Current Museum Exhibits - new books

At the Art, Music and Recreation Center reference desk, we make an effort to display catalogues of current or recent museum shows in San Francisco. We currently have three new titles on display.

Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel accompanies an exhibit that originated at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York and that will be on display at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor through January 4, 2015.  This book documents objects that had been preserved in a cave in the Judean Desert for 6,000 years until their discovery in 1961.

Lines on the Horizon: Native American Art from the Weisel Family Collection will remain on view until January 4, 2015 at the DeYoung Museum.  This collection of ceramics and textiles was donated to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco by the Theodore W. Weisel family in 2013.

The Salon Doré from the Hôtel de la Trémoille is now a permanent display at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.  This French Neoclassical interior was renovated for 18 months during 2012-2014 and opened to the public on April 5, 2014.

In addition to these reference copies of the books, the Library has circulating copies of each title at the main and a few branches.

Shortly we will have copies available for the Keith Haring: The Political Line which is current on display at the DeYoung Museum.  Place a hold to be notified when a copy is available to borrow.


Keith Haring: The Political Line by Dieter Bucchart, et al. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2014).

Lines on the Horizon: Native American Art from the Weisel Family Collection by Matthew H. Robb, and Jill D'Alessandro (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2014)

Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel, edited by Michael Sebbane, et al. (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University; Princeton University Press, 2014).

The Salon Doré from the Hôtel de la Trémoille by Martin Chapman (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2014)

State of the Arts in San Francisco (1986)

Twenty seven years ago a State of the Arts in San Francisco was published as a "special series" by the San Francisco Chronicle.  In the introduction, Rosalie Muller Wright, the editor of the collection, wrote that she and her colleagues sought to better understand the major artistic institutions of the City.  They posed the questions like "How did they get started? Who makes the artistic decisions? How do they raise funds? How do they stack up artistically against similar groups in other cities?"  The final questions seemed to have been pressing to them, as they and these organizations yearned to assert San Francisco's status as a significant cultural center.

Various critics and columnists for the paper at that time, such as Jerry Carroll, Blake Green, Jesse Hamlin, Michael Harris, Pat Steger, Sylvia Rubin, and Ruthe Stein, contributed to this survey.  There were also concluding essays by the Chronicle's renowned architecture critic Allen Temko and beloved columnist Herb Caen.

State of the Arts in San Francisco devoted its attention exclusively to eight organizations - the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the San Francisco Ballet, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Opera, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the American Conservatory Theatre.

Throughout this book there are tables showing the expenses and income of many of the organizations, sometimes comparing them to similar institutions around the country.  Another chart lists the major donors to the San Francisco Opera.  The society columnist Pat Steger provides some of the most interesting information in articles entitled "The People Who Control the Money," "Breeding Grounds for Trustees" and "Getting onto the 'Big' Boards" that all concern the super rich who give to the arts and about the make up the boards of these organizations.

At the book's end Herb Caen wrote an article entitled "The Non-Stop S.F. Culture" that is a typical feel-good cheerleading piece. Allan Temko wrote a more sober article entitled "A Raggedly Uneven Cultural Scene" where he surveys the arts in the city and still finds them wanting in many respects.

State of the Arts in San Francisco includes many photographs, some of which document the City's museums before they were renovated or replaced.  In short, this book provides a look at the some major artistic institutions that have endured and continue to endure.  It traces their development and gives a clear sense of their achievements and challenges up to that time. 

State of the Arts in San Francisco, Rosalie Muller Wright, editor; Dennis Gallagher, design (Chronicle Publishing Co., 1986).

Know Your SFPL Call Numbers - 708

According to the Dewey Decimal System, the call number 708 generally consists of works about galleries, museums, and private collections of Fine Arts.

Works about the business aspects of running a gallery are also included in this section (How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery.)  There are books about individual collectors - for instance books about Peter Selz, Charles Saatchi and the Rockefellers all get the call number 708.0092 (the .0092 refering to biographies of Americans).

The call numbers 708.1 through 708.9 are all about museums and museum collections according to their geographical location.  They use the same numbering system as 759 series (paintings and painters), or the 784.49 series (folk songs) to designate each location.

708.1 American museums
708.2 British museums
708.3 German museums
708.4 French museums
708.5 Italian museums
708.6 Spanish museums
708.7 Russian museums
708.8 Scandinavian museums
708.9 Dutch, Belgian and Balkan Museums and Museums outside of America and Europe

There are finer subdivisions within these numbers as well.  For example, 708.1471 is the call number for New York City museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art.  More importantly for us, 708.1946 is the call number for San Francisco museums like the Legion of Honor, De Young and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  Remember that the books in this section are about the institution and its permanent collections.  Traveling exhibitions will be cataloged according to their subject matter of the exhibition.

Browse both the circulating, oversize and reference sections of collection.  You can also browse this collection through the online catalog.

Reading list

708.0068 W7291h
How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery by Edward Winkleman (Allworth Press, 2009).

708.0092 R5909L
America's Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy by Suzanne Loebl (Harper, 2010).  

708.0092 Sa12m
My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic: Everything You Need to Know About Art, Ads, Life, God and Other Mysteries, and Weren't Afraid to Ask... (New York : Phaidon, 2009).  

708.0092 Se499k
Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life in Art by Paul J. Karlstrom with Ann Heath Karlstrom (University of California Press, 2012).

708.1471 M521m
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012).  

708.1946 Am68m
Museums of San Francisco: A Guide for Residents and Visitors by Margaret C. Amorella (Westholme, 2007).  

708.1946 L5246d
Legion of Honor: Selected Works by Renée Dreyfus (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 2007).

