Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

"“San Francisco is the 17th-largest city in the country, but we have a symphony, a ballet, an opera and museums that are all in the top tier,” Campbell said." Read how San Francisco's art and culture institutions are making their comeback.

Curious about Irving Penn or any of the 175 photographs in our Penn exhibition? The Met's Jeff Rosenheim, curator of the exhibition, is ready for all of your questions! Pop them in the comments below and check back later for answers 💭 Come visit Irving Penn's work, on view until July 21 📸 #IrvingPenn #Photography #Curator

📹 "To create our own families that we can accept as LGBT+ persons. Happy people." --Leilah Babirye shares her experience being LGBTQIA+ in Uganda and its impact on her life and work. Experience the power of Leilah Babirye's work in her exhibition "Leilah Babirye: We Have a History," on view through June 6, 2025. #LeilahBabirye #LGBTQ #LGBTArtist #ContemporarySculpture #ContemporaryArt

Lee Mingwei sees the role of art as bringing people together in difficult times, and we couldn't agree more. Thank you, Suhanya Raffel and Claudia Schmuckli, for sharing your words with us! Experience the connective power of Lee Mingwei's "The Mending Project" before it closes on July 7. #LeeMingwei #TheMendingProject #RitualsOfCare

Contemporary artist Leilah Babirye talks practice and process before her upcoming show "Leilah Babirye: We Have a History," opening THIS Saturday, June 22. Follow the link below to watch the full film exploring Babirye’s work and practice on our Youtube page 📺 https://bit.ly/45I2MQX AND, join us in celebrating the opening of Leilah Babirye's exhibition tomorrow by listening to the artist talk about her work in conversation with our Curator of African Art Natasha Becker. Thank you to everyone who made this fantastic project and film possible! #LeilahBabirye #ContemporarySculpture #ContemporaryArt

Everything is drag, everything is fashion. D'Arcy and Laura continue their conversation on fashion, history, and drag. Thank you again to the talented team and collaborators that brought this project to life! #DragArtHistory #FashioningSF #DragFashion #FashionHistory https://lnkd.in/gVjwbtbX

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Michael Rozendal, an associate professor in the Rhetoric and Language department at the University of San Francisco, talks about San Francisco’s Summer of Love: the liberation and disillusionment. And the hopefulness that can be felt in Irving Penn’s portraits from the summer of 1967. Penn made a series of photographs for "Look" magazine of people participating in San Francisco's Summer of Love. He photographed everyone from hippies and avant-garde dancers to Hells Angels and rock bands. Penn wanted to memorialize the epicenter of the counterculture movement on film and "look into the faces of these new San Francisco people.” See these portraits of San Francisco history for yourself in “Irving Penn,” on view through July 21. Can you guess where Penn's studio was located during the Summer of Love? Hint: It wasn't in San Francisco! #IrvingPenn #SummerOfLove #SanFrancisco #Hippie #Photography

"Leilah Babirye: We Have a History," opens at the de Young this Saturday, June 22! It's not every day you see an artist sculpting with a chainsaw. By combining wood-carving traditions from western and central Africa with found or discarded materials, Babirye creates sculptures honoring her LGBTQ+ community. Don't miss her debut solo museum show! [Portrait of the artist (2022), Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Mark Hartman] #LeilahBabirye #ContemporaryAfricanArt #BayAreaArt

Can we get a round of applause for the technicians behind Lee Mingwei's "Guernica in Sand"? 👏 Imagine paint-by-numbers but with an 800-square-foot canvas and sand instead of paint 😳 The technicians filled large metal templates with sand according to a color-coded map, then went over the entire piece again to make the lines crisp and add detail. Museum technician Renee Goree said it was a long process, which she (eventually) grew to enjoy. "Although nearly all of my coworkers are some kind of artist, we were all completely new to working in sand. The learning curve was steep! It required us to essentially try and try until we came to a technique that worked for us individually. I spent an entire day on a tiny little corner before getting it down. Once that happened, I was able to relax and enjoy swishing sand around. "It was interesting to work on something of that scale. The piece itself is so large, but in practice so minute. Pouring little particles — often a handful at a time — to create something that amassed to nearly six tons of sand makes for quite a contrast." Photo by Linda Lin, featuring: Paul Palacios, Adalberto Castrillon, Renee Goree, Andrew Peuler, Mauricio Velasco, Bryce Griffith, Paul Tavian. #LeeMingwei #RitualsOfCare

Drag takeover on the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's homepage today. Happy Pride Month everyone! 🌈🌈🌈 Magnolia Molcan, Lucy Miller, Laura L. Camerlengo, Megan Bates