Alice Hoschedé in 1908, when he was 68 years old.

In an exhibit organized by the Brooklyn Museum and the de Young, nineteen paintings by Monet join a collection of Venetian views by other artists, including the 1881 Venice, the Doge's Palace by Renoir.

The impetus for the Autumn 1908 visit was an invitation by British socialite Mary Hunter to join her at her seasonal rental, the Palazzo Barbaro, which seemingly hosted every artist of the late 19th century, from Henry James to John Singer Sargent, who painted the 1899 An Interior in Venice there.

Alice and Claude were only scheduled to stay for two weeks, but were so enchanted by Venice that they moved into a hotel and stayed for another three months. Setting out on a gondola each day, Monet would paint the same locations repeatedly in varying light. (Pictured is The Grand Canal, Venice.)

Of the 37 paintings from this series, 19 have been reunited for this traveling exhibit.

After the Venetian sojourn, Monet exhibited these paintings for the public two years later, then retired to his home in Giverny where he was soon a grieving widower after Alice died in 1911.

Monet spent the next two decades working on his series of Water Lilies at home in Giverny, including this 1914-17 canvas owned by the SF Fine Arts Museums. The add-on price for the exhibit is exorbitant, but if you buy a reasonably priced annual membership to the museum, it's a bargain and you can go as often as you desire.

Manet and Morisot at the Legion

The Legion of Honor Museum occasionally presents concept shows that feel more gimmicky than illuminating, such as the recent Wayne Thiebaud exhibit and his old master influences. Their current exhibit, however, detailing the relationship between the 19th century French painters Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is fascinating and full of visual surprises.

Both painters were upper-class Parisians who died relatively young, but not before changing Western art history, with Manet's striking modernism in subject and style and Morisot's role in the founding of Impressionism. (Pictured is Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, 1872).

Morisot was a friend, artistic collaborator, and frequent model for Manet, and eventually married his brother, Eugène Manet. (Pictured is the 1874 Berthe Morisot with a Fan.)

One of Manet's most famous paintings is the 1868 The Balcony, where Berthe is seated.

Morisot soon painted her own version of what it was like from the inside, with her sister Edma posing in a chair. (Pictured is the 1870 Young Woman at Her Window. )

The exhibit features quite a number of exquisite Morisot paintings and at first it is fairly easy to spot which artist painted which canvas, but after a while that task becomes more difficult because they both influenced each other's styles so profoundly. (Pictured is Morisot's 1869 The Harbor at Lorient.)

One wall near the end of the show features four paintings by the two painters, similar in subject and style, and the "is it a Manet or Morisot?" guessing game is amusing. I guessed wrong, and realized a major clue afterwards, that Manet loved dark black accents while Morisot avoided them almost completely. Recommended if you have a Fine Arts Museum membership, a bit pricey if not.

The Art of Manga at the deYoung

Unlike many friends, I have never been particularly drawn to comic books, graphic novels, or animation, so The Art of Manga at the deYoung Museum did not hold much appeal, but the exhibit turned out to be fascinating.

One reason for that is the design of the installation, which is beautiful and varied. Kudos to whomever is responsible at the museum, which organized the show.

Since Japanese is read from right to left, the installation was set up that way too.

However, it was amusing watching many museumgoers moving and reading left to right out of habit.

Each room is focused on one of ten contemporary Japanese manga artists, and the explanatory signage is clear and well-written, with a brief synopsis of the narratives of their major works along with graphic examples. Above is a still from PLINIUS by Yamazaki Mari and Tori Miki about ancient Rome, including Pliny the Elder experiencing the eruption of Vesuvius.

Another nod to Western culture is the forthcoming The Monstrous Ocean: The Curious Travels of Ahab by Ito Junji which retells the story of Moby Dick, except with more monsters.

The represented artists were well balanced by gender...

...and there was even a gay man, Tagame Gengoroh, whose My Brother's Husband has become a beloved sensation in Japan.

It involves a Western gay bear meeting up with his deceased spouse's identical twin brother.

Of course, the artistic tradition of comic books almost demands superheroes, and there were plenty of them in the exhibit too...

...along with what my spouse called out as, "Look, Nancy's on acid!"

Beatlemania at the deYoung

Another dollop from the seemingly inexhaustible well of Beatlemania has arrived at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco for the next four months.

In 2020 Paul McCartney rediscovered old pictures he had taken as an amateur art photographer for three months that spanned December 1963 through February 1964.

The settings are Liverpool, Paris, New York, and Miami just when their international fame was exploding, much of which was featured in the 1964 Richard Lester movie A Hard Day's Night.

The photos are often prankish...

...when the quartet were in their early 20s.

It is also a reminder of the delicate beauty of John Lennon at that age.

There is a brief video of their epochal appearance on the weird old variety show hosted by Ed Sullivan...

...complete with shots of the screaming adolescent girls in the audience, a bizarre 20th century version of Euripedes's The Bacchae.

The exhibit is aptly titled "Eyes of the Storm" as the observed watch the observers...

...including mobs of fans rushing down a New York street.

The most poignant character among the photos is Brian Epstein, their closeted homosexual manager who died at age 32 in 1967 after getting sloppy with too many strong pills and liquor a la Valley of the Dolls.

The only color photos are from a Miami resort where they taped another appearance for the Ed Sullivan Show.

If you have a membership to the Fine Arts Museums, the exhibit is well worth a visit. Otherwise, the hefty single ticket price is probably not worth it unless you are a Beatlemaniac yourself.