American Beauty - The impressive Osher Collection of American Art is unveiled at the de Young Museum

The promised substantial gift of paintings, works on paper and sculpture by Bernard and Barbro Osher are on display at the de Young museum in San Francisco. The well-known philanthropists helped fund the construction of the de Young, and their generosity is commemorated through the named Bernard and Barbro Osher Wing and the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden.American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art, featuring the works of 39 prominent artists, continues at the de Young through October 20.

- By John O'Hern

The promised substantial gift of paintings, works on paper and sculpture by Bernard and Barbro Osher are on display at the de Young museum in San Francisco. The well-known philanthropists helped fund the construction of the de Young, and their generosity is commemorated through the named Bernard and Barbro Osher Wing and the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden.

American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art, featuring the works of 39 prominent artists, continues at the de Young through October 20.

Winslow Homer (1836- 1910), The Angler (Casting in the Falls), ca. 1874. Oil on canvas. Image by Randy Dodson. Courtesy the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The de Young in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park make up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest art museums in the United States. The museums’ director and CEO, Thomas P. Campbell, states, “Their generous donation of more than 60 works of such expansive historic scope is one of the most transformative contributions in the museums’ history. The Oshers have enriched the museums’ representation of American art—long considered to be one of the greatest survey collections in the United States—with a gift reflective of a dynamic period when the United States ascended to global prominence both culturally and artistically.”

Georgia O´Keeffe (1887-1986), Front of Ranchos Church, 1930. © 2024 Georgia O´Keeffe Museum / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image by Randy Dodson. Courtesy the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

In her catalog essay, “Finding Beauty at Home and Abroad, 1848-1960,” Lauren Palmor, the Fine Arts Museums’ associate curator of American art, describes that dynamic period.