News

A Tribute to Donald Fisher

Donald Fisher
Donald Fisher

September 28, 2009

Donald Fisher, who along with his wife, Doris, was among the greatest and most generous donors in the history of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, passed away on Sunday, September 27.

Don Fisher first joined the SFMOMA Board of Trustees in 1983. Through the years, he served with great distinction in many roles, among them the elected position of Secretary/Treasurer, and on the Executive, Finance, Nominating, Audit, and Building Committees.

"On behalf of the entire of Board of Trustees, I am deeply saddened by the loss of our friend Don Fisher," said Board Chair Charles R. Schwab. "Don was instrumental in the development of SFMOMA, and his generosity will be felt for generations to come. From gifts of masterworks and support for exhibitions over the years to his latest landmark gift to the city—designating SFMOMA as the future home of his extraordinary collection—we are all the beneficiaries of his leadership and legacy."

Fisher was a driving force in expanding SFMOMA's collection and was the founding chair of the museum's Accessions Committee. Through his leadership, the practice of annual support for accessions in each of SFMOMA's curatorial areas was established, and it continues to this day.

Don and Doris Fisher have supported many great exhibitions and made numerous gifts of art to SFMOMA over the years. They generously underwrote exhibitions of the work of Alexander Calder, Sol LeWitt, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, and, most recently, William Kentridge. The Fishers made 37 fractional gifts to the museum, including works by Calder, Kelly, Kentridge, and Richter, as well as Chuck Close, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, and Jeff Wall. Together, Don and Doris Fisher have also supported SFMOMA's programs in education and publications and the museum's fund-raising events.

Through The Gap Foundation, the Fishers have long supported half-price admission and programming on Thursday evenings. In addition, through gifts from The Gap Foundation and Banana Republic, they have generously supported KidstART free admission for children, education programs for youth, the development of education and audience programs utilizing new technologies, and exhibitions of works by Alexander Calder and Yoko Ono.  

Don and Doris Fisher have also played a seminal role in developing and sustaining SFMOMA since the opening of the museum's downtown building in 1995. Don Fisher served on the committee that selected Mario Botta as architect, and the Fishers were among the most generous donors to the project — first to the New Museum Campaign, and then to the Capital Campaign for Endowment. 

On September 25 SFMOMA announced the details of a pioneering partnership between the Fishers and the museum to house the Fishers' extraordinary collection of contemporary art at the museum. The Fisher Collection will be the centerpiece of a dramatic expansion of SFMOMA, to which the Fisher family will give significant support. The Fishers will again play a pivotal role in what will be a profound transformation of SFMOMA in the 21st century.

Beyond their record of exceptional generosity to SFMOMA, Don and Doris Fisher have been leading Bay Area philanthropists, supporting the San Francisco Opera, Symphony and Ballet, Stanford University, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, as well as many other regional organizations.

"San Francisco has lost a great leader. This city and this museum owe a great debt of gratitude for Don Fisher's vision and generosity," said SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra. "Some of my favorite memories of Don were the occasions when I walked him and Doris through exhibitions at the museum and we critiqued the work on view. By challenging conventional wisdom in all its forms, he inspired us to innovate. His ambitions for our museum were very simply without limit, and it will be a great pleasure to act on the leadership that he provided in the future."

SFMOMA is organizing a major exhibition of the Fisher Collection that is scheduled to open in summer 2010 as part of the celebration of its 75th anniversary.

Fisher Collection Comes to SFMOMA

September 25, 2009

SFMOMA announced today the development of a groundbreaking relationship with Doris and Donald Fisher that would provide the Fisher Collection — one of the world's leading collections of contemporary art — with a home at SFMOMA.

The Fishers, who together founded Gap Inc. in 1969, have long envisioned keeping their collection intact for the public in their hometown of San Francisco. The Fisher Collection includes more than 1,100 works by leading artists including Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Anselm Kiefer, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol, among many others.

"San Francisco is where we raised our family and opened our first Gap store, and we want to give back to the city we love by sharing the art that means so much to us," says Don Fisher. "Doris and I share a vision with SFMOMA to enhance its collections and programs and we are prepared to make a substantial gift to strengthen the museum's standing as one of the world's great contemporary art museums."

SFMOMA is in the planning phase for a major expansion, announced last April, that will triple the museum's gallery space. The expansion reignited the Fishers' hopes of housing their collection in San Francisco by partnering with the museum to provide the necessary space and resources. In August 2007, the Fishers proposed building a museum in the Presidio, but decided this past July not to move forward.

