SFO Museum

Museum Monday at LAX and SFO airports

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Say “Hi, Barbie!” at Flight Path Museum at LAX

A visit to the Flight Path Museum and Learning Center at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is an avgeek delight anytime.

Located on LAX property, a short drive or taxi ride from the terminals, the museum includes one of the largest airline uniform collections, as well as space exploration memorabilia, a great research library, and a wide range of commercial aviation artifacts.

Right now is an especially good time to visit because the museum has Barbiemania. In honor of the new Barbie movie, the museum is showing an exhibit of aviation-themed Barbies and Barbie accessories, including Barbie dolls inspired by famous aviators, including Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart.

Unconventional enamels at SFO Airport

The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) oversees twenty-five sites throughout the airport terminals. So if you’ve got a long walk to your gate or a long layover at SFO, it’s a good bet something will catch your eye.

One of the newest exhibitions at SFO features the unconventional enameled art of June Schwarcz (1918–2015) on view in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1, Departures Level 2, Galley 1 E now through early May 2024.

Here’s an intro to Schwarcz’s work from the SFO Museum;

Inspired by nature and fashion, as well as abstract, African, and Asian art, Schwarcz developed unique metalworking techniques, always experimenting and embracing complex technical challenges. She initially worked with copper panels and spun-copper bowls, infusing them with her own interpretation of traditional enameling. During the 1960s, Schwarcz pioneered electroforming, an innovative method that involved electroplating pieces made from thin copper foil. Schwarcz focused on sculptural vessels and when asked about her abstract forms, she explained, “They simply don’t hold water.” 

(Images of June Schwarcz’s artwork courtesy of SFO Museum and the collection of Forrest L. Merrill)

The latest from the SFO Museum

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If you miss your flight at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) blame it on the curators of the SFO Museum.

At any one time, there are perhaps 20 top-notch exhibitions on view throughout the terminals, spanning everything from vintage radios and Victorian wallpaper to all manner of aviation history.

And each exhibit will make you want to stop and stay a while.

One of the newest exhibitions, Recollections… From the Unkown Museum, on display through March 2024 in Terminal 2, offers selections and creations culled from a quirky collection of vintage pop culture artifacts.

A well-known ‘secret’ museum in Mill Valley, CA since the mid-1970s and now artist Mickey McGowan’s private collection, the Unknown Museum is filled with a mass amount of objects dating from the 1940s to the 1980s. The museum is an “exploration into America’s brain” and a “complete immersion in conceptual art and American consumerism.”

Among other things.

 Recollections… from the Unknown Museum at SFO Airport is a sampling of the many fantastic art and object installations on display at various locations of the museum from the mid-1970s through the present.

“My original intent was to rescue these items, to provide them with a rest home for the remainder of their days,” museum curator and archivist Mickey McGowan said back in 1988.

Thank goodness he did.

Here are some snaps from the exhibit, courtesy of SFO Museum, and Mickey McGowan.

From the SFO Museum: Matchbooks & Air Sickness Bags

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The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has more than 150,000 objects related to the history of commercial aviation and to the airline industry.

As part of its 52 Objects series this year, they’ve pulled out this matchbook showing the route map for Continental Airlines.

Squeezing as much as possible onto a promotional item is nothing new. A while back we found this air sickness bag in the SFO Museum database which could be used for scoring a gin rummy game and/or turning in your film for processing.

Some of SFO Museum’s #52 Objects

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As far as we know, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is one of just two airports in the country that has an onsite museum program accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. (Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is the other one.)

Pretty much everything the SFO Museum displays in the terminals from its own collection or from a collection on loan is top-notch. But there are plenty of objects that never, or rarely, go on display. And lots of objects you might miss if you’re just passing through.

That’s why we’re delighted that for 2023, the SFO Museum is highlighting one “notable, unusual, interesting, or just plain fun” item from the collection each week.

Here’s what’s shown up so far.

Airline playing cards on National Playing Card Collection Day

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Courtesy SFO Museum

October 17 is National Playing Card Collection Day and we know that many travelers have fond memories of the free decks of playing cards some airlines would hand out to passengers.

We found these images of some of those decks in the marvelous, searchable online collection of the SFO Museum at San Fransisco International Airport (SFO).

Do you have a deck of cards from an airline in your collection? Please share a photo and your memories of getting that souvenir.

Western Airlines playing cards – 1970s