Japan's two-dimensional designs, clean lines, geometric patterns, dynamic compositions and coloration helped define what we now think of as modernism.

It has been 100 years since the San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition opened its gates to the 19 million visitors who flocked to see it in 1915. A fraction of what was once displayed there is currently on view at the de Young.

The Asian Art Museum continues its march into the present and its bid to win the hearts and minds of younger audiences with "First Look: Collecting Contemporary" at the Asian, the second of two exhibitions this year that have accentuated modern art.

Fall offerings at the museums may seem a little thin compared to years past, as we await 2016 and the arrival of the expanded and renovated SFMOMA and the reopening of the Berkeley Art Museum in its new digs.

Fall is nearly here, a time when local galleries roll out a fleet of eclectic exhibitions.

The exhibition assembles an informal trilogy, three bodies of work made over the course of 13 years that observe American society, its class and racial divides, and the rhythms of existence in a variety of regions.

Amy Winehouse, the soulful British singer/songwriter whom Tony Bennett once called the best jazz vocalist of her generation, had it all: A big, heart-rending voice, fame and success, none of which saved her from the inner demons that overtook her.

"Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty" is distinguished not only by the strength of the artworks, which stand on their own, but by its aspiration to encompass time and the incomprehensible vastness of space.

With the Supreme Court's recent marriage equality ruling, 2015 may well be remembered as San Francisco's second - and most inclusive - summer of love.

The de Young Museum's "J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free" is an exciting, exceedingly pleasurable summer exhibition that focuses on the artist's final artistic chapter.

The Asian Art Museum's latest embrace of contemporary art can be counted as a surefooted success.

A spinner of tales, a visual novelist, a dream weaver, John Bankston is a San Francisco-based, gay African-American artist who, like the characters in his adventures, prefers not to be pigeonholed by race or sexual orientation.

A master storyteller with a fine-tuned social conscience, Jacob Lawrence was a superb draftsman and visual thinker in an impressive range of mediums.

The greatest and most vulnerable. The mightiest and brightest. The furthest from and closest to us. Singer of songs, prey to homo sapiens, eater of Giant Squid, lighter of lamps, stiffener of ladies' corsets -- and now, exhibit at Cal Academy of Sciences.