Art I'm Looking at: Dress Rehearsal: The Art of Theatrical Design at the Legion of Honor

The courtyard at The Legion of Honor

Yesterday, I attended a San Francisco symphony concert but arrived in the city much earlier than required, so I set off to The Legion of Honor to look at a little art and Amoeba Music to check to the used records before heading to Davies Symphony Hall for the concert. I arrived at the end of the day. There was no admission charge (although I am a member); I had forgotten that the last 45 minutes (4:30 to 5:15) is always free. 

There wasn't much going on at The Legion, but I had a stroll through the permanent collection and there was an attractive little show in the gallery on the ground floor that is always devoted to work from the collection of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, this one called "Dress Rehearsal: The Art of Theatrical Design" featuring costume and set designs. There's always something interesting in that space. Here are some favorites. The show runs through May 11, 2025. 

On my way out, the sun was low and golden on the horizon, the upper sections of the white stone of the building were dyed a warmer hue by the light, and the lawn was a vibrant, rain-nourished green. In the distance, a container ship was passing under the Golden Gate Bridge, and on the lawn a photographer was posing a beautiful young Indian woman with raven-colored hair in a strapless gown the color of rubies for a photograph. One level down, a young man and his two children played in the sun on a chartreuse putting green striped with shadows from the surrounding trees, and, as I turned to leave, I saw the photographer helping his model into a sleek car as red as her gown. 

[Top to bottom: Léon Bakst, costume design for Potiphar's Wife in La légend de Joseph, 1914; Abraham Walkowitz, Study of Isadora Duncan, 1915. This one reminded me very much of Rodin's watercolors; Eugene Berman, Costume design for a young girl in Le bourgeois gentilhomme, New York, 1944.]