The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but friends call us SFMOMA. We're one of the largest museums of modern + contemporary art in the United States.
👏 Interrupting your feed to share one of the coolest tattoos spotted in our galleries.
Thank you Instagram user yessiink! We share your love for Diego Rivera's "The Flower Carrier" (1935).
Explore the work and life of Sol LeWitt here at SFMOMA with a new immersive app developed by the Sol LeWitt Estate +
@microsoft
. Download the app + prepare to be transported.
"A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience." -Mark Rothko
Born Markus Rothkowitz on this day in 1903. Mark Rothko's family emigrated from Russia in 1913 and settled in Portland, Oregon. In 1923, Rothko moved to New York where he discovered his love of painting.
❤️Sargent Johnson's enduringly moving "Mother and Child," for
#MothersDay
.
The Bay Area artist made this drawing of a mother's protective embrace almost a century ago, in 1932.
🌁 No San Francisco summer would be complete without
@karlthefog
Photographer Pirkle Jones captured this scene of fog over Twin Peaks back in 1955 before Sutro Tower was built in 1973.
Warm up at the museum during the long-weekend — We are open today from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
🏀 Come behind the scenes with
@paigebueckers1
!
Watch as the UConn basketball star plays the lead in the "Night at the Museum" video for our upcoming exhibition "Get in the Game" and answers a few of our questions along the way.
Kay Sage was not inclined to explain her paintings. When asked about one of her works, the artist famously that she knew “nothing of [its] origin except that I painted it.”
"This is all you need in life: a computer, a camera, and a cat." —Agnès Varda.
Wishing a happy birthday to Agnès Varda, who was born
#onthisday
in 1928. We could use her infectious (srsly, no pun intended) joy these days, but we're glad to have her films.
#Agn
èsVarda +
@JRart
“I don’t close my eyes and hope for the best. If I can get into the act of painting, and be free in the act, then I want to know what my brush is doing.” - Joan Mitchell
Take a look at 8 of Mitchell’s paintings with musings from our exhibition curators
👒 Today is
#NationalHatDay
and what better way to celebrate than with Henri Matisse's "Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat)" (1908)!
See it in our free Floor 2 galleries.
🐾 We are pawsitively thrilled that you're enjoying our free Floor 2 galleries!
Check out our 2022 SECA Art Award exhibition and see some favorite's in our collection, including Mark Rothko's "No. 14" (1960).
Learn about service animals + accessibility:
It is *always* an honor to present Richard Mayhew's luminescent landscapes in our galleries, and Saturday had us doubly honored + humbled that he + his wife, Rosemary, stopped by for a visit on his 97th birthday.
#Honored
(x97)
It's the longest night of the year. Happy Solstice! 💫
Artist Julian Charrière has spent years at the Earth's remote and hostile polar regions, exploring humanity’s connection with these otherworldly environments. Embrace the darkness in "Erratic" on Floor 7.
Joan Mitchell created “No Birds” (1987-88), as a response to Vincent van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Crows” (1890).
🔗 Listen to our audio guide at the link to learn more:
“I could certainly never mirror nature. I would more like to paint what it leaves with me.” - Joan Mitchell
🔗Dive into eight of Mitchell's masterful paintings, with insight from exhibition curators:
📍 Journey through Mitchell’s works on Floor 5.
"This was my Paris." - Lee Mullican, on San Francisco
Mullican painted "Evening Intersection" in 1949, a few years after arriving in the city. Bursting with energy, the composition is one of many that reflect the artist's guiding interest in the cosmos.
“Filmmaking is an intuition, it’s like a sound, it’s a hint, a color, a movement. It’s not there to teach people.”-Claire Denis
More from
#ClaireDenis
→
#femalefilmmakerfriday
We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of
#RobertIndiana
. Our thoughts are with his friends and family. We will forever feel the impact of his LOVE.
[Robert Indiana, Love, 1966-1999]
BRB showing our favorite artwork to our hair stylist
Our visitor
@melinaselverston
is giving us all of the colorful hair inspo seen here with Henri Matisse's "Femme au chapeau (Woman with a hat)" (1905).
