Asian Art Museum

The Asian Art Museum is filled with three floors of ancient and sublime art, but most exquisite of all is ironically the only art created by a Westerner. That would be the building itself. It was an architectural jewel as the city’s Main Library for eight decades beginning in 1916, but its $170 million renovation by Gae Aulenti (the architect of Paris’ Musee d’Orsay) has turned it into a true masterpiece—and the repository of one of the largest collections of Asian art in the Western world.

Inside the Beaux-Arts edifice, amid marble columns, bas-relief embellishments, vaulted ceilings and inverted skylights, is no less than the story of the Asian continent as told by thousands of years of art. This begins on the first floor, where special exhibitions are displayed in three large galleries. "Shanghai" is on display through Sept. 5, followed by "Five Centuries of Japanese Screens" (Oct. 15, 2010-Jan. 16, 2011).

Atop a marble staircase in Samsung Hall—the most impressive space in the museum—is the beginning of the permanent display of 2,500 artworks on the second and third floors. The Hall is filled with Chinese ceramics spanning 12 centuries, and along the Treasure Wall, large pieces ranging from a 19th-Century Nepalese brass guardian lion to a 10th-Century Vietnamese sandstone warrior. In adjacent galleries are gold, silver and jade treasures found in Korean tombs; Japanese bronze swords and Buddhas; and Chinese pieces as large as a 12-panel Quing Dynasty wood screen and as small as jewelry and intricate, three-inch-high ivory figurines.

Moving from country to country as you tour the museum’s 33 gallery spaces, the third floor features Hindu deity sculptures and a silver “elephant throne” from India; 2,000-year-old art pieces from Pakistan; limestone urns from the Philippines; ancient art from throughout Southeast Asia; puppets and headdresses from Indonesia; and most colorful of all, art treasures from the exotic reaches of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia.

Even the mildly curious can spend hours in this museum admiring the art and reading the accompanying descriptions of the historical and religious context in which each piece was created. You can also tour the museum with free audio headsets or by taking the docent tours (at least 10 per day), which are focused on the special exhibition and the art of individual countries represented in the museum.

HelloMetro Tip: Visit the museum between 5 and 8 p.m. on Thursdays when admission is only $5—and you can take a dinner break in the museum’s Café Asia.

- by Bob Cooper, San Francisco Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Bob Cooper

Bob Cooper is a full-time freelance writer (www.bob-cooper.com) who writes about travel, outdoor sports and health. He is a monthly contributor to Runner's World and has written recent articles for other national magazines such as Continental, Ladies' Home Journal and Inc.