An Expanded and Transformed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to Open in May 2016

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has recently announced that a thoroughly transformed SFMOMA will open to the public on Saturday, May 14, 2016, offering nearly three times the previous exhibition space, featuring 260 works from the Fisher Collection, a first showing of more than 600 artworks promised to the museum, the debut of the new Pritzker Center for Photography and an outward-looking architectural design that weaves the museum into the city as never before.

SFMOMA also announced it has reached a capital campaign milestone of $610 million raised which, in addition to covering construction costs, has more than tripled its endowment. Over 500 donors have supported the campaign and fundraising continues for education, art commissioning and exhibition programs at the museum.

Major components of SFMOMA’s seven-year expansion project include:

• construction of a 10-story, 235,000-square-foot addition designed by the internationally acclaimed architecture firm Snøhetta, integrated seamlessly with the museum’s existing 225,000-square-foot building designed by Mario Botta

• an unprecedented public/private partnership with the world-renowned Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, displaying the works at SFMOMA and presenting exhibitions for the next 100 years. In its opening presentation, SFMOMA will display nearly 260 works from the Fisher Collection by nearly 70 postwar and contemporary artists

• a multi-year collections campaign—the Campaign for Art—which to date has secured more than 3,000 artworks promised to the museum from over 200 donors, enhancing key areas of the museum’s holdings and providing visitors with a fuller, more textured view of the art of our time

• the Pritzker Center for Photography, the largest gallery, research and interpretive space devoted to this medium in any U.S. art museum

• a vibrant commissioning program that will begin with works by Claudy Jongstra and Julie Mehretu and will also commission performance works

• a new partnership with the San Francisco Film Society that will enable SFMOMA to provide its first ongoing film program—Modern Cinema—in the newly renovated Phyllis Wattis Theater

• free admission in perpetuity for all visitors 18 and younger

• and nearly 45,000 square feet of free public access, confirming SFMOMA’s role as a vital cultural and social hub in the heart of San Francisco

Photo: © Henrik Kam

Other significant benefits of the expansion project include an enhanced presence for performance, made possible by a double-height White Box space; an increase in programs for children and families in the new Koret Education Center; a two-story conservation center adjacent to the galleries; and a global culinary experience in the new restaurant In Situ led by Corey Lee, chef-owner of the Michelin three-star restaurant, Benu. “This expansion enables us to tap more fully into the energy all around us, in a region known for its special creativity and beauty, while greatly increasing the presentations of a collection that includes remarkable concentrations of artworks that can be found nowhere else,” said Neal Benezra, the Helen and Charles Schwab Director of SFMOMA.

“I am thrilled to announce that in just a few months, we will be welcoming the public to the stunning new expansion Snøhetta designed to fulfill these aspirations.” “On May 14th San Francisco will experience the extraordinary scope of the SFMOMA collection for the first time and see firsthand how the newly expanded museum will be able to serve our community, art lovers and school children in exciting ways we’ve only dreamed of doing in the past,” said Charles R. Schwab, Chairman of SFMOMA’s Board of Trustees.

SFMOMA’s new website, which launched today and reflects the museum’s new institutional branding, can be found at sfmoma.org.