"We are thrilled to forge this groundbreaking partnership and bring the Fishers' outstanding collection to the people of San Francisco and the world, which will make the museum an even greater public resource and provide visitors with a deeper, fuller view of key contemporary artists and movements," says Neal Benezra, director of SFMOMA. "The Fisher collection is a perfect complement to the museum's strong holdings of artists like Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, and Philip Guston, and gives us new strength in our representation of major figures like Alexander Calder, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Serra, and Chuck Close."

"This extraordinary partnership with the Fisher family will greatly advance SFMOMA's standing as one of the world's leading museums for contemporary art," says Charles Schwab, chairman of the Board of Trustees at SFMOMA. "Doris and Don Fisher are longtime, valued friends and patrons of SFMOMA, and they are demonstrating the kind of vision that has fostered the development of many of the world's greatest museums and public institutions throughout history."

Upon completion of SFMOMA's planned expansion, works from the Fisher Collection will be on display in a new wing that will also incorporate art from the museum's collection. In addition, works from the Fisher Collection will be interwoven in existing galleries with SFMOMA's modern and contemporary holdings. Together, they will form one of the world's most important collections of art of the past 50 years. The Fishers will create a trust, administered in collaboration with SFMOMA, to oversee the care of their collection at the museum, renewable after 25 years.

"This amazing collection belongs right here in the City of San Francisco," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. "Doris and Don Fisher have made an incredibly generous offer, and SFMOMA is the ideal partner and location to house this collection. This collaboration deserves our unanimous support and appreciation. This is a gift for the ages."

Pending additional site planning and approval from local agencies, SFMOMA's expansion is now envisioned to provide the museum with an additional 100,000 square feet of gallery and public space, greatly enhancing and expanding both the presentation of art in all areas of its collections — painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts — and its educational programs. The expansion will also include 40,000 square feet of additional space, including larger and more advanced conservation facilities and an expanded library. The expansion will be located on Howard Street (between Third and New Montgomery streets), on a site bridging Natoma Street and connecting to the museum along the southern facade — creating galleries that will merge seamlessly with the existing building.

Relocating administrative support space from the museum to a new wing will provide SFMOMA with more than 13,000 square feet of new gallery and public space in the existing Mario Botta-designed building, while consolidating all staff offices to one on-site location. In addition, the expansion will include a new entry on Minna Street (which runs along the museum's northern facade) to improve access for school groups and to the museum's Phyllis Wattis Theater for public programming.

In the coming months, SFMOMA will be working with Bain and Company to develop an extensive business plan to define the impact of the enlarged facility, increased operations, and enhanced programming on the museum's expansion and annual operating budgets. The business plan will inform both the contributions to the capital campaign and endowment that will be made by the Fishers and the funds that need to be raised by the museum.

"We will be going through a period of due diligence so that we have a clear and concise picture of the funding that is needed to support this unprecedented collaboration," states Schwab. "This presents a tremendous opportunity for SFMOMA and for our city, and with it we have a responsibility to ensure that the museum has the necessary physical, financial, and staff resources in place to sustain and grow through time."

The proposed new wing at SFMOMA presents an ideal location for the Fisher Collection where it will be seen by the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the museum annually. In addition, SFMOMA is conveniently accessible to public transportation and parking, and to hotels, restaurants, and other cultural institutions in downtown San Francisco. The collaboration also minimizes the environmental impact and diffusion of resources that would result from building a new, separate institution.

Fisher Collection Exhibition in 2010

SFMOMA is organizing a major exhibition of the Fisher Collection that is scheduled to open in summer 2010 as part of its 75th anniversary celebration. On the weekend of January 16 through 18, the museum will kick off a yearlong schedule of special programs, exhibitions, and events exploring SFMOMA's impact and evolution as a leading cultural resource for the people of the Bay Area and visitors from around the world. 

About Doris and Don Fisher

Doris and Don Fisher started collecting modern and contemporary art more than 40 years ago. They have acquired in-depth holdings by artists they admire, and their collection is distinguished in its representation of the entire careers of key artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Don Fisher has been an SFMOMA Trustee since 1983 and has served on several Board committees, most recently serving as Secretary/Treasurer. Over the years, Doris Fisher has served on SFMOMA's Education Committee and also serves as co-chair of the Collector's Committee and the Trustee Council of the National Gallery in Washington, DC.

SFMOMA Remembers Henry T. Hopkins (Director, 1974-86)

September 29, 2009

Henry T. Hopkins
Henry T. Hopkins; photo: courtesy SFMOMA

Former San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) director Henry T. Hopkins passed away on September 27, 2009. During his twelve-year tenure (1974-86), Hopkins sought to establish SFMOMA as the West Coast's premier museum of twentieth-century art through a deliberate plan of accelerated activity, determining new directions for both the exhibition program and the permanent collection and launching the museum on a course of renewed excitement and expansion.

