What’s on now at San Francisco museums, August 2026

The Arts Commission meets online and in person on the first Monday of each month, which means Aug 3 at 2 p.m. Room 125, War Memorial Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Ave.

Visual Arts Committee, Aug 19, 2 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online via SFGovTV. 

Civic Design Review Committee, Aug. 17, at 2 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online. via SFGovTV.

Community investments Committee, Aug. 25 at 2 p.m.

Executive Committee Aug. 26, at 1 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online via SFGovTV. 

Tuesdays to Sundays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Saturdays are free for residents of the Bay Area’s nine counties.

“Treasures of the Pharaohs ” is open and Julie Zigoris writes, “The treasures on display are not only culturally and financially valuable, they are also visually stunning.”

“Boom and Bust: Photographing Northern California,” featuring photographs of “San Francisco before and after the 1906 earthquake and fire, the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge, and the development of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.” It is on through August 2.

Artist Rose B. Simpson’s show “LEXICON” will be on until Feb 7, 2027.

Noma Faingold writes in her review, “Coming from a long line of Native American ceramic artists of the Santa Clara Pueblo (Kha’po’oe Ówîngeh), based just south of Española, New Mexico, pottery is in Simpson’s DNA. While she still lives at the pueblo and has her studio close by, she has forged a different creative path, while examining the past, present and future.”

Simpson’s exhibit is all part of the opening of four galleries dedicated to Arts of Indigenous America, which draws on the permanent collections, new acquisitions and artists like Simpson.

The New York Times has an excellent piece by Carolina A. Miranda on the development of the Arts of Indigenous America galleries.

Tuesdays to Sundays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

“Drawn to Venice” will be on until Aug. 2, 2026.

The exhibit includes 30 drawings and prints from 16th-century Venice, including landscapes and figure studies, from such artists as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770), Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757) and Canaletto (1697–1768). 

“The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy,” a collection of 150 items including sculpture and jewelry. Don’t know much about the Etruscans? Here is a video:

You can view the Legion of Honor’s full list of exhibitions here.

The museum offers Free Saturdays to residents of the Bay Area’s nine counties.

Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.: Free self-guided tours. Saturday at 4 p.m.: A guided tour for $20.

“Collaborating with the Muses: Part 2” through Aug. 23. We wrote about Mildred Howard’s Part 1 show last year.

Andy Vogt: “The Ringing in My Eyes” is open through Oct. 17.

Amy Trachtenberg: “Abstract Objects of Devotion” is also open.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m; Wednesdays, closed; Thursdays, noon to 8 p.m.

“Graciela Iturbide: Between Two Worlds,” through Nov. 29. The exhibit of the Mexican photographers work includes photos from five decades of work.

“Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal,” on until Sept. 13. It is based on a 1991 gift from Elise Haas. Julie Zigoris reviewed it for us, writing, “The painting’s debut in 1905 caused an immediate sensation for its fury of colors.”

After looking at 140 nominations and having studio visits with 16 finalists, the three SECA award winners have been announced: CrossLypka, Em Kettner, and Chanell Stone. Congratulations! The three artists will have a show from Dec. 12, 2026, to May 30, 2027.

Here is a taste of their work.

“Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10,” a rehanging and consideration of the collection, is open.

It’s a spectacular collection, and KQED has a good piece on the reinstallation. The New York Times has also published a piece on the Fishers’ relationship with the museum and the rehanging of the family’s collection, writing it is “unlike anything SFMOMA has done in its 90 years.”

It ranges over four floors.

Alexander Calder and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: “Thinking Big.” (on Floor 3.)

“Ways of Seeing: Fourteen Artists” (on Floor 4)

“Calder, Kelly, LeWitt: Fundamentals of Form” (on Floor 5)

“Memory and Matter: Personal and Collective Histories” (on Floor 6)

“Rose B Simpson: Behold” is on view on SFMOMA’s fourth-floor terrace. It’s a bronze sculpture visible from multiple locations. And good news! It has been extended through Feb. 7, 2027.

