Portraits from the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco On View At SFO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Jane Sullivan
Manager Marketing and Communications
(650) 821-5123
SF-02-71

Portraits from the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco On View At SFO

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Airport Museums presents Expressions: Portraits, Busts, and Masks from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. On view from November 15, 2002, through July 2003, the exhibition provides an opportunity to examine the human face in art through twenty-three paintings, sculptures and carved objects from the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

In the exhibition, objects can refer to the multiple meanings of the word “expression”: a person’s facial appearance; the depiction of feeling or movement in art; or an era or culture expressed. African and Native American carved wood masks provide examples of ceremonial objects used to represent a god or spirit. Several portraits, including Franklin Simmon’s marble bust, General William Tecumseh Sherman (c. 1866), and George Peter Alexander Healy’s painting, The Misses Thorne (c. 1860), demonstrate an artist’s desire to accurately represent the subject. Later pieces, such as Max Weber’s Girl with Comb (1919), reflect the modernist use of portrait painting as a study of form rather than the record of a specific individual.

Located pre-security in Gallery G-1 on the Departures/Ticketing Level of the International Terminal, San Francisco International Airport, the exhibition is available for viewing twenty-four hours a day, free of charge.

San Francisco Airport Museums

The San Francisco Airport Museums program was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. Today, the San Francisco Airport Museums features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions. A permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation, the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, is located in the International Terminal, open Sunday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed Saturdays and holidays.

S - F - O