San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Category: Arts, Science, Museum

The first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, the San Francisco Museum of Art opened in 1935 under the direction of Grace L. McCann Morley. The Museum, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1985, rose to international prominence under the leadership of Henry T. Hopkins (1974–86). “Modern” was added to the Museum’s title in 1975 to describe its purview more accurately. Subsequently, SFMOMA undertook an extremely active special exhibitions program, both organizing and hosting traveling exhibitions. In January 1995, SFMOMA opened a new museum facility in the burgeoning South of Market district, designed by renowned Swiss architect Mario Botta. Ross steered the museum through an unprecedented period of growth, during which time the Museum’s membership grew to more than 44,000 people and the permanent collection to more than 22,000 objects. He was particularly interested in artists exploring the intersection of art and technology, a theme carried out in such exhibitions as Bill Viola, Seeing Time: Selections from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection of Media Art and the groundbreaking 010101: Art in Technological Times. Neal Benezra succeeded David Ross as director in August 2002.