SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced the acquisition of five works of art by noteworthy women artists Angelica Kauffman, Grace Fletcher, Claude Raguet Hirst, and Bisa Butler. Spanning the Fine Arts Museums’ collection of European paintings, American art, and costume and textile arts, these works highlight significant women artists working across a span of centuries and a range of techniques, media and subject matter.

“This remarkable group of acquisitions speaks to the Fine Arts Museums’ commitment to deepening our audiences’ understanding of women artists’ vital contributions to art history,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “We are proud to make Kauffmann, Fletcher, Hirst, and Butler’s work accessible to Bay Area audiences.”

Angelica Kauffman (Swiss, 1741-1807), Celadon and Amelia (Summer) (1781) and Palemon and Lavinia (Autumn) (1781)

Angelica Kauffman was among the most famous artists of her time, celebrated in England, Italy, and across continental Europe. A financially successful portraitist, pioneering figure in the traditionally male field of history painting, and co-founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, she played a key role in the emergence of Neoclassicism.

Celadon and Amelia (Summer) and Palemon and Lavinia (Autumn) are intimate, jewel-like paintings on copper, each about 15 ¾ by 10 ¼ inches (40 by 26 cm), and each illustrating a section from “The Seasons,” a then-well-known pastoral poem published between 1726 and 1737 by the Scottish poet James Thomson. In the first scene, derived from the “Summer” section of Thomson’s poem, the maiden Amelia is struck by lightning, crumpling, lifeless, to the ground, as her lover, Celadon, looks on in anguish, wringing his hands and searching the heavens in vain for help. In the second scene, taken from the “Autumn” section of the poem, Lavinia, a maiden of noble birth fallen on hard times and earning her living as a humble gleaner, attracts the admiration of Palemon, a wealthy landowner, who, drawn by her beauty, proposes marriage.

“These intimate paintings demonstrate Kauffman’s technical skill at its very sharpest, combining graceful modeling and skillfully drawn figures with extraordinarily fluid, watercolor-like, handling of oil paint,” stated Emily A. Beeny, Chief Curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara A. Wolfe Curator in Charge of European Paintings. “They predict the innovations of Romantic painters of the next generation as Eugene Delacroix.”

Celadon and Amelia (Summer) and Palemon and Lavinia (Autumn) will be on view at the Legion of Honor this fall as part of the refreshed installation of European Art featuring newly acquired works celebrating the Legion of Honor 100, a yearlong celebration of the museum’s centennial.

Grace Fletcher (American, 1857-1942), Cherry Blossoms in a Vase (1886)

San Francisco artist Grace Fletcher was a member of the National Association of Women Artists, founded in 1889 to support women artists in the male-dominated art world. In 1881 she married businessman Horace Fletcher, who worked for trading companies throughout East Asia and specialized in importing silk fabrics.

Cherry Blossoms in a Vase depicts a Japanese vase, folding screen, and silk textile, exemplifying Japonisme, the vogue for Japanese art and decorative arts that flourished after the United States forced the opening of Japan’s ports to foreign trade in 1854, much of it passing through San Francisco. The yellow vase is decorated with a flock of cranes—traditional symbols of good fortune, loyalty, and longevity. The abundant cherry blossom branches, with falling flower petals captured in mid-air, highlight the short-lived nature of the delicate spring blossoms and by extension of life itself.

“Fletcher’s still life exemplifies the ideals of the European and American Aesthetic Movement, which embraced ‘art for art’s sake’ and celebrated beauty in all aspects of life,” said Timothy Anglin Burgard, Distinguished Senior Curator and Ednah Root Curator in Charge of American Art. “The painting’s Japanese influences reflect San Francisco’s long history as a gateway city, where Japanese art and ideas have shaped the cultural landscape.”

Cherry Blossoms in a Vase is now on view in the galleries of American art at the de Young museum.

Claude Raguet Hirst (American, 1855-1942), New York Evening Sun (early 1890s)

Claude Raguet Hirst was the only American woman to achieve critical and commercial success as a painter of trompe l’oeil (“fool the eye”) still lifes in the late 19th century. Her paintings introduced new perspectives to the masculine “bachelor still-life” tradition by reflecting her personal experiences, which she incorporated into intimate compositions that subtly disrupted the gendered norms of her subjects and era.

Many of Hirst’s best works celebrate the love of reading, and New York Evening Sun stands out for featuring both a book and a newspaper. Her works were painted at a time when, in many social spheres, books were often coded as symbols of intellectual pursuits grounded within male-dominated spaces. Hirst’s interest in painting reading materials was unconventional and subversive, challenging societal expectations of women’s roles.

“The painting New York Evening Sun features objects tied to men’s leisure—a newspaper, pipe, and book—while the Evening Sun newspaper itself was noteworthy for its deliberate attempts to appeal to all readers regardless of gender,” said Lauren Palmor, Associate Curator of American Art. “Hirst’s decision to paint such ‘bachelor still-lifes’ with a distinctly feminine perspective distinguished her in a genre dominated by men artists.”

New York Evening Sun is now on view in the galleries of American art at the de Young museum.

Bisa Butler (American, b. 1973), All Power to the People (after Man with Afro, San Francisco, California, by Leon A. Borensztein, 1984) (2023)

Artist Bisa Butler creates vibrant quilted portraits that celebrate people of African descent, exploring the role of portraiture in Black history. Her work is influenced by personal family photo albums, American folk art, and the philosophies of AfriCOBRA. Though she works exclusively with textiles, Butler approaches her process much like a painter, using layered fabrics and intricate quilting to add depth, texture, and emotional complexity – which she found were missing from her earlier painted works. By returning to textiles, Butler has forged a personal reconnection with her family’s history, as it was her grandmother and mother who taught her to sew.

“The quilt medium – itself evocative of familial life and domestic intimacy – has long served to shed light on Black communities. Butler’s vibrant, collaged portraits further this work, as well as visualize and embolden the American mosaic,” said Laura Camerlengo, Curator in Charge of Costume and Textile Arts.

The larger-than-life quilt All Power to the People (after Man with Afro, San Francisco, California, by Leon A. Borensztein, 1984) draws from an archival photograph of a San Francisco man taken by Bay Area photographer and former San Francisco Art Institute instructor, Leon A. Borensztein. It is now on view in the galleries of American art at the de Young museum.