Also new: “Samia Halaby: Kinetic paintings,” four new works in SFMOMA’s Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Atrium. 

“New Work: Sheila Hicks” on the fourth floor illustrates how Hicks turns fiber into sculpture.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, noon to 8 p.m.

“Demetri Broxton: Ancestral Echoes — Crops of Empire” is open through Aug. 16, 2026. It is the first museum show for the Oakland-based mixed-media artist.

Here are some photos of his work.

Also showing: “Unbound: Art, Blackness and the Universe,” runs through Aug. 16, 2026.

Teresa Moore reviews “Unbound” writing, “Over three floors, she (curatorial chief Key Jo Lee) presents an African diaspora that is “unbound” from earthly and chronological conceptions of diaspora.

“Kim Minwook: On Carving, Bending, and Binding Wood,” until March 29.

“FX Harsono: Writing in the Rain,” a video installation on memory, identity and art.

“This Asian American Life” shows scenes from Chinatown from the POV of a child. It is part of a public-art series on Chinatown’s mothers, workers and tenants. The museum recently posted a video of a conversation with the artist, Kayan Cheung-Miaw.

“Echoes in the Small Mountain: Park Dae-sung and the West Coast” is open until July 26.

Dae-sung (b. 1945) is “credited with reinventing the techniques of traditional Korean ink painting,” according to the museum’s website. The paintings are based on California landscapes and are spectacular.

“Jitish Kallat: Covering Letter (Terranum Nuncius)” invites visitors to reflect on the things that unite humanity.

You will also see cutting-edge clay work from Japan in “New Japanese Clay.” 

The museum has a series, “Takeout Tuesdays,” where you can meet online to talk about a piece of art with docents and others. 

General admission is free on the first Sunday of every month and the special exhibitions are discounted. Here is more information for free and reduced-cost admission. The museum also hosts a robust list of events.

Thursdays to Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.

 “Video Craft” is open until Aug. 16. From the website: “‘Video Craft’ explores the formal and technical properties that video, film, and early moving image technologies share with more traditional craft media like ceramics, textiles, and glass.”

Thursdays,1 to 8 p.m. and free to all; Fridays to Sundays: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays to Wednesdays.

“Tone in Tongue,” in the library.

Here is a list of events and tours with curators.

“Piet Zwart: Brand Architect through Sept. 8.

There are many great examples of his work in this piece by Steven Heller, a former senior art director at The New York Times.

And here is more from the Letterform Archive when it reprinted “Inside NKF: Piet Zwart’s Avant-Garde Catalog for Standard Cables, 1927–1928.” It also publishes his seminal essay, “from old to new typography.”

The new, he writes, “rejects a predetermined formal structure, but builds up forms according to the function … the new typography incor­porates active red as a functional element: as a signal, an eye-catcher.” Sounds like an interesting fellow.

See all events and programming here.

“Localization: 15 Years of LetterSeed” opened in mid-August. It explores Korean typography.

The Letterform Archive is a nonprofit arts center focused on graphic design.

The Institute is now nomadic with several exhibits that can be viewed at different public spaces:

• Tara Donovan’s “Stratagems” at the Transamerica Pyramid Center.
• A concurrent installation by Lily Kwong at the Transamerica Pyramid Center.
• Jeffrey Gibson’s mural in Yerba Buena.
• Rupy C. Tut’s installation at CCSF.

Here are some views of the installations.

Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“Finding Our Way Home: Mary TallMountain” is open. The exhibit celebrates the longtime Tenderloin resident and Native Alaskan poet Mary TallMountain (1918-1994).

From the website: “Her extraordinary personal journey of recovery, writing, and cultural reclamation is told through key poems, rare photos, and video performances, with special emphasis on her community writing practice in the TL and how her legacy endures and inspires from SF to the Yukon.” 

