The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art describes itself as one of the largest modern and contemporary art museums in the United States. With rain season coming and the clocks about to fall back, it's one of the city's best indoor afternoons. Here's what to know before you go, and how the museum got here.

Hours

  • Monday–Tuesday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
  • Wednesday: closed
  • Thursday: noon–8 p.m.
  • Friday–Sunday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

The Wednesday closure catches a lot of visitors off guard, and Thursday is the late night. The museum store keeps its own hours, so check before you plan a shopping stop.

Tickets and discounts

SFMOMA says kids always get in free. Conference and convention attendees at Moscone Center can get $4 off by showing their badge at the ticket desk. The museum also lists free days and other discounts on its Free Days + Discounts page.

Getting there

The visitor entrance is at 151 Third Street, a few blocks from Montgomery Street BART and steps from Yerba Buena Gardens. The museum's parking garage is next door. The museum publishes a map in six languages, with staff picks and a floor-by-floor layout, plus an exhibition guide showing what's on view that day.

How it began

SFMOMA opened in 1935 as the San Francisco Museum of Art, on the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building in Civic Center. Its founding director was Grace McCann Morley. It was the first museum on the West Coast devoted to 20th-century art. An early gift of 36 works from collector Albert M. Bender included Diego Rivera's The Flower Carrier. The museum began collecting photography in 1936 and gave Jackson Pollock his first solo museum exhibition in 1945. The word "Modern" was added to its name in 1975.

Two buildings and a 100-year loan

In January 1995 the museum moved into a $60 million building at 151 Third Street designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta. It closed in May 2013 for an expansion by the firm Snøhetta and reopened on May 14, 2016. The expansion made room for the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, which the Fisher family loaned to the museum for 100 years. Today the museum's collection holds more than 33,000 works, and it has about 170,000 square feet of gallery space. Its 2008 Frida Kahlo retrospective drew more than 400,000 visitors. Christopher Bedford has been director since 2022.