The Pritzker Center for Photography

One of the first museums to recognize photography as an art form, SFMOMA has more than 17,800 photographic works, dating from the advent of the medium in 1839 to the digital images of today. Deepening and expanding our commitment to photography, the new Pritzker Center for Photography nearly triples the space dedicated to photography, filling the majority of the third floor. Encompassing fifteen thousand square feet, the Pritzker Center is the largest space permanently dedicated to photography in any art museum in the United States. The center includes enhanced permanent collection galleries and new special exhibition galleries, along with a study center and a Photography Learning Lounge.

The print study center gives visiting scholars and students the opportunity for hands-on viewing of prints, drawings, and photographs. The adjacent meeting space promotes collaboration between curators, scholars, artists, teachers, and the public.

Our innovative Photography Learning Lounge lets you experience photography in a whole new way. Through interactive exhibits, you can explore how photography shapes perceptions of California, create a portrait of yourself without showing your face, and more.

Paul Sack Photographic Trust

Paul Sack, a real estate investor, assembled his collection using the criterion that each photograph depict a building that ostensibly could be bought or leased.

Visitors to the Museum and its Study Center can view an ongoing exhibition of selected works from the Paul Sack Photographic Trust collection.

Current Exhibitions

Grab a Bite

Photographers have explored the broader social significance of dining since the early days of the camera — from Brassaï’s depiction of Parisian restaurants in the 1930s to Bill Owens’s documentation of suburban middle-class life in the 1970s. Images of eateries and cafés memorialized such establishments and enticed patrons to the food seller and photographer alike. W. Eugene Smith and Marc Riboud used dining locales to comment on the encroachment of industry, while others reconsidered them through technical mastery of the camera. Tapping into the spirit of historic San Francisco cafés like Vesuvio and the Place , which once fueled the creative pulse of the Beat generation, Grab a Bite highlights the universal experience of dining and underscores the role of restaurants in expressing a city’s unique identity.

This exhibition will be on view on Floor 3 May 31, 2025–February 25, 2026, and is included as part of General Admission.

Southern States

The American South has long been seen as both captivating and fraught. Eccentricity and elegance have been celebrated there for generations, shaping a distinctive regional character. Southern States explores these sensibilities through photography, tracing a visual narrative that covers the post–Civil War and Great Depression eras and Pictorialist, surrealist, and contemporary styles. While the South lacks a singular photographic tradition, its photographers responded to national and global movements in art and society, from the evolution of photojournalism and documentary practices to the struggle for civil rights. Their images reflect the complexities of Southern life: the family bonds, natural beauty, and enduring traditions, as well as the tensions and traumas that define the region’s past and present.

This exhibition will be on view in the Collections Study Center May 31, 2025–February 25, 2026. To visit the Collections Study Center, please email studycenterappointment@sfmoma.org. We are open by appointment Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–noon and 1–4 p.m., and strive to accommodate appointments within two weeks of your request.