SFMOMA

SFMOMA
Name	San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Established	1935
Location	San Francisco, California, United States
Type	Modern and contemporary art museum
Director	Christopher Bedford
Collection size	33,000+
Visitors	1,000,000+ (annual, pre-2020)

SFMOMA is a major museum of modern and contemporary art located in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1935, it has grown into one of the largest museums of its kind in the United States, holding a comprehensive collection spanning painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. The institution presents rotating exhibitions, permanent-collection displays, and public programs that connect artists, curators, and audiences from Silicon Valley to global art centers such as New York City, Paris, Tokyo, and London.

History

The museum originated as the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1935 with early support from patrons associated with the Golden Gate International Exposition and cultural leaders from Oakland and Sacramento. In the postwar era the institution acquired works by figures including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Marcel Duchamp, aligning with shifts toward modernism seen in institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. During the 1960s and 1970s the museum expanded programming involving artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, while engaging with local movements linked to Bay Area Figurative Movement and the Beat Generation. In the 1990s and 2000s curators pursued photography and media acquisitions by artists including Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, and Douglas Huebler. Major institutional milestones include a 1995 move into a building designed by Mario Botta and a 2016 reopening after a large expansion designed by Snøhetta, which followed fundraising campaigns involving donors connected to Silicon Valley technology firms and philanthropic foundations such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Collections and holdings

The collection exceeds 33,000 objects with strengths in West Coast art and international modernism. Paintings and sculpture feature works by Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Frida Kahlo, Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha, Gerhard Richter, and Yayoi Kusama. Photography holdings include major prints by Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Lee Friedlander, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. The museum holds seminal works in conceptual art and minimalism from Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, and Eva Hesse. Collections of design and architecture include material by Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, Le Corbusier, and Zaha Hadid, alongside contemporary designers such as Philippe Starck and Hella Jongerius. Media arts and performance documentation reflects acquisitions of work by Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Laurie Anderson, and Trisha Brown. The collection policy has emphasized acquisitions from galleries like Pace Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth, and has benefited from gifts by collectors connected to institutions such as the Tate Modern and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Architecture and building

Originally housed in Civic Center-adjacent buildings, the museum relocated to a purpose-built structure by Mario Botta in 1995, sited near the Yerba Buena Gardens and adjacent to cultural neighbors such as the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the Asian Art Museum. A major expansion completed in 2016 by the Oslo-based firm Snøhetta and local partner Marker LLC added cantilevered galleries, a new entrance, and street-level public spaces, connecting to the Moscone Center and the Transbay Transit Center corridor. The facility integrates environmentally conscious systems aligned with standards promoted by U.S. Green Building Council, and includes dedicated spaces for photography, media arts, a sculpture garden, and conservation laboratories equipped to treat works by artists such as Ansel Adams and Nam June Paik. The building’s layered façade and atrium relationships reference precedents from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Renzo Piano projects while engaging San Francisco’s seismic design challenges studied by engineers affiliated with Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley.

Exhibitions and programs

Rotating exhibitions have included retrospectives and thematic projects featuring artists like Andy Warhol, Edvard Munch, Alice Neel, Kara Walker, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Kehinde Wiley. The museum collaborates with international institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía to present traveling shows. Special projects have commissioned new work by emerging artists exhibited alongside acquisitions from estates including those of Carmen Herrera and John Cage. Public programs comprise artist talks, curator tours, film series, and performance commissions involving organizations such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and festivals like Sundance Film Festival and Frieze, while partnerships with tech entities in Silicon Valley support digital-museum initiatives.

Education and community engagement

Educational offerings include docent-led tours, family workshops, teen programs, and partnerships with K–12 institutions such as the San Francisco Unified School District and colleges including University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Community engagement initiatives have sought to increase access through free admissions days supported by foundations like the James Irvine Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and through outreach with neighborhood groups in SoMa and the Mission District. Artist residencies and fellowship programs have hosted practitioners associated with Oakland Museum of California, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the California College of the Arts. Digital learning projects, developed with collaborators including Google Arts & Culture and local incubators, extend collections-based learning to national and international audiences.

Governance and funding

The institution is governed by a board of trustees composed of civic leaders, collectors, and business executives with ties to firms such as Wells Fargo, Gap Inc., Salesforce, and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Directors and curators have included leaders recruited from institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the museum’s senior staff oversees curatorial, conservation, education, and development departments. Funding derives from membership revenue, ticket sales, endowment income, corporate sponsorships from companies such as Apple Inc. and Google, and philanthropic gifts from individuals connected to foundations like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. Large capital campaigns that financed expansions involved donors linked to families prominent in San Francisco finance and technology sectors as well as public-private partnerships with city agencies including the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Category:Museums in San Francisco