SFMOMA will Become Home to Gap Founder's Contemporary Art Collection

Written by Harvey Walsh Friday, 21 October 2011 21:09

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) Board Chair Charles Schwab and Director Neal Benezra today announced that the museum is developing 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 some 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," said 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 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," said Benezra. "The Fishers' collection is a perfect complement to SFMOMA's already 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."

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 with SFMOMA's modern and contemporary holdings in existing galleries. 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 for a minimum of 25 years.

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 its current 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 for visitors to the museum's Phyllis Wattis Theater for public programming.

The proposed new wing at SFMOMA presents an ideal location for the Fisher Collection, one 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 as well as 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 the celebration of its 75th anniversary. On the weekend of January16 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.

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 21th 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.  Visit : http://www.sfmoma.org/

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