Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Is One of the City’s Cultural Gems
Instantly recognizable to art lovers from around the world, SFMOMA is one of San Francisco’s most important cultural institutions and attractions. This facility showcases more than 26,000 contemporary and artistically important works of sculpture, painting, mixed media, design, photography, architecture and many more. Here visitors will find splendid works of art created by world-renowned artists such as Magritte, Mondrian, Koons, Rothko, Kahlo and many other notable artists.
SFMOMA first opened its doors in 1935. Word spread quickly throughout the art world about the quality of the facility’s collection and the scope of organizers’ plans, which attracted increasingly important artists and inspired wealthy donors to donate portions of their private collections. In just its second year of operation, SFMOMA featured a major exhibition of works by Henri Matisse. That same year, it also began making space on its walls for photography, becoming one of the first museums in the country to do so and providing photographers with a world-class facility to showcase their art. A few years later, the museum continued its ambitious plans and opened its first architectural exhibition, putting the art world on notice that this new institution intended to be one of the very best art museums in the world.
To this day, SFMOMA shows no signs of slowing down. The facility has retained its status and built on it by offering a remarkable series of rotating exhibitions and expansions featuring works by artists from around the Bay Area and around the world. The most recent expansion is ongoing and expected to open in 2016. This will more than double the number of galleries and provide nearly six times as much public space as the current facility. In keeping with its mission, SFMOMA’s expansion will feature a new building with bold lines and a tiered look that is certain to become one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.
If you would like to spend a day strolling through the galleries of SFMOMA and viewing some of the best examples of contemporary art anywhere, and you really should, this marvelous institution will be very easy to find when it opens again in 2016. It is located at 151 Third Street between Mission and Howard on the city’s east side just across the street from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Although it is currently closed for expansion, many of the facility’s works of art are distributed at locations throughout the Bay Area, giving visitors another compelling reason to explore the different neighborhoods of one of the world’s great cities!