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Art and Death at the Legion of Honor
The Sun, a 13-foot high glass sculpture by artist Dale Chihuly welcomes visitors into the courtyard of the Legion of Honor, perhaps the most beautiful museum in San Francisco. The museum houses an impressive collection of ancient and European art including Rodin's Thinker which shares the museum's Court of Honor with the Chihuly sculpture.
However, not all discoveries at the Legion of Honor are as pleasant. In 1993, while doing construction at the museum, workers dug up around 300 skeletons. These skeletons appear to be from a pauper's graveyard that dates back to the mid-1800s. While all cemeteries were ordered to be relocated from San Francisco in 1900, it appears this graveyard was either forgotten or ignored. Expert estimates have put the number of bodies thought to be on the museum's grounds at 11,000.
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4 Comments:
Okay, this post might actually be my favorite so far. Gorgeous art, love the Legion AND a creepy story about a lost graveyard.
Very very awesome.
I have to get over to the Legion asap to see this Sun.
i concur with tangobaby! that photo is gorgeous, and the story is fantastic. thank you , thank you!
I didn't know this! Now this glass tree is really something!
(came from Don Kiney's photoblog)
Oh wow...
I saw this (and the other one inside) just last week. They are both incredible! How they managed to pack and ship those "trees" is beyond me...
--I have two photos from a few days ago on: http://www.photoarrow.com/duo/
Very, very interesting story about the "lost graveyard" -- the museum is great, but that whole area does sort of have a creepy feel to it.
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