San Francisco Art Institute history

1880 The first public showing of a moving picture occurs at SFAA with Eadweard Muybridge’s presentation of his Zoopraxiscope.

1885 A group of women artists—in response to the men-only Spring Shows sponsored annually by SFAA — hold the first women-only exhibition.

In 1893 the association and school moved into the former Mark Hopkins mansion on Nob Hill, and the facility was renamed the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.

Although the Great Earthquake destroyed the mansion and the school in 1906, a new building was erected on the site a year later, and the school was renamed the San Francisco Institute of Art.

1907 The school is renamed San Francisco Institute of Art.

In 1916 the institute was renamed the California School of Fine Arts.

1925 Alumnus Rea Irvin, the first art editor of The New Yorker, designs the magazine’s now-iconic typeface and creates the character Eustace Tilley, who graces the cover of the first issue.

In 1930 Mexican muralist Diego Rivera was hired to paint The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, which is located in the student-directed art gallery.

1931 Mexican muralist Diego Rivera creates The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City in the school’s gallery.

1938 Alumna Louise Dahl-Wolfe’s photos help define a new American style of fashion photography that is wholesome yet sophisticated.

1942 The War Relocation Authority hires faculty member Dorothea Lange to document the internment of Japanese Americans.

1945 Ansel Adams founds the first fine art photography department.

In 1946 Ansel Adams and Minor White established the first fine-art photography department, with Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, and Dorothea Lange among its instructors.

1947 Sidney Peterson teaches the first film course at the school.

1949 The school hosts the Western Roundtable of Art at the San Francisco Museum of Art, with Marcel Duchamp, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gregory Bateson, among others.

1952 Faculty member Minor White becomes the first editor of Aperture magazine, with faculty member Dorothea Lange’s work appearing on the first cover.

In 1953 he and his partner, poet Robert Duncan, along with painter Harry Jacobus, started the King Ubu Gallery, an important alternative space for art, poetry, and music.

1955 Allen Ginsberg gives the first public reading of HOWL at an art space founded by alumni, Six Gallery, during alumnus and faculty member Fred Martin’s exhibition Crate Sculptures.

1956 William T. Wiley, Robert Hudson, and William Allen arrive at CSFA. Along with other students— Manuel Neri, Bill Brown, Arlo Acton, Joan Brown, Alvin Light, Bill Geis, and Carlos Villa—they become the core of the Bay Area Funk art movement.

In 1961, the school was renamed the San Francisco Art Institute.

1966 Sculptor and conceptual artist Bruce Nauman begins teaching at SFAI, with filmmaker Peter Hutton among his students.

1968 Student Paul McCarthy begins work on a series of performances called Instructions.

In 1969, a new addition to the building by Paffard Keatinge-Clay added 22,500 sq ft (2,090 m) of studio space, a large theater/lecture hall, an outdoor amphitheater, galleries, and a cafe.

1975 With a letter from the NEA certifying them as artists, alumni Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel are given access to the photo archives of over 80 federal agencies and corporations.

1976 Activist, philosopher, and writer Angela Davis joins the faculty to teach aesthetics.

1977 Alumnus Don Ed Hardy opens Tattoo City in San Francisco’s Mission district, pioneering the style of fine-line black and grey tattoos.

1981 Alumna Betsy Sussler founds Bomb magazine in New York.

1984 Alumna Roxanne Quimby begins a small craft enterprise with beeswax, which later becomes Burt’s Bees.

1990 The performance work of alumna Karen Finley (and others) sparks national debate (and a Supreme Court trial) when a grant recommended by the National Endowment for the Arts is vetoed by the NEA Chairman.

1992 The Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) is established by a volunteer collective of six Mission residents, including alumni Aaron Noble and Rigo23.

2002 Students Mitch Temple, Dennis McNulty, and Nathan Suter form Root Division, a community art collective dedicated to art education.

2003 Alumnus Lance Acord is the cinematographer for Sophia Coppola’s award-winning Lost in Translation.

In 2004, Chris Bratton joined the Art Institute as its president.

2006 Alumnus Manuel Neri receives the International Sculpture Center’s 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award.

2009 Alumna Jennifer M. Kroot releases a documentary, It Came From Kuchar, about the life and work of longtime film professor George Kuchar and his twin brother Mike.

2010 Alumna Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director, for her film The Hurt Locker.

2012 The collaborative project space Will Brown is founded in the Mission by alumnus Jordan Stein.