San Francisco Art Institute
The
San Francisco Art Institute (
SFAI) is an accredited undergraduate and graduate
school of
contemporary art located in the
Russian Hill district of
San Francisco,
California, .
SFAI offers
BA,
MA,
BFA, and
MFA degrees and Post-Baccalaureate certificates.
School of Studio Practice
The School of Studio Practice consists of the traditional departments of
Painting,
Sculpture,
Film,
Photography, Design+Technology,
Printmaking, and New Genres.
School of Interdisciplinary Studies
The School of Interdisciplinary Studies has four research and teaching centers: Public Practice, Media Culture, Art+Science, and Word, Text, and Image.
The San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was founded in 1871 and it opened the
San Francisco School of Design (later the California School of Design) in 1874. It was directed by landscape painter
Virgil Macey Williams. In 1893 SFAA and CSD moved to the former mansion of
Mark Hopkins and was renamed the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.
The fire following the
1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed both the mansion and the school. A year later, the school was rebuilt on the site of the old mansion and renamed the San Francisco Institute of Art. In 1916, the school was renamed the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA). The CSFA moved to its current location at 800 Chestnut Street. In 1961 the school was finally renamed to its modern name, the San Francisco Art Institue.
In 1969, a new addition to the building by
Paffard Keatinge Clay added 22,500 sq. feet of studio space, a large theater/lecture hall, outdoor amphitheater, galleries, and cafe.
Music
In 1966, the SFAI organized an exhibition of rock and roll posters. In 1978, SFAI was one of the centers of the
Punk rock music scene.
* Current faculty member
Debra Bloomfield, photographer and ex-wife of photographer
Richard Misrach* Current faculty member
Linda Connor, large-format photographer
* Current faculty member
Tony Labat* Current faculty member
Henry Wessel, Jr., one of the
New Topography photographers
* Faculty member
Ansel Adams, landscape photographer, founded the photography department in 1945
* Faculty member
Imogen Cunningham, portrait photographer
* Faculty member
Angela Davis (joined 1976)
* Faculty member
Dorothea Lange, influential documentary photographer, "Migrant Mother"
* Faculty member
Frederick Meyer, founder of the
California College of the Arts (1907)
* Faculty member
Eadweard Muybridge, inventor of the
Zoopraxiscope (1880)
* Faculty member
Sidney Peterson, film director, initiated first film courses at SFAI (1947)
*
Lance Acord, film director (2003)
*
Michael Arcega, sculptor
*
Devendra Banhart, singer
*
Gutzon Borglum, creator of
Mt. Rushmore (1927)
*
Kathryn Bigelow, film director
*
Enrique Chagoya, printmaker
*
Michael Cotten (1971)
*
Richard Diebenkorn, American Abstract/Figurative Artist (1946/7)
*
Karen Finley, performance artist
*
Mike Henderson, painter, biues musician
*
Penelope Houston, musician, lead singer and songwriter of
The Avengers*
David Ireland*
Henry Kiyama published
The Four Immigrants Manga, the first graphic novel published in the U.S. (1931)
*
Annie Leibovitz, official photographer for
Rolling Stone magazine (1973)
*
Courtney Love, actress and rock musician
[Entertainment Weekly, 1994: The Power of Love]*
Mads Lynnerup *
Paul McCarthy (1968)
*
Barry McGee (aka TWIST) painter/graffiti artist (1991)
*
Errol Morris Documentary Filmmaker - attended in 1973 (see ID photo on [
1])
*
Win Ng, co-founder of
Taylor & Ng (1971)
*
Jason Rhoades, sculptor
*
Catherine Opie, photographer
* William Wiley,
Guggenheim Fellow (2001)
*
Katherine Sherwood,
Guggenheim Fellow (2005)
*
Stephanie Syjuco, (1991)
*
Jonathan Yegge, performance artist, theologian (2000)
Official alumni list*
San Francisco Art Institute official website* "
Public Enema No. 2",
SF Weekly,
2002-02-23
