Visiting the de Young Museum ... And Building Family Memories

Not too long ago, we went to the last weekend of the Picasso Show at the de Young (the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum). As with all outings unexpected things can happen to make the day richer—and that was true on that day.

A quick bit about the de Young Museum. This new museum was opened in 2005 on the site of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, severely damaged and razed after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The museum is located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Our son's school had an art project to look at some Picasso heads and faces and then draw a self portrait in a Picasso-style. I thought it would be good to bookend that project with seeing the real thing. It ended up being a great choice.

Picasso turns out to be very accessible to five-year-olds. We got to see the progression of paintings where the bust turns into blocks—or as our son called the figures, "robots."  Everything was turned into robots in his interpretation.  Sculptures were "basketball robots," "lollipop robots," and "shy robots."  It was a lot of fun.  

Being an art major, I came to the exhibit with pre-established notions of Picasso's art based on what I was taught in art history classes. Seeing the exhibit with our son, I got to see this art in new fresh ways. And, I think I was freed up to see the paintings and sculptures from a fresh perspective—as I believe Picasso would have enjoyed.

When we came out of the exhibit, we headed up the de Young Tower—and this is where the unexpected came in.

We had made this trip to San Francisco on the Friday when the Blue Angels were doing their air show practice run!

The Harmon Tower (for those who haven't been up in it) has a 360-degree view of San Francisco—and that day we got a 360-degree view of the Blue Angels flying all around the city. It was fantastic. Everyone up in the tower was captivated and taking pictures of the show. We all felt fortunate for being up there at just the right time.

Moments like these are great, because you know that they are making special family moments we can talk about for years to come. "Remember when we were up in the de Young Tower on that perfect sunny day and the Blue Angels were doing their thing? Wasn't that great?!"  Which is what our family can always use more of, fun memories outside of the daily grind.

This is why I feel these outings are rewarding. Sure we want to edify our son and expose him to great art, ideas and etc…  But, really it's an opportunity to spend interesting time as a family.  We get to show our son our interests and he gets to develop his own likes and interests, too.

All in all, a really fun time.

The de Young Basics

• The de Young's Hours:  Tuesday - Sunday 9:30am - 5:15pm.  Friday (mid-Jan - November), open late until 8:45pm for "Friday nights at the de Young".  Mondays - closed

• Adults $10, Youths $6, Children under 12, free

• First Tuesday of the month: free

Related Topics

• The Picasso website has a brief video describing Picasso and other Picasso news