top of page
SFAI Archive
With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails
Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer Memorial Library has been sending out since March 2020. Please enjoy this magnificent
archive which is being added to as they come in.
SFAI Ceramics, Richard Shaw, STUDENTS!, Robin Williams, Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Levinson
Image 1: 1986 Richard Shaw Ceramics Class. The long wonderful history of Ceramics at the School is exemplified in this 1986 Richard Shaw...
2022......1975 SFAI & Artists Soapbox Derby
2022……..1975…….. THIS SUNDAY, April 10th, McClaren Park: SFAI has TWO ENTRIES in the 2022 resurrected version of SFMOMA’s Artists Soapbox...
San Francisco Art Institute at Sea! Aquatic Park, Shaw, Hardy, Pirkle, Coulter, SERC
April 1, 2022 From the SFAI Library & Archives: SFAI at sea! SFAI’s coastal setting has always generated an appreciation and love of...
Today ! 1871! SFAI & SFMOMA
March 21, 1871 From the SFAI Library & Archives: SFAI Turns 151! Happy Birthday SFAI! These are the original minutes of the very first...
Copy of 1922 Barbara Shermund, The New Yorker, Cartoons!
The San Francisco Art Institute hosted a gala extravaganza inDecember 1949, titled: The Unknown, a theme conjured up by artist Clay Spohn...
1922 Barbara Shermund, The New Yorker, Cartoons!
This week’sNew York Times“Overlooked No More” obituary gave a wonderful biographical profile of “Barbara Shermund, Flapper-Era...
1977/1978 SFAI Handbook: Richard Shaw, Jim Pomeroy, Gunvor Nelson, Stephen Goldstein, & STUDENTS!!!
The SFAI 1977/78 Student Handbook provided key info on the School Store, “The Haven” cafe, theSFA Eyestudent newspaper, and local...
SFAI, 1979, Debora Iyall, Mike Henderson, Romeo Void in the Cafe
Cafe shenanigans over the years have included banquets, poetry, celebrations, coffee, smoking, film screenings, and discussing art along...
San Francisco Art Institute Bibliography
Our ongoing project to compile an SFAI bibliography triggered this bulletin board of a selection of photocopied book covers in the...
Ray Mondini (1940-2022) SFAI Faculty, Dolphin Club
Ray Mondini (1940-2022) taught in the various iterations of the San Francisco Art Institute’s Humanities, Letters and Science, and...
Happy Holidays from the San Francisco Art Institute Library & Archives
CHEERS! Jeff Gunderson & Becky Alexander With permission, SFAA is re-posting the emails Jeff Gunderson Librarian/Archivist Anne Bremer...
SFAI, First World AIDS Day, 1988, Cliff Hengst, Miki Goralsky
LGBTQ students organized the “SFAI Gay and Lesbian Group” with 35 members in 1988. One of their actions, as described in aSan Francisco...
SFAI & Manuel Neri (1930-2021)
1956 6 Gallery, Bruce McGaw, Manuel Neri after installing their show, (image from LYRICAL VISION catalog) Manuel Neri (1930-2021) was...
1966 SFAI Poster "Farewell to the Backyard Festival," Studio 13 Jass Band; & SF Mime Troupe; & Whitn
SFAI folk have always been eager to find a reason to celebrate and throw a party as evidenced from this 1966 SFAI poster announcing “The...
SFAI "Lost Fresco" Suzanne Scheuer, Molly Lambert, Mortimer Fleishhacker, Jr.
From the SFAI Library and Archives: [this is a long SFAI historical nugget, but a good story with wonderful archival scans, PLUS: The...
San Francisco Art Institute Fall 2021
This week the freshly painted Chestnut Street doors OPENED for our Fall 2021 students and visitors! And the SFAI’s Anne Bremer Memorial...
SFAI "Back to School" via A&F photo shoot, the Quad, Studios, 16mm Films, & V. Vale RE/Search
The 2001 Abercrombie and Fitch “Back to School” clothing catalog featured a mock university with students returning to a fictional campus...
SFAI, Rigo 23, "Victory Salute" statue, commemorating the 1968 Olympics
From the SFAI Library and Archives: The Olympics! There have been plenty of SFAI Artists who have been athletes, even noted athletes, AND...
SFAI & its Olympians: Photo Student George Wallace: Olympian, Inventor
Portrait of George Wallace taken by Don Whyte, 1948. George Wallace studied in the first photo classes with Ansel Adams, Minor White,...
Bruce Conner, SFAI Roll Books, Grade Inflation, Attendance Records & Wasted Time...
Bruce Conner’s SFAI “Life Drawing” class roll book, Fall 1967 Bruce Conner was a fellow traveler at SFAI from when he first arrived in...
Celebrating PRIDE!!! BERNICE BING!!!
1958 photo by Jerry Burchard of Bernice Bing; 1961 Batman Gallery Announcement; Bing’sLas Meninas(1960) Crocker Art Museum, and...
Celebrating PRIDE!!! Hayward King!
Hayward Ellis King with Jay Defeo as the live components of an elaborate still life set-up in what appears to be Studio 13. Hayward King,...
Carlos Villa Day!!! June 8th
Carlos in SFAI's Studio 15 as a student, by Jerry Burchard 1972 Poster for DeYoung Museum exhibit Rhythms & Reverberations: Sekio, Jabo,...
Art & Swimming & San Francisco Bay
Joan Brown’s bathing suits. Photo courtesy of J. John Priola and Zack Sumner Schomp. 1974 Photo by Joanne Leonard, SFAI Faculty member. A...