CAMIO - Catalog of Art Museum Images Online

The Art, Music and Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library is pleased to be able to offer CAMIO to our patrons.  CAMIO, which stands for Catalog of Art Museum Images Online, is a product of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) which also provides the popular WorldCat international database of library catalogs.

CAMIO is a digital collection of about 95,000 art images from 25 institutions.  These are primarily American and include some of the most important museums in the United States.  Two San Francisco collections are very prominently featured in CAMIO: the database includes 17,511 images from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the combined De Young and Legion of Honor collections) and 2,345 images from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Many of these museums include digital images on their own websites.  As those of you who consult and use reproductions in your work and research, the character and quality of reproductions can vary from source to source.

For example, the website for the Legion of Honor includes a reproduction of the Claude Monet painting Water Lilies.  This online reproduction allows one to see a thumbnail of the entire painting and additionally allows one to view portions of the painting at various magnifications within a relatively small frame.

The image of Water Lilies in CAMIO is also available to magnify or shrink within a larger frame.  Additionally it is possible to open a new window with a higher-resolution image, and to download that image.  CAMIO allows its images to be used for personal and educational non-commercial purposes.

In this instance the Legion of Honor website has one important feature lacking in CAMIO - a biography of Monet that may help one's understanding of the painting.  It is also evident that the two databases show the painting with differing color levels.  Of course, this often depends upon the lighting used when the image was photographed.  It's not always possible to say which reproduction is truest to an original that is probably impossible to capture in its full richness and beauty.

CAMIO has four search methods.  There is a simple keyword search box in the upper left hand corner of the homepage.  This search often gives a long list of results (in the case of Monet there are 115 works).  The left hand column of the results screen in this search mode also provides an opportunity for the user to further refine their search by the categories of format, creator, date and subject.

This homepage also provides a link for "collections of prominent museums" that allows one to browse by institution.  At the bottom of the homepage there are also links to a number of the art mediums that are represented in the database.  Finally there is the advanced search where it is possible to search by keyword strings in a variety of ways and also to limit the search by museum collection.

One final access point to CAMIO is through OCLC's WorldCat database.  All of the images in the database include a bibliographic record and provide a live link to the image for database users in the Library.
   

Articles and Databases at San Francisco Public Library

Art in America Annual Guide, Museums, Galleries, Artists

The Art in America annual Guide to Galleries, Museums and Artists is an indispensable resource for artists, collectors and researchers.

At its heart this annual August issue of the magazine is a directory of galleries and museums. These are listed alphabetically first by state and then by city. There are abbreviations that distinguish whether a space is a gallery, university gallery, nonprofit exhibition space, corporate consultant, a private dealer, or a print dealer. Every entry provides contact information, hours of operation and the name of a director. This resource is made even more useful by an index of the names of artists that each gallery, dealer or museum represents. There is also an index for category of art space.

Near the beginning of the guide there is a small directory of auction houses. At the end there is an additional directory of art schools by region. Finally there is also page dedicated to obituaries of noted artists.

This resource opens with a section previewing museum shows all across the United States listed by month. This is followed by a section summarizing the most noteworthy auction sales of the preceding art season. The guide also functions as a visual reference since many galleries, dealers and art schools place color advertisements in the publication.

We keep the latest issue of the Guide at hand for ready reference. Back issues are incorporated in our bound run of Art in America housed in the Magazines and Newspaper Center on the Library’s Fifth floor. These back issues provide a chronology of the art scene in the United States and can provide a history of an artist’s exhibition and galleries.

Most of the information in this Guide can be found online. However, using the print directory allows one to browse the wider scope of the field of selling and exhibiting art that can be the stimulus to further online research.

One benefit of your San Francisco Public Library library card is that the Art in America Guide to Galleries, Museums and Artists is available to you for viewing or download through our collection of subscription databases. From the online catalog entry for Art in America there is one for Art in America online. From here, follow the link for “Full text options” where you can find full text of the magazine (including the annual Guide) in two databases: Academic Search Complete and MasterFILE premier. In these databases you can choose the year and month of the issue. The Guide to Galleries, Museums and Artists in the August issue.

Do Museums Still Need Objects?

One of San Francisco's great attractions is its museums. Over the past couple of decades a number of new museums have opened, or established institutions have moved into new buildings. This is happening as museums as an institution are going through a period of re-definition.

Do Museums Need Objects is a deeply thought out reconsideration of museums and their collections. Author Steven Conn argues that originally, for museums, the classification of the object was thought sufficient to convey its meaning, but now the public has “lost faith in the ability of objects alone to tell stories and convey knowledge.” Furthermore museums have come to collect objects of many different types and functions and make use of these objects in a variety of new ways.

Today museums must find a balance between being a public and a corporate institution, and being a place for education and entertainment. Conn notes that the museum originally came into existence as a warehouse for objects but today the museum also treats itself as an object. The museum today has a “civic and social function” that goes beyond the exhibit. Museums go beyond the display of objects to include events like concerts, film screenings and social functions.

Another way that Conn takes up objects is according to their cultural value and genealogy. He looks at the controversial topic of repatriating objects that have been removed from their cultures or countries of origin.

Do Museum Still Need Objects is a serious, scholarly look at role and meaning of museums today. Other recent titles that also consider this topic include Museums in a Troubled World by Robert R. Janes and Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience by John H. Falk.


Do Museums Still Need Objects? by Steven Conn (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience by John H. Falk (Left Coast Press, 2009).

Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? by Robert R. Janes (Routledge, 2009).