"Hopkins's leadership at SFMOMA was distinguished by outstanding intellect and creative vision," says Neal Benezra, SFMOMA director. "In addition to organizing important exhibitions — including Ed Ruscha's first museum show — he transformed the collection through acquisitions of major work by Philip Guston and Clyfford Still, and led the museum to the forefront of the international art community."

Among Hopkins's first accomplishments was to rename the institution as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in January 1976, adding the word "modern" to more accurately reflect the identity and mission already established during its earliest years. He also created more gallery space for the museum in its War Memorial Veterans Building, which SFMOMA was quickly outgrowing. In addition, the scope of the exhibition program was expanded to emphasize not only painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture and design, but also experimental forms related to performance and Conceptualism. Under Hopkins's stewardship, the museum strengthened its commitment to experimental media with pioneering exhibitions such as Jim Melchert: Points of View: Slide Projection Pieces (1975), featuring Changing Walls (1971), which in 1973 became the first time-based media work acquired by SFMOMA.

At SFMOMA, Hopkins not only bolstered the quality of presentations brought in from outside institutions — including important exhibitions of work by Cy Twombly (1976), Robert Rauschenberg (1977), and George Segal (1979) — but also increased the pace and ambition of exhibitions organized internally. The enlargement of the curatorial staff and a renewed emphasis on exhibitions drawn from the museum's own collection resulted in a record number of homegrown shows under Hopkins's leadership. He instigated the first exhibition of Judy Chicago's controversial The Dinner Party (1979), promising the artist that he would show the project if she ever finished it. Chicago held him to his word, and more than one hundred thousand visitors lined up at SFMOMA, waiting hours to see this now iconic feminist magnum opus.

Hopkins worked very closely with abstract and figurative expressionist Philip Guston to plan a pivotal retrospective of the artist's work that opened to critical acclaim in January 1980 before embarking on an international tour. Says Kent Roberts, SFMOMA exhibition design manager, who served under Hopkins in the 1980s, "One of my fondest memories is working on Hopkins's legendary Guston show, and being present in the galleries while he and the artist discussed the installation. As a curator, Hopkins was always engaged and highly approachable."

Hopkins drew on his long friendship with Ed Ruscha to present The Works of Edward Ruscha, the artist's first museum survey, in 1982, and also oversaw such important projects as SFMOMA's inaugural biennial survey of contemporary American art Twenty American Artists (1980), featuring work by Christo, Jim Dine, and Lucas Samaras, among others; A German Intuition, 1905-1920 (1981), coorganized with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist (1981); Kandinsky in Munich: 1896-1914 (1982); and Diego Rivera: The Cubist Years (1984).

The accelerated exhibition program under Hopkins's tenure was paralleled by an equal intensification in collection activity. Hopkins may be best remembered for securing in 1975 Clyfford Still's extraordinary gift of twenty-eight monumental canvases representing the entire span of his career, making SFMOMA the first public institution to own a substantial collection of the abstract pioneer's work. The acquisition marked the onset of Hopkins's strategy to collect concentrations of works by first-generation Abstract Expressionists with California connections. In addition, Hopkins's approval of the purchase of Philip Guston's monumental triptych Red Sea; The Swell; Blue Light in 1975 inspired the artist's subsequent gift of four more paintings and a legacy of future gifts from trustees and patrons. Other acquisition highlights under Hopkins's guidance include works by Josef Albers, Larry Bell, Roy De Forest, Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Roy Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Andy Warhol.

SFMOMA's photography program, which had been steadily active throughout the seventies, advanced significantly with Hopkins's appointment of photography curator Van Deren Coke in 1979, followed by the official establishment of a Department of Photography in 1980, signaling the museum's formal recognition of the importance of the medium. While SFMOMA had collected and exhibited photography since 1935, under Hopkins's guidance, its photography holdings gained sharper focus through the addition of important concentrations of work by Robert Adams, Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe, Man Ray, Edward Weston, and Joel-Peter Witkin, as well as landmark exhibitions such as the historical overview Avant-Garde Photography in Germany: 1919-1939, organized by SFMOMA in 1980 and subsequently circulated on a two-year international tour.

Similarly, Hopkins's longstanding commitment to the discipline of architecture and design greatly increased the collection in this area and led to the 1983 founding of SFMOMA's Department of Architecture and Design, the first such department on the West Coast.

Hopkins succeeded Gerald Nordland as the museum's fourth director in February of 1974, after serving as head of the Fort Worth Art Center Museum (now the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth). Prior to that, he held a seven-year post on the curatorial staff of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1986, after twelve years of leadership at SFMOMA, Hopkins departed to head the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles, and would later become the first director of UCLA's Hammer Museum. He was succeeded at SFMOMA by John R. Lane in 1987.