It’s hard to imagine an artist barely out of college deserving a retrospective. The late photographer Francesca Woodman is getting just that, and deservedly so.Thirty years after her death, her brief career is the focus of an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The show features more than 150 of Woodman’s hauntingly beautiful photographs, most of them black and white. Read More
Artist Richard Serra is famous for his gigantic steel sculptures. What he is less known for are his drawings, now the subject of a fascinating exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.“Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective,” which opened Saturday, illuminates the creative process of one of the world’s great 20th-century artists. The landmark exhibition includes roughly 70 works, from densely layered geometric shapes to sketchbooks that have never been shown before. Read More
While “The Steins Collect” has been stealing the limelight at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this summer, shows like “Face of Our Time” are what make the museum’s curatorial efforts ring with contemporary relevance.The exhibition features documentary photography by an exceptional quintet of artists — Bay Area photographers Richard Misrach and Jim Goldberg, along with Daniel Schwartz, Jacob Aue Sobol and Zanele Muholi. Read More
In the early 1900s, the Stein family — Gertrude, her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael’s wife, Sarah — were swept up in the excitement of Parisian life. The American expatriates lived modestly and spent their money on paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and other young artists they befriended. Read More
Among the most famous artists in history, and a painter whose bizarre, sometimes savagely grotesque works still are difficult to appreciate for some museum visitors, Pablo Picasso remains a giant of the 20th century.
In 2007, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s unforgettable “Picasso and American Art” exhibit from the Whitney Museum showcased how his work had an impact on artists from Willem de Kooning to Jackson Pollock to thousands of wannabes. Read More
In a corner gallery at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, there’s an exhibit of the works of Tobias Wong. Dominated by a somber black wall, the show is a shrine to the late artist and designer — and well worth a visit.
Wong died last year in New York City at the age of 35. During his short time in the spotlight, he made a deep and lasting impression, looking at the interplay of anxiety and consumerism in a post-9/11 world. Read More
Commonwealth Club Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner: At its 23rd annual event Tuesday at the Palace Hotel, the Commonwealth Club of California presented its Distinguished Citizen Awards to the Honorable Tad Taube, the president of the Koret Foundation; Mary B. Cranston, a senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP; and Janet Lamkin, the president of Bank of America California. Read More
I was invited on a tour of the How Wine Became Modern exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art the other day with, among a few other journalists, Georg Riedel, the eminent owner of Riedel Glassware. I was told to look for Henry Urbach, the Henry Hilton Raiser curator of architecture and design, upon entering the building. However, I mistook Riedel, who was holding a tasting at the museum later in the day, for my tour guide.Luckily, the story gets better from here. Read More
Amid one of the nation’s worst recessions, an unsuspecting group has helped prop up local businesses as they struggle to recover from the weak economy — artists.While San Francisco’s jobless rate has hovered at 10 percent and storefront vacancies have turned into an epidemic, the arts community has managed to thrive, giving The City a much-needed economic boost. Read More
Photography was invented in 1837 and came into widespread use in the 1840s. California became a state in 1850. You could say they grew up together.
“The View From Here,” an exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art running through June 27, outlines how the Golden State and some of America’s most famous (and most underappreciated) photographers influenced each other as they developed. Read More
