Current Museum Exhibition Catalogs

This summer, the museums in San Francisco have a wide variety of quality exhibits for art lovers to visit. One of the ways museum shows can be enjoyed over and over again is through the catalogs which are published in conjunction with the exhibits. These are limited edition and often expensive publications with gorgeous reproductions and scholarly information about the works and biographical information about the artist or artists. San Francisco Public Library has a special purchasing plan with Worldwide Books to help us ensure that these catalogs arrive in our library in a timely fashion. Although this expedites the process, it may not receive a catalog until the exhibit has been underway for a time.

Among the catalogs we currently have available is “Women Impressionists,” an exhibit at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. This exhibit brings together over 140 works by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, and Marie Bracquemond for the first time ever. San Francisco is the only U. S. stop for this show, so don’t miss seeing the art of four major women artists of the Impressionist movement. This exhibit ends September 21.

“Chihuly at the De Young,” at the M. H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, is an extraordinary collection of major works and installations by this master glass artist. The show closes September 28.

Another woman artist is being honored with a major retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “Frida Kahlo” is a massive show honoring the centennial of the artist’s birth and includes paintings from all periods of her career as well as rare photographs and film footage of the artist in her personal life. This show also closes September 28. We also have a catalog for the exhibit “Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection.” This will be showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through October 5, 2008.

We also have the book published for the “Power and Glory: Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty” now showing at the Asian Art Museum. This exhibit is a collaboration effort with the Palace Museum (Forbidden City) in Beijing, the Nanjing Municipal Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the Asian Art Museum. It will close on September 21, 2008.

Even if these books do not appear in the library catalog, the library may have them available to view at the Art & Music Reference desk in the Main Library. At the conclusion of each show, we will send them to be processed and added to our online catalog and reference collection.