Sara Kloepfer
A&E Editor
The San Francisco Museum of Modern art (SFMOMA) celebrates its 75th Anniversary Jan. 18 with a season of commemorative exhibitions and programs under the title 75 Years of Looking Forward.
“We are celebrating the pioneering spirit of the museum,” said Sandra Farish Sloan, SFMOMA Senior Public Relations Associate. “[SFMOMA] is consistently looking forward. We have an ongoing commitment to embracing new ideas and are consistently breaking new ground in exhibition presentations.”
The museum’s most comprehensive exhibition with 400 works, The Anniversary Show, celebrates SFMOMA’s impact on modern and contemporary works. The exhibit not only features major artists, but explores the legacies of significant donor Albert M. Bender and founding director Grace McCann Morley. It is the first complete reinstallation of the second floor galleries since opening in 1995.
“You are seeing works from the permanent collection but presented in an entirely new way, with an eye towards telling the history of the museum,” said Sloan.
The Anniversary Show will reveal part of its anniversary present in June — about 300 works of the Fisher Collection — one of the world’s leading collections of contemporary art, including some 1,100 works by over 185 leading artists. Announced Sept. 25, the donation of the Don and Doris Fisher, founders of Gap Inc., includes artist such as Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Serra and Andy Warhol, among many others.
The donation of the extensive Fisher collection coincides perfectly with SFMOMA’s previously considered expansion plans. The museum announced the planning phase of its major expansion last April, looking to triple gallery space.
“A major change for the museum was the opening of its current location in 1995,” said Sloan. “We are about to enter another historic turning point with the addition
of the Fisher collection and the building expansion.”
SFMOMA officials hope this addition will push it to the forefront as one of the world’s leading museums for contemporary art.
“This amazing collection belongs right here in the City of San Francisco,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom in an SFMOMA press release. “Doris and Don Fisher have made an incredibly
generous offer, and SFMOMA is the ideal partner and location to house this collection. This is a gift for the ages.”
