San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately 220 undergraduates and 112 graduate students were enrolled in 2021. The institution was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and was a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). The school closed permanently in July 2022.
Peter Voulkos was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic crafts and fine art. He established the ceramics department at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and at UC Berkeley.
Yvonne Helene Jacquette was an American painter, printmaker, and educator. She was known in particular for her depictions of aerial landscapes, especially her low-altitude and oblique aerial views of cities or towns, often painted using a distinctive, pointillistic technique. Through her marriage with Rudy Burckhardt, she was a member of the Burckhardt family by marriage. Her son is Tom Burckhardt.
Manuel John Neri Jr. was an American sculptor who is recognized for his life-size figurative sculptures in plaster, bronze, and marble. In Neri's work with the figure, he conveys an emotional inner state that is revealed through body language and gesture. Since 1965 his studio was in Benicia, California; in 1981 he purchased a studio in Carrara, Italy, for working in marble. Over four decades, beginning in the early 1970s, Neri worked primarily with the same model, Mary Julia Klimenko, creating drawings and sculptures that merge contemporary concerns with Modernist sculptural forms.
Robert Carston Arneson was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades.
Roy De Forest was an American painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was involved in both the Funk art and Nut art movements in the Bay Area of California. De Forest's art is known for its quirky and comical fantasy lands filled with bright colors and creatures, most commonly dogs.
William Thomas Wiley was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as funk art.
David Kenneth Ireland was an American sculptor, conceptual artist and Minimalist architect.
The Walter and McBean Galleries were located at in Russian Hill, as part of the former San Francisco Art Institute's Chestnut campus. It has presented an influential program of exhibitions highlighting innovative work by emerging artists and experimental work by more established artists, from throughout the United States and abroad.
Robert Boardman Howard (1896–1983), was a prominent American artist active in Northern California in the first half of the twentieth century. He is also known as Robert Howard, Robert B. Howard and Bob Howard. Howard was celebrated for his graphic art, watercolors, oils, and murals, as well as his Art Deco bas-reliefs and his Modernist sculptures and mobiles.
Mary Snowden is an American painter and educator. She is known for works that use humor to explore issues of feminist identity and consumerism.
Taravat Talepasand is an American contemporary artist, activist, and educator, of Iranian descent. She is known for her interdisciplinary painting practice including drawing, sculpture and installation. As an Iranian-American woman, Talepasand explores the cultural taboos that reflect on gender and political authority. Her approach to representation and figuration reflects the cross-pollination, or lack thereof, in our Western Society. Talepasand previously held the title of the chair of the painting department at San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). She is an assistant professor in art practice at Portland State University.
di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is a non-profit art center in Napa, California. di Rosa maintains a collection of approximately 1,600 works of art by Northern California artists including Robert Arneson, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Tony Labat, and William T. Wiley. The organization is in its 25th year as a public entity.
Fred Thomas Martin was an American artist, writer and arts administrator and educator who was active in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene since the late 1940s, He was a driving force of the Bay Area art scene from the mid 1950s until his retirement from the San Francisco Art Institute. In addition to his artistic practice, Martin was widely known for his work as a longtime administrator and Professor Emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).
Helen Elizabeth Phillips, also known as Helen Phillips Hayter was an American sculptor, printmaker, and graphic artist active in San Francisco, New York, and Paris.
Maija Peeples-Bright is a Latvian-born American and Canadian painter, ceramist, and arts educator. She is known as one of the pioneers of the Funk art movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s. Maija Peeples-Bright has gone by the names Maija Zack, Maija Woof, Maija Bright, and Maija Peeples.
Patricio Salvador Moreno Toro is a Chilean-born American visual artist and painter. His work is associated with abstract expressionism and incorporates Chilean forms and details.
Christopher Brown, is an American artist and educator. He is known for his paintings and prints, often figurative and feature abstract settings with repeating patterns or shapes. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1981 to 1994. Brown has also worked as an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts. Brown's work is associated with Neo‐expressionism.
Irene Pijoan was a Swiss-born American painter, sculptor, and educator. She was active in the San Francisco Bay Area and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute for more than 20 years.
