Legion of Honor

Never doubt the unwavering resolve of a nude model. The Legion was a gift to San Francisco from Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, a sculptor’s model who married well and decided to create a fitting artistic tribute to Californians killed in France in WWI. Today, the Legion still ‘honors the dead while serving the living’ with blockbuster exhibitions, mixing crowd-pleasing shows of Egyptian art and Fabergé eggs with Max Klinger’s obscure, macabre 19th-century Waking Dream etchings. The collection spans medieval to 20th-century European art, including many works by the Impressionists and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, one of the premier collections of works on paper in the US. In honor of ‘Big Alma’s’ early career, the museum also has a sizable collection of sculpture by Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore.