Arguably San Francisco’s most cosmopolitan museum (as a replica of Paris’s Palais de la Légion d’Honneur, it also boasts an I.M. Pei-esque glass pyramid and a cast of Rodin’s The Thinker in the courtyard, along with Golden Gate Bridge views), the Legion of Honor is celebrating 100 years.
You can participate in a plethora of events to mark this occasion, including one of the most simple and beneficial: free access to the museum over three days, November 9 to 11.
Typically admission is $20 for adults, so this is already a wonderful perk. Even better? It also applies to the temporary exhibition “Mary Cassatt at Work” on a first-come, first-served basis; the exhibition dives into the techniques behind American artist who traveled to Paris and became part of the Impressionist art movement.
Another great way to celebrate is SMARTBOMB’s musical art activations in three areas of the museum. Check out the vinyl DJ sets from Soul Live Collective and live performances from Oddity in the outdoor Court of Honor. Inside the museum itself, enjoy galleries 6 (French and Italian Baroque art) and 14 (17th-century European art) in a completely different way. Gallery 6 focuses on the past with special vinyl DJ riffs with Mizu + W.A.L.A., Mike Boo, Musa Bey, Bored Lord and Lonely Girl, while Gallery 14 looks to the future with Raven, Marcus Stephens, BillieOcean, Idhaz and Heavy Arts Ensemble. While galleries ordinarily are quiet, careful places to protect the art, a gentle beat to accompany contemplation of the paintings sounds fantastic.
Cake, anyone? It is a birthday after all. Join the Cake Picnic event organized by baker and community pastry event organizer Elisa Sunga at 9:30am on the 9th. The potluck-like event, which aims to supply birthday cake for everyone, is currently at capacity, but join the waitlist for the very cool chance to be surrounded by as many cakes as there are humans—906 of them, to be precise. Each attendee brings their own cake to add to the table on the front lawn to then succumb to sugary splendor. This wristbanded event isn’t free ($25 admission) and requires you to bring a cake and a knife to cut it; the website says, “The goal of this gathering is to have a 1:1 human to cake ratio situation.”
Some of the other events include: an organ concert (with an impressive, historic 4,526 pipe organ) alongside performances with the San Francisco Ballet School; the chance to make your own limited edition Legion centennial silkscreen print with ARTivate’s mobile art bike; sketching sessions in the galleries (materials provided by the museum, including the stool you’ll sit upon); free complimentary croquembouche by French bakery Tarts de Feybesse; museum director Thomas P. Campbell talking about Rodin with Amélie Simier, director of the Musée Rodin in Paris; “A Closer Look” curatorial series with curator Emily A. Beeny discussing how some of the works were procured for the museum; and perhaps most important in our Age of Instagram, the chance to have Mexican-American portrait photographer Alexa Trevino take your photo in front of The Thinker. There’s a slew of other fun stuff; check the website for a full listing.
Now, why is all of this happening over the Veterans Day weekend? The Legion opened on Armistice Day (the day World War I ended, which we now call Veterans Day), November 11, 1924, in memory of 3,600 Californians who died in that war. We aren’t able to talk about the Legion of Honor without invoking the name of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels. This legendary woman attended the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition here in San Francisco (vestiges of it are seen in today’s Palace of Fine Arts) and adored the replica of Paris’s Palais de la Légion d’Honneur that was on display. She talked her husband Adolph into making a permanent copy of the building to house an art museum. The French government gave permission, but World War I delayed groundbreaking until 1921. The Legion’s original collections were from Alma’s travels to France—she especially took a fancy to Rodin’s work. Today’s Legion is a ¾ sized adaptation of the structure in Paris.
Spooky Halloween bonus factoid: The Legion of Honor was built on the site of the 19th-century City Cemetery for immigrant communities and the poor—and sadly, an estimated 20,000 of those folks are still under the ground. In the 1990s when the museum expanded, about 800 bodies were exhumed during construction and reburied in Colma.