#FINDINGASIA: ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is the largest museum in the western world devoted to Asian art. Not only that, but it also has one of the most comprehensive collections anywhere in the entire world.

It almost pains me to think that this museum all started from a donation given by Chicago millionaire Avery Brundage– why, oh why, couldn’t this treasure have been kept in Chicago??

Well, at least the donation was given to my favorite US city, which is the next best thing after the city I actually live in, right?

In total, Brundage donated over 7,700 Asian art objects to San Francisco. That’s huge considering the museum has 18,000 works total. Although at any given time there are only 2,500 works on display in the museum’s permanent collection.

The collections span across all major Asian countries and are divided by geographical area. While we spent most of our time upstairs in the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean galleries, we did also venture through their Central Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian galleries briefly.

I’ll admit I was impressed by their Japanese collection.

I had recently visited the Art Institute of Chicago and the Indiana Museum of Art, and at the time I thought their collections, too, were great, but now I saw they simply all paled in comparison.

Some of the artifacts were as much as 6,000 years old.

And I particularly liked the display of the tea room and wares, complete with a tokonoma (床の間; small alcove) and ikebana arrangement.

Back downstairs we walked through their current special exhibition, which seems to change every few months, before heading to the gift shop.

They had a good selection of Asian art books, as well as catalogues featuring their own collection and small Asian trinkets.

We spent about an hour in total in the museum since we were on our way to brunch reservations, but we easily could have spent longer had we visited all the collections.

This museum is a great place to immerse yourself in Asian culture in the US and you’d better believe it’ll become a place I frequent on all future trips to San Francisco!

When to visit: Tues through Sun from 10am – 5pm
Where to visit: 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
How to visit: Metro stop Civic Center/UN Plaza

 

HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED ASIAN CULTURE OUTSIDE OF ASIA? TELL ME ABOUT IT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW OR SHARE YOUR OWN PHOTO ON SOCIAL MEDIA USING THE HASHTAG #FINDINGASIA!

A special thank you to San Francisco Travel and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for hosting our stay! As always, all opinions are my own,