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The Kilims of Caroline and H. McCoy Jones

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on September 22, 2011

In 1980, H. McCoy Jones announced that he and his wife, Caroline, would donate his entire private collection of more than six hundred Central Asian carpets to the Fine Arts Museums. Two years later, Cathryn M. Cootner was appointed as the de Young’s first textile curator (her tenure as curator-in-charge would run through 1995). Cootner’s robust acquisition and exhibition program transformed the Museums into a well-respected repository for high quality textiles and oriental rugs. Chief among these was a watershed exhibition of Caroline McCoy-Jones’s unsurpassed collection of Anatolian kilims in 1991. We took a moment to sit down with Cathy Cootner to reflect on the McCoy Joneses and their spectacular kilims twenty years later.

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Finding Picasso

Posted by Gregory Stock on September 21, 2011

While the museum is closed to the public most Mondays, it welcomes hundreds of students and teachers to visit special exhibitions, such as Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris. You may nostalgically remember this kind of field trip as day off from the classroom, but the education department’s school programs team makes the field trip a “day on” for young learners.

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The Truth about Alabaster

Posted by Lesley Bone on September 9, 2011

You may have heard the term alabaster used to describe the pristine skin of a beautiful woman or the smooth surface of statue, as in the case of The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, on view at the Legion of Honor through December 31.

Jean de La Huerta and Antoine le Moiturier. Mourner no. 55, mourner with head uncovered, wiping his tears on his cloak with his right hand, 1443–1456/57. Alabaster. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Photo © FRAME (French Regional and American Museum Exchange) by Jared Bendis and François JAY.

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Word Gallery: Workshop

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on September 8, 2011

Throughout art history, scholars have devised a special vocabulary to talk about art. These terms are very useful, but they are not always self-explanatory. So we thought we'd take you into the art historical word gallery to provide some definitions commonly used to describe artistic styles, techniques, or movements in art.

Workshop

Workshop of Leonard Limosin (French, 1505–1577). The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, ca. 1570. Enamel on copper. Mr. and Mrs. E. John Magnin gift. 75.18.85

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FRAME|WORK: An Extraordinary Kilim from the Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on August 31, 2011

FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums' permanent collections. This week, we feature a monumental kilim that will be featured prominently in the upcoming exhibition The Art of the Anatolian Kilim: Highlights from the McCoy Jones Collection, which opens September 10.

Kilim, 17th century. Turkey, Anatolia, Aegean region, Usak Province. Wool; slit-tapestry weave. 383.5 x 182.9 cm (151 x 72 in.). The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection, gift of Caroline McCoy-Jones. 2003.87.4

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Word Gallery: Passage

Posted by Sarah Bailey Hogarty on August 30, 2011

Throughout art history, scholars have devised a special vocabulary to talk about art. These terms are very useful, but they are not always self-explanatory. So we thought we'd take you into the art historical word gallery to provide some definitions commonly used to describe artistic styles, techniques, or movements in art.

Passage

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906). Forest Interior, ca. 1898–1899. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection. 1977.4

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