SFMOMA to Unveil Major Transformation of the Renowned Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, the First Full Reinstallation of the Collection at SFMOMA Since 2016

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 19, 2026)—On April 18, 2026, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will unveil a fully reconceived presentation of the renowned Doris and Donald Fisher Collection. Featuring nearly 250 works by 35 artists, Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10 marks a complete transformation of the Fisher Collection since it opened to the public as part of SFMOMA’s building expansion in 2016. The new Fisher Collection galleries will reveal an ambitious, multi-pronged approach to storytelling, engaging visitors with art and artists through relatable and resonant narratives and experiences. The reinstallation reflects a compelling new approach to the presentation of modern and contemporary art that emphasizes accessibility across a broad range of audiences and encourages personal reflection and connection to the works on view.

Spanning approximately 60,000 square feet across four floors of the museum, the presentation will offer visitors fresh opportunities to experience beloved works by acclaimed artists and connect with new objects and ideas. For the first time, the presentation will feature a multimedia timeline that captures the development of the Fisher Collection, giving visitors new insight into how the collection was formed and the people who made it possible. It will also include a new studio space that invites families and people of all ages to participate in hands-on activities related to themes explored in the galleries.

“The forthcoming presentation of the Fisher Collection will be a revelation in its storytelling about artists, collectors and the social dynamics that inspired and shaped them,” said Christopher Bedford, SFMOMA’s Helen and Charles Schwab Director. “So often displays of modern and contemporary art focus on conceptual and stylistic movements. With Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10, we have upended that model to focus on sharing stories that are compelling, relatable and which capture the enduring power of the works on view. I am immensely grateful to the Fisher family for their incredible support and for giving us the opportunity to experiment and generate new approaches in service to an exceptional visitor experience.”

The development of Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10 is led by Ted Mann, SFMOMA’s project assistant curator, Fisher Collection, and Gamynne Guillotte, SFMOMA’s chief education and public engagement officer, and developed through a close collaboration between the museum’s Curatorial, Education and Community Engagement, and Design teams. The cross-team structure has allowed new approaches to emerge organically through an array of perspectives and areas of expertise, enhancing audience engagement opportunities through design and a range of interpretation modes. Additionally, visual descriptions, audio and video captioning, opportunities for tactile connection, and seating and physical affordances are featured throughout each floor to increase accessibility. Overall, the reinstallation has provided fertile ground for experimentation, modeling new approaches that in time can be extended to the whole of the museum.

“The reinstallation of the Fisher Collection galleries reflects the creativity, innovation and energy that has always defined SFMOMA and the broader San Francisco community. As our city emerges from the challenges of recent years, cultural institutions have new opportunities to serve as places of community connection and to provide the inspiration necessary to propel our city forward,” said Robert J. Fisher, on behalf of the Fisher family. “I am thrilled by the visionary thinking and strong emphasis on accessibility that have driven the new presentation of the Fisher Collection, which serves as a gift to San Francisco and an invitation to visitors from the Bay Area and around the world.”

Given the scale and depth of the Fisher Collection, each floor will offer a distinct experience:

 

Memory and Matter: Personal and Collective Histories
Floor 6

This floor will feature artists whose work engages with memory and history. At the heart of this installation are galleries dedicated to artists Anselm Kiefer and William Kentridge, whose works use materials and processes to examine the psychic and physical legacies of nationalism and colonialism. Videos of the artists as well as extended contextual timelines and wall texts incorporate the artists’ own words and provide insight into the historical events that shaped their work. The galleries dedicated to Kentridge are being designed by the artist’s longtime collaborator, stage and exhibition designer Sabine Theunissen, to create a unique, contemplative space for audiences to immerse themselves in the poignant works.

Additionally, galleries on this floor will highlight artists who consider memory from a range of individual and communal perspectives. Among the featured artists are Louise Bourgeois, Jasper Johns, Shirin Neshat, Louise Nevelson, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Their works reflect a spectrum of conceptual and technical approaches, with found materials emerging as a throughline to convey layered experiences and associations. To encourage further reflection, Floor 6 will include large sitting areas with audio of Bay Area poets and creatives offering their own responses to objects on view, illuminating the ongoing relevance of the featured works.

 

Calder, Kelly, LeWitt: Fundamentals of Form
Floor 5

Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly and Sol Lewitt are the three artists whose work Doris and Donald Fisher collected in the greatest depth, providing SFMOMA with a singular opportunity to present focused surveys of their work. Floor 5 is dedicated to the innovations of these three enduringly influential artists. Although their work emerged in distinct historical contexts, they are united by their engagement with architecture, their embrace of different strategies of seriality and their commitment to opening the autonomous art object to elements of chance or rule-based systems. The installation will feature approximately two dozen works by each artist, inviting visitors to dive deeply into their artistic breakthroughs across a spectrum of important works.

Calder, Kelly and LeWitt explored such underlying formal properties as line, color and shape. Leveraging the accessible appeal of those essential artistic building blocks, this floor will also feature a newly created studio space programmed for hands-on activities that support learning and making for adults, families and children. In keeping with the vision for this space, family-friendly labels will be available throughout the floor to encourage connection among visitors of all ages. Vibrant wall and floor treatments will invite gathering, relaxing and exploring together in the studio space and throughout the galleries.

