San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

San Francisco has long occupied a distinctive place within American cultural life. More experimental than Los Angeles, less institutional than New York, the city has repeatedly served as a meeting point for artists, writers, designers and independent thinkers. SFMOMA emerged from that environment and helped define it.

Founded in 1935 under the leadership of Grace L. McCann Morley, the museum was established with a clear commitment to art of the present rather than art of the past. At a time when many museums focused primarily on historical collections, SFMOMA chose instead to engage with living artists and contemporary ideas. That approach continues to shape the institution today.

The museum was also among the first in the United States to treat photography as a serious artistic medium. What began as an unusually progressive curatorial decision evolved into one of the most important photography collections in the country, helping establish photography’s place within the wider history of modern art.

Architecture forms an equally important part of the museum’s story. Mario Botta’s 1995 building gave the institution a permanent home in the South of Market district, while Snøhetta’s major 2016 expansion transformed both its scale and its relationship to the city. The museum became more open, more accessible and more integrated into the surrounding urban fabric, creating new public spaces, terraces and galleries that extend beyond the traditional boundaries of the museum itself.

Today, SFMOMA’s collection spans painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design and media art, with particular strength in post-war and contemporary work. Yet its significance extends beyond the collection. For San Francisco, SFMOMA functions as a cultural anchor — a place that reflects the city’s longstanding commitment to creativity, experimentation and new ideas.

For NOTES, SFMOMA represents one of the defining cultural institutions of California: not simply a museum of modern art, but a museum that helped shape the contemporary cultural identity of the American West.