The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary artmuseum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. The museum's current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts.[2] The collection is displayed in 170,000 square feet (16,000m2) of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.[3]
Founded in 1935 in the War Memorial Building, the museum opened in its Mario Botta designed home in the SoMa district in 1995. SFMOMA reopened on May 14, 2016, following a major three-year-long expansion project by Snøhetta architects.[4] The expansion more than doubled the museum's gallery spaces and provided almost six times as much public space as the previous building, allowing SFMOMA to showcase an expanding collection along with the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection of contemporary art.[5]
History
The atrium of the museum before the 2016 renovation.
SFMOMA was founded in 1935 under director Grace L. McCann Morley as the San Francisco Museum of Art. For its first sixty years, the museum occupied the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center. A gift of 36 artworks from Albert M. Bender, including The Flower Carrier (1935) by Diego Rivera, established the basis of the permanent collection. Bender donated more than 1,100 objects to SFMOMA during his lifetime and endowed the museum's first purchase fund.[6]
The museum began its second year with an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse. In this same year the museum established its photography collection, becoming one of the first museums to recognize photography as a fine art.[citation needed] San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts held its first architecture exhibition, entitled Telesis: Space for Living, in 1940.[6] SFMOMA was obliged to move to a temporary facility on Post Street in March 1945 to make way for the United Nations Conference on International Organization; following the signing of the United Nations Charter, the museum returned to its original Van Ness location in July. Later that year SFMOMA hosted Jackson Pollock's first solo museum exhibition.[6]
Founding director Grace Morley held film screenings at the museum beginning in 1937. In 1946 Morley brought in filmmaker Frank Stauffacher to found SFMOMA's Art in Cinema film series, which ran for nine years. SFMOMA continued its expansion into new media with the 1951 launch of a biweekly television program, Art in Your Life, later renamed Discovery, which ran for three years.[6]
Morley ended her 23-year tenure as museum director in 1958 and was succeeded by George D. Culler (1958–65) and Gerald Nordland (1966–72). The museum rose to international prominence under director Henry T. Hopkins (1974–86), adding "Modern" to its title in 1975.[7] Since 1967, SFMOMA has honored San Francisco Bay Area artists with its biennial SECA Art Award.
In the 1980s, under Hopkins and his successor John R. Lane (1987–1997), SFMOMA established three new curatorial posts: curator of painting and sculpture, curator of architecture and design, and curator of media arts. The positions of director of education and director of photography were elevated to full curatorial roles. At this time SFMOMA took on an active special exhibitions program, both organizing and hosting traveling exhibitions,[8] including major presentations of the work of Jeff Koons, Sigmar Polke, and Willem de Kooning.
Under director Neal Benezra, who was recruited from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, SFMOMA achieved an increase in both visitor numbers and membership while continuing to build its collection.[8] In 2005 the museum announced the promised gift of nearly 800 photographs to the Prentice and Paul Sack Photographic Trust at SFMOMA from the Sacks' private collection. The museum saw record attendance in 2008 with the exhibition Frida Kahlo, which drew more than 400,000 visitors during its three-month run.[13]
SFMOMA's Oculus bridge.
In 2009, SFMOMA announced plans for a major expansion to accommodate its growing audiences, programs, and collections and to showcase the Doris and Donald Fisher collection of contemporary art. In 2010—the museum's 75th anniversary year—architecture firm Snøhetta was selected to design the expanded building. SFMOMA broke ground for its expansion in May 2013.[5]
In July 2020, the senior curator of painting and sculpture, Gary Garrels, resigned after using the term "reverse discrimination" during an all-staff Zoom meeting, which caused an uproar.[14][15] Looking back on the incident in 2023, and quoting Garrel's resignation letter in full, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CiMAM) called his resignation "a radical and bewildering gesture by an advocate for diversity."[16]
In 2022, Christopher Bedford was named director, succeeding Neal Benezra. The museum's announcement of his selection noted that "DEI has been at the center of Bedford’s work: he has made evident a natural synergy between policy and program, ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion is implemented across all endeavors."[17]
In February 2011, the museum publicly launched its Collections Campaign, announcing the acquisition of 195 works including paintings from Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Francis Bacon. Also under the auspices of the Collections Campaign, promised gifts of 473 photographs were announced in 2012, including 26 works by Diane Arbus and significant gifts of Japanese photography.[22] Works acquired through the Collections Campaign are displayed along with the Fisher Collection in the museum's expanded building, completed in 2016.[23]
SFMOMA's website allows users to browse the museum's permanent collection. The SFMOMA App allows visitors to use their mobile phones to follow guided visit of the museum at their own pace while the App tracks their location.[24]
SFMOMA's Research Library was established in 1935 and contains extensive resources pertaining to modern and contemporary art, including books, periodicals, artists’ files, photographs and media collections.[25]
Plans to expand the museum at its old site, on upper floors of the Veterans' Memorial Building in San Francisco's Civic Center, were thwarted in the late 1980s.[26] In the summer of 1988, architects Mario Botta, Thomas Beeby and Frank Gehry were announced as finalists in a competition to design the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's new structure in Downtown. Semifinalists had included Charles Moore and Tadao Ando. The three finalists were to present site-specific design proposals later that year,[27] but the museum canceled its architectural competition after only a month and went with the 45-year-old architect Botta.[28]
The new museum, planned in association with architects Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, was built on a 59,000-square-foot (5,500m2) parking lot on Third Street between Mission and Howard streets.[29] The south-of-Market site, an area near the Moscone Convention Center mainly consisting of parking lots, was targeted through an agreement between the museum, the redevelopment agency and the development firm of Olympia & York. Land was provided by the agency and developer, but the rest of the museum was privately funded.[30] Construction of the new museum began in early 1992, with an opening in 1995, the institution's 60th anniversary.