 

Ways of Seeing: Fourteen Artists
Floor 4

This presentation will feature a series of monographic galleries dedicated to 14 artists whose works reflect a variety of mediums, styles and approaches, from abstraction to figuration and from gesture to geometry. Among the featured artists are Dan Flavin, Philip Guston, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra and Cy Twombly. Through audio, video and written panels that incorporate the artists’ own words, visitors are invited to understand the artists as both innovative creators and as people, in their full complexity.

This floor will also include a multimedia timeline of the creation of the Fisher Collection that explores the origins of the collection and its journey into the public view. Using archival images, video and texts, the installation will tell the story of Doris and Donald Fisher and their love for art and artists. The installation offers visitors an unprecedented view of the couple’s drive to share their passion for art through this collection.

 

Claes Oldenburg + Coosje van Bruggen: Thinking Big
Floor 3

Opening in late December 2025 as an early teaser, this gallery will be dedicated to sculptures and models for “Large-Scale Projects” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. For over three decades, the husband-and-wife team made the everyday unfamiliar by transforming common objects into giant sculptures and urban monuments in cities around the world. Among the works in this gallery is a scale model of San Francisco’s landmark sculpture, Cupid’s Span (2002). Artworks in the exhibition will be accompanied by large-scale photographs and scale diagrams of their public monuments.

 

About the Collectors

Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher established their collection over the course of many decades, developing a distinct sensibility through their longstanding friendships with artists and direct engagements with museums and galleries. Their holdings reflect their adoration of and connections to many artists, including Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, Anselm Kiefer, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin and Gerhard Richter, and represent important works of American abstraction, American Pop and German art after 1960, in addition to other areas of focus. While the Fisher Collection does not offer a comprehensive overview of the artists central to these movements and periods, it features an exceptional number of significant works by individuals celebrated for their artistic innovations and contributions to art history.

In time, the Fishers sought to place their extensive collection in a public space in their native San Francisco for the enjoyment of the community. Their decades-long history of support for SFMOMA led to the establishment of their partnership with the museum. Since the public display of the Fisher Collection was inaugurated in 2016, it has been a cornerstone of the SFMOMA experience.

 

A Groundbreaking Partnership

In 2009, SFMOMA entered a groundbreaking partnership with the Fisher family to place 735 works by 100 artists from the Fisher Collection on long-term loan to the museum.

Initially conceptualized for a 25-year period, the loan period was extended to 100 years with the option to renew in 25-year increments. The partnership met critical goals for both the family and the institution. For Doris and Donald Fisher, the collaboration ensured the fulfillment of their goal to bring the collection onto public view for broad audiences to enjoy and for it to serve as a source of ongoing scholarship. In turn, SFMOMA has been enriched with significant works that the museum would not have otherwise been able to acquire, study and incorporate into its robust range of exhibitions.

The Fishers also established the Fisher Art Foundation to help support the care and presentation of the Fisher Collection. The forthcoming reinstallation is supported by the Foundation, which has allowed SFMOMA to fully execute the museum’s vision for the visitor experience within the collection galleries.

The Fisher Collection exists alongside SFMOMA’s permanent collection of more than 50,000 works, which in the last decade has grown to embrace a broad spectrum of artists across backgrounds, experience and perspective. Works from the Fisher Collection are incorporated into exhibitions throughout the museum, and SFMOMA collection works as well as outside loans are frequently incorporated into the Fisher Collection galleries. Every 10 years, for six months — or more, at the discretion of the museum — SFMOMA dedicates the Fisher galleries solely to Fisher Collection works, reflecting the singularity of the Collection and reinvigorating the experience of those works for new and returning audiences. Together, the Fisher Collection and SFMOMA collection make the museum one of the most significant repositories of postwar and contemporary art in the world.

 

Support

Visionary support for Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10 is provided by Fisher Art Foundation. Lead support is provided by Penny S. and James G. Coulter and Mimi and Peter Haas Fund. Presenting support is provided by Dana and Bob Emery. Major support is provided by Katie Hall and Tom Knutsen. Significant support is provided by Concepción S. and Irwin Federman, Alexandria and Kevin Marchetti, and Deborah and Kenneth Novack. Meaningful support is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Sabrina Buell and Yves Béhar, Nancy and Alan Schatzberg, and Susan Swig.

 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

 

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States and a thriving cultural center for the Bay Area. Our remarkable collection of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design and media arts is housed in a LEED Gold-certified building designed by the global architects Snøhetta and Mario Botta. In addition to our seven gallery floors, SFMOMA now offers over 45,000 square feet of free, art-filled public space open to all.

 

Visit sfmoma.org or call 415.357.4000 for more information.

 

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Media Contacts

Alina Sumajin, alina@paveconsult.com, 646.369.2050

Clara Hatcher Baruth, chatcher@sfmoma.org 415.357.4177

 

Image credits:

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Cupid’s Span, 2002; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection; © Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen; photo: Henrik Kam