People Make This Place: SFAI Stories

Exploring moments from the rich history of the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) — before its closure, the West Coast’s oldest fine art school — this exhibition spotlights works by more than 50 SFAI alumni and former faculty included in the museum’s collection. The presentation underscores the school’s crucial role in fostering creativity and experimentation, featuring works across media since the post–World War II era by artists like Ansel Adams, Joan Brown, Miguel Calderón, Imogen Cunningham, Mike Henderson, Candice Lin, and Carlos Villa, among others.

The exhibition also includes a dynamic and quirky range of archival materials drawn from the SFMOMA Library and the SFAI Archive. These encompass ephemera from the founding of the school’s photography department, posters for 1950s Beat-era galleries run by artist alumni, student newspapers, and flyers from the punk and new wave music scenes of the 1970s. Taking its title from a line in the final 2022 commencement speech by faculty member and alumnus Dewey Crumpler, People Make This Place is a collaborative effort across the museum in partnership with the SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive.

Read an interview conducted by SFMOMA Director of Library and exhibition co-curator David Senior with SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive Archivist Becky Alexander illuminating SFAI’s legacy in depth.