You will find many attractions in the beautiful Golden Gate Park, including the striking Japanese Tea Garden and Shakespeare Garden, and also important museums such as the California Academy of Sciences and the De Young Memorial Museum, one of San Francisco‘s fine arts museums. Let’s find out more about the latter to plan our visit better.
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About the De Young Museum
The De Young Memorial Museum (also known as the De Young Museum) is one of San Francisco’s fine arts museums, along with the Legion of Honor Museum. It was founded in 1895 and named after its founder, San Francisco Chronicle journalist Michael H. De Young. It occupies a space of about 27,000 square feet, is rectangular in shape with a beautiful observation deck and a very special tower that offers a magnificent view of Golden Gate Park and the west side of San Francisco.
The building was renovated in 2005 by the skilled minds of the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron. The micro-perforated copper sheets that cover the structure, the stone, the glass and generally the materials used correspond to the architects’ idea of making the museum a “permeable, open and inviting” structure.
Directions
The De Young Memorial Museum is located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
If you are driving, remember that there is not much free parking near Golden Gate Park. You can leave your car at the Music Concourse Garage. Access is from both Fulton Street and 10th Avenue and Concourse Drive. The parking garage is open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and costs around $6 an hour.
Another paid parking lot you might use is the UCSF Medical Center Garage on Irvin Street near 3rd Avenue. The cost is $3 per hour for a daily maximum of $24. It will take you about 20 minutes to walk to the museum, otherwise on weekends you can take the Golden Gate Park Shuttle.
The museum tries to encourage the use of public transportation by offering a $2 discount on admission for anyone arriving by bus or subway. The closest bus routes to the De Young Memorial Museum are:
- the 44 / O’Shaughnessy
- the 5 & 5R / Fulton
- the 7 Haight/Noriega
- the 28
- or the Muni N / Judah metro.
If you use Uber or similar platforms, you can get dropped off in front of the De Young using the drop-off area on Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, or you can ask the driver to drop you off at the Music Concourse Garage which offers a free 15-minute pick-up/drop-off window.
To further explore the topic of getting around the city, here are some articles that you may find useful:
De Young Museum Hours and Tickets
The De Young Memorial Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 am to 5:15 pm. Last admission is one hour before closing. The museum is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Also, check their website because very often the museum holds special events with associated extended hours.
Tickets cost $15 for adults, $12 for over 65s, $6 for students with a valid ID and are free for children under 17. Offering free admission to kids in this age group is not very common, so if you have teenage children you can take advantage of this offer to spend a few hours in an alternative way, without having to pay too much. The collections span centuries and continents so they are varied and interesting for different age groups.
The ticket also includes admission on the same day to the Legion of Honor Museum at 34th Avenue / Clement Street in Lincoln Park.
Audio tours cost $8 and are downloadable to your smartphone.
If you travel to the museum by public transportation (Muni, BART, Caltrain) remember not to throw away your ticket as you are entitled to $2 off your museum entrance fee.
On Saturdays, the museum offers admission to Bay Area residents, and on the first Tuesday of the month, the De Young Memorial Museum is free for everyone (permanent collections only; temporary exhibits have a cost).
De Young Museum Collections
The De Young Memorial Museum houses one of the largest collections of American art found in the United States, as well as artwork and unique pieces from all over the world.
The permanent collections are:
- American Art: This amazing section, after the acquisition of the Rockefeller Collection, is the most comprehensive collection of American art in the western part of the United States, and among the top 10 collections of American art in the entire nation. There are over 1,000 paintings, more than 800 sculptures and 3,000 objects covering as many as 4 centuries of history from 1600 to the present;
- African Art: works of African art from the 19th and 20th centuries;
- Oceanic Art: one of the museum’s earliest collections with unique pieces including wooden Maori artwork and Indonesian textiles;
- Arts of the Americas: pottery, sculpture, and architectural artifacts from Mesoamerica and the Andes, from Mayan objects and colorful Mexican murals to the ceramic, terracotta, and textile works of the Navajo;
- Costume and Textile Arts: more than 14,000 textile and costume works from around the world;
- Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts: the foundation has collected 90,000 drawings, prints and works on paper, and the most prestigious pieces are exhibited in rotation at the museum;
- Photography: the art of photography from its beginnings to the present.
These interesting collections that will allow you travel through time and space, the temporary collections, the artworks scattered around the lush garden, the unique building that houses the museum and the tower with its breathtaking view of San Francisco are all reasons to entice you to visit this place.
Where to Stay Near the Museum
Golden Gate Park boasts some of the most interesting sights in San Francisco, however, there are not many accommodations in the area. Iot is als located a bit far from the city’s nerve center and is unsafe at night (read about it in our article on San Francisco’s dangerous neighborhoods), so, I suggest you fall back on one of the neighborhoods we suggested in our guide on finding a hotel in San Francisco.