A friend just saw “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot” and loved it. It is at the museum’s venue at 835 Larkin St. and runs every Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. You can get tickets here. Chris Carlsson writes about the 1966 riots and resistance on FoundSF, a great resource for history.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the Tenderloin Museum’s planned expansion from 3,000 to 10,000 square feet, adding a room dedicated to San Francisco’s neon history, including a sign from Hunt’s Donuts, once based in the Mission District and known as the “epicenter of crime.”

There is a lot more going on at the Tenderloin Museum, including the permanent collection that explores the neighborhood’s history and upcoming events, such as a walking tour focused on the area’s LGBTQIA+ history. Other walking tours are listed here.

Check the website for new shows.

Mondays to Saturdays, 9:30 a.m to 5 p.m; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m; Thursdays, NightLife (21+ with ID): 6 to 10 p.m. (Last entry is always one hour before closing time.) 

There’s a lot going on here.

The newly renovated Wilson Family Nature Lab is open with lots of hands-on learning.

“Big Picture” competition winners are on view.

Make sure to plan ahead and see the admission and ticketing page for more information. Also, see how you can get a free or reduced rate for your next visit. 

Directory of Dreams, “traces the everyday labor of Bay Area lesbians who refused erasure and built community networks rooted in care, solidarity, and economic self-determination,” according to the museum’s website.

Wednesdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

We have more museums in town. This one is at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets with a whole lot of San Francisco history.

I could see a whole weekend, or a couple of weekdays, spent between the Counterculture Museum, the Beat Museum and the “Ferlingetti for San Francisco” show at the Legion of Honor. It would be like a graduate seminar on the late ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

Thursdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The Beat Museum is at 540 Broadway, across the street from City Lights, the bookstore founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

“We are dedicated to carrying on the Beats’ legacy by exposing their work to new audiences, encouraging journeys — both interior and exterior — and being a resource on how one person’s perspective can have meaning to many,” according to a statement from the museum.

This sounds like a great place to visit.

Wednesdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; free on Wednesdays and second Sundays.

Through August 23, “Diedrick Brackens: gather tender night” and “Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements“

The gallery is open Tuesdays to Fridays, noon to 4 p.m. It will be closed for most of the summer, reopening on Aug. 8 for “Life and the Inevitable.” The show on life, death and grief will feature six artists. It is curated by Keone Nakakura, a graduate student in museum studies, and will run through Oct. 15.

It’s a teaching lab and open to the public during the school year — Oct. through May. 11 a.m. to. 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Thursdays, and by appointment. Location: Fine Arts Building, Room 203

Now on: “Craft or Commodity?” and “Please Touch!” “Both exhibits focus on themes of responsible stewardship of cultural heritage, decolonizing museum work, and expanding accessible museum experiences,” writes Marley Townsend, a graduate student in Museum Studies.

Thursdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“Happiest Place on Earth: The Disneyland Story” is open. The museum described it as a “treasure trove of Disney history” that “will take “guests behind the scenes of one of the most groundbreaking endeavors of the 20th century — the creation and opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.”

The museum is showing rare objects featured in the book “Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum.” The objects will change every two months.

Visit the museum’s website for more information on admission costs and reduced ticketing options. The special exhibits are free with a suggested $5 admission fee.

Closed Mondays. Sundays, 10 a.m. to noon (members/donors only); noon to 5 p.m. for everyone. Tuesdays to Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, 6 to 10 p.m. for 18+.

Experience After Dark at Pier 15. Every Thursday evening, immerse yourself in more than 700 interactive exhibits. For people 18 and older. The museum advertises a carefree environment with new themes each night. Here is information for reduced admission.  

“We Are Bruce Lee: Under the Sky, One Family.”

Closed until further notice.

See the center’s website for offerings.

The museum closed in December for at least a year as it works out its financial situation. You can learn more here. Laura Waxmann wrote a good piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about the difficulties museums are facing.

Its closure is a reminder to visit our museums.