1975 SFAI Commencement, Cissie Swig, Fred Martin, Streaker, and Dog
Photo by Pamela Gerard SFAI’s 1975 Commencement featured diplomas handed out to students, clothed or unclothed, human or canine, by Board...
Zig Jackson SFAI Guggenheim Fellow 2021
….and Pirkle Jones with his TA, Zig Rising Buffalo Jackson, 1994. Congratulations to Zig Jackson/Rising Buffalo (MFA in Photography,...
Flo Allen, SFAI 150th Exhibition, Come Visit!
Flo Allen, “Honey I AM the Art Institute” is one of the many wonderful features in the current exhibition, SFAI 150: A Spirit of...
William T. Wiley, (1937-2021) SFAI BFA 1960; MFA 1962; Artist Extraordinaire
William T. Wiley’s SFAEYE, Ancestors Blood lithograph he made for his alma mater William T. Wiley, (1937-2021) (BFA 1960, MFA, 1962)...
1972 SFAI April 20th, Howie Becker, SFAI Alum
1972 photo of student Howie Becker by Steve Gach and Poster by Lex Calip, 2017, “Just Ask Howie” This is too good an SFAI Historical...
SFAI & Granville Redmond, Douglas Tilden, Theophilus d'Estrella, Charlie Chaplin
Granville Redmond with Charlie Chaplin. Douglas Tilden, The Football Players In the late 19th century, three...
1975 SFAI Poppy Poster, Alice Erskine, Whatever...
From the SFAI Library and Archives, in honor of spring and the aesthetics of 1970s poster design: This poppy poster was sent folded in...
1955 Beat Art, Dr. Wennesland, Ernest the Monkey, Norway
Dr. Reidar Wennesland and his monkey, Ernest, who became the first and only monkey to direct the school for one month in May 1955. Dr....
1871 San Francisco Art Institute Sesquicentennial
From the SFAI Library and Archives: 150 years ago this week! SFAI turned 150 on Sunday, but what exactly does that mean? These are the...
1970 Linda Lomahaftewa, SFAI & IAIA, Other Sources
Linda Lomahaftewa with her grandfather Viets Lomahaftewa at her SFAI graduation in 1970. Photo courtesy Linda Lomahaftewa. In the Fall of...
SFAI Painting Faculty, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, 1970s
Mary Lovelace O’Neal (in chair) with students at SFAI in painting studio, c. 1972; SFAI archive. Photographer unknown. Hired to teach...
SFAI History: Dorr Bothwell, Tattoos, Samoa
Dorr Bothwell: Self-Portrait with Tattoos, Samoa, 1928; watercolor and ink on paper; with permission of the Estate of Dorr Bothwell and...
Angela Davis, SFAI, Student Journalism, "The Toot"
“Art and Politics: An Interview with Angela Davis,” by Dan Augustine, from The Toot, January 16, 1981. In 1976 Ray Mondini hired activist...
Ferlinghetti, MacAgy Award 2012
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, reads from A Coney Island of the Mind at SFAI’s 2012 Commencement Ferlinghetti, attended SFAI’s Friday afternoon...
Happy Chinese New Year!!! Charles Wong, Aperture Magazine
Charles Wong, San Francisco Chinese New Year, 1952 Charles Wong (1922- ) studied at the School in the late 1930s returning on the G.I....
Happy Valentine's Day! From SFAI Hearts & Arts
Henry Wessel, Happy Valentine’s Day, 1976 Legendary SFAI Photo Faculty member, Hank Wessel donated a variant of his Happy Valentine’s Day...
1988 "Celebrate Black History Month" SFAI Student Poster
Celebrate Black History Month, 1988 poster promoting SFAI Student sponsored Black History Month lectures, film & video screenings,...
SFAI from Above, 1975
Photo by Bob Campbell This is one of the very few aerial photographs of SFAI, from the mid-1970s as dated by Ed Pickett’s inflatable...
SFAI Courtyard and Fountain
Perhaps the center of the SFAI universe is the courtyard and fountain, beneath the 99-foot tower…..an entrance, gathering place, an...
1893 SFAI & UC, Edward Searles and the Widow Hopkins
In 1893 The Mark Hopkins mansion on the top of Nob Hill became the home to the School and the SF Art Association when Edward Searles...
1975 Photographers Baseball Cards, Mike, Ansel, Minor, Beaumont, Imogen, Duke, Linda, Larry...
This is a set of the SFAI-affiliated photographers (alumni/faculty/both) that were photographed in 1975 by alumnus Mike Mandel for his...
1976 Babeth, Mondini, Schwarznegger, Buddhist Film Festival, "Search & Destroy," Kuchar, Greene
Babeth Mondini-VanLoo, photo by fellow student Stanley Greene for the cover of the SFAI student paper, December, 1976. As an SFAI...
1959 Happy Holidays, SFAI, Studio 13 Jass Band, Bubbles Baliantz, & Pabst Blue Ribbon
It may not have been the School’s Design Department behind the dynamic graphics and stunning layout for this front page of the December...
John Upton (1932-2020) SFAI photographer, author
Minor White photo of John Upton, 1956; and Upton Jan. 2020 at Orange Coast College with a copy of Victoria and Ken Ball's The Golden...
1978 Eddie Muller, George Kuchar, Czar of Noir
Eddie Muller, did “a stint in George Kuchar’s notorious narrative filmmaking class” at SFAI in the late 1970s. Muller starred in Kuchar’s...
Faculty Extraordinaire: Ray Mondini
Ray Mondini taught in the various iterations of the Humanities, Letters and Science, and Liberal Studies Departments from 1968 through...
bottom of page