At the time of the new building's opening, SFMOMA touted itself as the largest new American art museum of the decade and, with its 50,000 square feet (4,600m2) of exhibition space, the second-largest single structure in the United States devoted to modern art. (New York's Museum of Modern Art, with 100,000 square feet (9,300m2) of gallery space, was then the largest single structure, while the nearly 80,000 combined square feet of Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles put it in second place).[31]
The Botta building consists of galleries rising around a central, skylighted atrium, above an iconic staircase.[32] Its external structure features a central 130-foot (40m) tall cylinder, and a stepped-back stone facade. Botta's interior design is marked by alternating bands of polished and flame-finished black granite on the floor, ground-level walls, and column bases; and bands of natural and black-stained wood on the reception desks and coat-check desk.[31]
Rooftop garden
In 2009, SFMOMA opened its 14,400sqft (1,340m2) rooftop garden. Following an invitational competition held in 2006, the garden was designed by Jensen Architects in collaboration with Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture. It features two open-air spaces and a glass pavilion that provides views of the museum's sculpture collection as well as the San Francisco skyline. It also serves as a year-round indoor/outdoor gallery.[31][33][34]
Ceiling architecture
Snøhetta expansion
In 2009, in response to significant growth in the museum's audiences and collections since the opening of the 1995 building, SFMOMA announced plans to expand. A shortlist released in May 2010 included four architecture firms officially under consideration for the project: Adjaye Associates; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Foster + Partners; and Snøhetta.[35] In July 2010 the museum selected Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta to design the expansion.[36]
Opened in May 2016, the approximately 235,000-square-foot (21,800m2) expansion joined the existing building with a new addition spanning from Minna to Howard Streets.[37][38] The expanded building includes seven levels dedicated to art and public programming, and three floors housing enhanced support space for the museum's operations. It offers approximately 142,000 square feet (13,200m2) of indoor and outdoor gallery space, as well as nearly 15,000 square feet (1,400m2) of art-filled free-access public space, more than doubling SFMOMA's previous capacity for the presentation of art and providing almost six times as much public space as the pre-expansion building.[39]
The expanded building includes features such as a large-scale vertical garden on the third floor, purported to be the biggest public living wall of native plants in San Francisco; a free ground-floor gallery facing Howard Street with 25-foot (7.6m) tall glass walls that place art on view to passersby; a double-height "white box" space on the fourth floor with sophisticated lighting and sound systems; and state-of-the-art conservation studios on the seventh and eighth floors. The expansion facades are clad with lightweight panels made of Fibre-Reinforced Plastic; upon completion, this was the largest application of composites technology to architecture in the United States at the time.[40] The building achieved LEED Gold certification, with 15% energy-cost reduction, 30% water-use reduction, and 20% reduction in wastewater generation.[41] The Botta staircase was removed.
Management
Audience engagement
The museum expected attendance to jump from 650,000 a year in 2011 to more than one million visitors annually once the new wing opened.[42]
Board of trustees
The SFMOMA board is chaired by Robert J. Fisher; its president is Diana Nelson. SFMOMA reserves one seat on its board for a working artist who serves for a three-year period; the special board position comes with no financial obligations to the museum but includes the right to vote and participate in committees.[1]
Funding
By 2010, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art raised $250 million, allowing it to double the size of its endowment and put $150 million toward its expansion.[43]
The museum also operates the Artists Gallery at Fort Mason, a nonprofit gallery located at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco's Marina district. The Artists Gallery was founded in 1978 as an outlet for emerging and established Northern California artists. The gallery holds eight exhibitions each year, including solo, group, and thematic shows. Works cover a range of styles and media, from traditional to experimental, and all works are available for rent or purchase.[59]
In 2021, SFMOMA announced they are closing the artist’s gallery along with a publishing platform and the film program.
In Situ
In Situ is a fine-dining restaurant located inside SFMOMA. It is managed by Corey Lee, the owner-chef of award-winning San Francisco restaurant Benu. In Situ offers a curated menu that highlights signature dishes from other restaurants around the world.[60]
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