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

The Arts Commission meets online and in person on the first Monday of each month, but in September it will meet Friday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. Room 125, War Memorial Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Ave.

Visual Arts Committee, Sept. 16, 2 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online via SFGovTV. 

Civic Design Review Committee, Sept. 21, at 2 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online. via SFGovTV.

Executive Committee Sept. 23, at 1 p.m. City Hall, Room 416 and streamed online via SFGovTV. 

Film Commission, Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. City Hall Room 416, and streamed online via SFGovTV. 

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

I’m hearing so many good word-of-mouth reviews on “”The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy,” that it sounds like a must.

Here are some of the artifacts – there is a collection of 150 items of sculpture and jewelry.

Don’t know much about the Etruscans? Here is a video:

“Miró, Proof against All” in the Logan Room, the museum owns two copies of the book – one bound and the other unbound – a creative collaboration between the Surrealists, Joan Miró and poet Paul Éluard.

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.

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

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

“A Gallery of Their Own: Women Artists from the Carr and Goldblum Gift,” is open, focusing on works of paper by women artists.

“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.”

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.

“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.

We wrote our own story interviewing Cheung-Miaw here.

“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.

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

Giant Arc,” Jacob Hashimoto’s largest is up at SFMOMA on the first floor and the public can walk in and see it for free! It’s some 75,000 elements transformed into a cloud canopy that covers the Roberts Family Gallery floor ceiling.

“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.”

As an accompaniment to Femme au chapeau, there will be a staged dramatic reading from Harriet Lane Levy’s Paris Portraits. on Thursday, Aug. 27th at 6 p.m. and again on Sunday, Aug. 30. Find out more here.

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.

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

GaHee Park’s  “Behind the Curtain,” is open and Charles Lewis III reviewed it for Mission Local, writing that what separates Park’s works from Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso “is a subversion of the male gaze.”

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

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

Andy Vogt: “The Ringing in My Eyes” and Amy Trachtenberg: “Abstract Objects of Devotion” will be open through Oct. 17. See the

Vogt and Trachtenberg have many pieces spread out over the house. Below is just a sampling, but if were in town, I would go. 500 Capp Street is special and these installations fit right in. See more on the latest here.

Arion Press at Fort Mason is about making books – by hand, or as its motto proclaims, “from comma to cover.” But it offers free tours every second Saturday and third Thursday of the month.

The Gallery Showroom of its publications is open 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

Arion’s most recent publication is “Declare: A Civic Gospel,” a collection of reflections on the Declaration of Independence. It’s also published, collector-priced volumes on Moby Dick with engravings by Barry Moser and Porgy & Bess with illustrations by Kara Walker.

The New York Times has a full piece on the press here. It writes that Arion is “the only printer in the country that makes books entirely by hand under one roof, from casting metal type to printing pages to binding them into exquisite volumes prized by collectors.”

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

MoAD is temporarily closed from Aug. 17 to Sept. 29. It will reopen on Sept. 30 with these shows:

“Calling all Cats,” Dorien Reed, part of its Emerging Artist program

“After the Island,Ornament and Ceramic Practice in the Jamaican Diaspora” featuring PJ Anderson, Jacqueline Bishop, and Sharon Norwood.

“Dewey Crumpler: Sonic Lineages.”

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.

Check the website for new shows.

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.

A fire on June 27 has forced the Tenderloin Museum to close, the museum reported in an Instagram post. The fire originated “in the residential floors of The Cadillac Hotel, above our space..”

The museum has launched a fundraising drive and hopes to reopen in the fall.

Programing else where continues including “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot” at the museum’s venue at 835 Larkin St. It 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.

Check out other upcoming events here. Other walking tours are listed here.

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. 

Thursdays to Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.

The museum is getting ready for its next show, “Objects,” which opens on Sept. 5.

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.

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.”