See Matisse's work in our free Floor 2 galleries this long weekend.
After hours at the museum with basketball phenom
@paigebueckers1
. We won't forget it.🤩
Experience the excitement, passion, and intensity that unites the worlds of sports and art in our expansive exhibition "Get in the Game." On view starting Oct 19:
Thank you
@Janefonda
for visiting "Diego Rivera's America!"
"Portrait of Frances Ford Seymour and Frances de Villers Brokaw" (1941) depicts Frances Ford Seymour, wife of actor Henry Fonda + mother of Jane + Peter Fonda, with her daughter Frances de Villers Brokaw. See it on FL4.
How do you move a 60,000-pound mural? Take a behind the scenes look at how we moved Diego Rivera's "Pan American Unity" (1940) from
@OfficialCCSF
to our museum.
“I mean by America, the territory included between the two ice barriers of the two poles. A fig for your barriers of wire and frontier guards.” - Diego Rivera
🔜 "Diego Rivera's America" opens on July 16. Secure your timed tickets in advance at the link:
Experience Diego Rivera’s monumental mural "The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on This Continent (Pan American Unity)" (1940).
"I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint."-Frida Kahlo
Happy birthday to the one and only, Frida Kahlo, born today in 1907. Visit Frida and Diego in the free space on Floor 2.
[
#FridaKahlo
, Frieda and Diego Rivera, 1931]
"They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality." -
#FridaKahlo
#HBD
to the artist Frida Kahlo, born
#otd
in 1907. Join a public tour on Frida Kahlo: Love and Friendship. (P.S. They happen daily!)
"All my paintings are based on emotion. I actually use landscape image as a metaphor for a feeling of time and Illusion." -
#RichardMayhew
Happy birthday Mayhew! The artist turns 98 today.
"Today, with the world facing Covid-19, I feel the necessity to address it with this message." —Yayoi
#Kusama
, with a message to the whole world via
@artnewspaper
:
We turned 86 yesterday! The museum was founded on January 18, 1935.
*Thank you* for your support, encouragement + passion over the years, and for loving art with us.
❤️🤍
[photo: Henry Kim]
Less than one month until Art Bash, the hottest art party of the year!
Get your portrait taken as part of
@JRart
's Inside Out project & see the debut of JR's The Chronicles of San Francisco.
Tickets still available (but selling fast!)→
#ArtBashSFMOMA
“A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.”-Mark Rothko
#HappyBirthday
to the iconic, Mark Rothko. Thank you for continuing to connect, inspire, and challenge us with your art.
[
#MarkRothko
, William R. Heick, 1949]
#HBD
#otd
#onthisday
Every square inch of the meticulous (and massive) "Stadia I" (2004) by Julie Mehretu is engaging. Seeking to explore "in-between" spaces, Mehretu creates striking motifs over architectural drawings.
📍 "Stadia I" is on view now on Floor 7, part of "Shifting the Silence."
"I love dogs, they allow me in my studio. I mean, they own everything." - Joan Mitchell
The painting on the left, "Belle Bête" (1973), references one of Mitchell’s many beloved dogs and an area of her Vétheuil property where the dog lived, “Chez Belle Bête.”
“I’m interested in the mass and color, the black and white, the edges happen because the forms get as quiet as they can be.”—Ellsworth Kelly
Happy birthday to
#EllsworthKelly
, born
#onthisday
in 1923.
[Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum I, 1953]
Immersive + grand, Joan Mitchell’s paintings from the mid-1970s were inspired by the landscape surrounding her home in Vétheuil, France. Each season offered a new detail that she could capture in her canvases.
🌊 Dive into artist Richard Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park
#54
" (1972).
Over a period of more than 20 years, Diebenkorn created 145 paintings for his "Ocean Park" series. He began working on the series in 1967, inspired by his Ocean Park neighborhood on the edge of Los Angeles, CA.
It's official: We're reopening on Sunday, October 4!🎈
The cherry on top? Admission is free through Oct. 18. Our focus is on keeping our visitors + staff safe as we reopen. We can't wait to welcome you back! Stay tuned for info on booking tickets on 👀