Since 1924 · European art, ancient arts and Rodin facing the Pacific

San Francisco's Legion of Honor brings together European paintings, sculptures, decorative arts and works on paper in a neoclassical palace overlooking the Golden Gate.

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor opened in 1924 in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. Offered to the city by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels in memory of the Californian soldiers who died during the First World War, the building inspired by the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Paris. Today, with the de Young, he forms the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The museum mainly preserves ancient and modern European art: paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, objects antiques and graphic works. Auguste Rodin occupies an emblematic place there, from the courtyard dominated by Le Penseur, while the galleries connect old masters, 19th century French art and modernity. The available selection puts the emphasis on the latter. Monet observes the Grand Canal of Venice then the water lilies of Giverny as surfaces of light. Degas gives the male portrait a restrained presence. Van Gogh transforms fruits and chestnuts into material dense, worked by contrasts. These works show how the museum brings together figure, landscape and still life in a European history attentive to techniques. The site facing the ocean, its classic architecture and its richness collections make the Legion of Honor a place where memory, Californian landscape and artistic heritage meet. The "Legion of Honor" selection notably compares Le Grand Canal, Venice - Monet and Les Nymphéas - Claude Monet. Its reading favors atmosphere.

At the Legion of Honor, the memorial palace looks out over the Pacific while the collections bring Antiquity, Europe and modernity into dialogue.