San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. Loans, 1938-1939

Material relating to exhibitions organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art comprises most of the alphabetically-arranged folders. Within this subgroup, most of the files pertain to the Flemish Painting exhibition of 1939, organized by Henri Marceau in conjunction with Francis Henry Taylor of the Worcester Art Museum and with the assistance of Leo van Puyvelde, scholar of Flemish art. Correspondence and guest lists document the one special event included here, a dinner hosted by the Pennsylvania Company.

Twice as numerous are the loan files that follow, all of which were part of the 2012 accession. Arranged chronologically, this material makes evident a fairly constant demand for loans from museums around the world. As early as 1927, Johnson's paintings were traveling to exhibitions across the United States and Europe, including San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition and the New York World's Fair, both of which were held 1939-1940. All loan requests required the recommendation of the curator and Trustee, with final approval given by the Art Jury, a municipal agency charged in part with works of art acquired by the city. In 1951 the Art Jury was made a commission under the Department of Public Property and has since operated as the Art Commission.