Dozens of fascinating art exhibits in San Francisco are refreshed and replaced every single month. We’re keeping tabs on the best new temporary displays including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibitions, fine art at the de Young and the Legion of Honor, and contemporary art exhibits at the Asian Art Museum.
Read on to start planning your next museum visit, and be sure to see our list of free museum days in SF to get the most bang for your buck.
1. American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art
The de Young Museum presents a collection of delightful Impressionist and Realist artworks from the 19th and 20th centuries. Learn about how these historic paintings influenced the spirit of American culture, with standout works including The Angler (1874) by Winslow Homer, Spanish Bric-à-Brac Shop (1883) by William Merritt Chase, In Virginia (1908) by George Bellows, and Front of Ranchos Church (1930) by Georgia O’Keeffe.
🎟️ Tickets: American Beauty: The Osher Collection of American Art is viewable with general admission tickets to the de Young Museum.
🗓️ Dates: Through Oct. 20, 2024
📍 Location: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
2. Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture
Even if you’re not a lifelong sports fan, this new SFMOMA exhibition is a delightful examination of sports on our culture and psyches. From art created by athletes to the history of football helmet design, Get in the Game taps into all the ways sports make us feel. Look out for a 22-person foosball table, a portrait of swimmer Diana Nyad, and a ceramic ode to Kobe Bryant.
🎟️ Tickets: Get in the Game is viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA
🗓️ Dates: Oct. 19, 2024 – Feb. 18, 2025
📍 Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
3. Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries
The de Young Museum will present this group of seven ancient Renaissance tapestries, on display for the first time in the United States. See the massive 27-by-14-foot works on display alongside gorgeous 16th-century suits of armor and arms. The works commemorate the 1525 Battle of Pavia, in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V took victory over French King Francis I.
🎟️ Tickets: Art and War in the Renaissance is viewable with general admission tickets to the de Young Museum.
🗓️ Dates: Oct. 19, 2024 – Jan. 12, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
4. Hallyu! The Korean Wave
From Squid Game and Parasite to K-dramas and K-pop, this new exhibition takes us through the biggest cultural wave coming our way from Asia. How did South Korea become a pop culture phenomenon? Learn about the “Korean wave” through this presentation of over 200 artifacts including contemporary couture pieces, fandom objects, Korean films, and more.
🎟️ Tickets: Special exhibition tickets are required for Hallyu! The Korean Wave
🗓️ Dates: Sept. 27, 2024 – Jan. 6, 2025
📍 Location: Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
5. Mary Cassatt at Work
Painter Mary Cassatt was the only American to join the French Impressionists back in 1879, at the invitation of Edgar Degas. Her presentation of “women’s work,” including knitting and needlepoint, nursing infants, and other forms of caregiving, was revolutionary for the time due to her tendency for unconventional art processes. Learn about how Cassatt’s use of brush, etching needle, and even fingertips created these radical works beneath the guise of “feminine” themes.
🎟️ Tickets: Mary Cassatt at Work requires special exhibition tickets to the Legion of Honor
🗓️ Dates: Oct. 5, 2024 – Jan. 26, 2025
📍 Location: Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121
6. Tamara de Lempicka
The de Young Museum presents the first U.S. exhibition dedicated to Tamara de Lempicka’s work, comprising over 150 brilliant works including still lifes, sketches, sculptures, and paintings. As one of the Art Deco period‘s most defining portrait painters, Lempicka showcases a simultaneously glamorous, carefree, avant-garde, and classical artistic style.
🎟️ Tickets: Tamara de Lempicka is viewable with special exhibition tickets at the de Young Museum.
🗓️ Dates: Oct. 12, 2025 – Feb. 9, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
7. Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors & Radical Black Joy
MoAD is revealing an exciting new round of fall exhibitions starting in October. This one examines the way in which Black people cultivate domestic interiors as environments for action, joy, and rest, and homecoming. See a collection of furnishings, lighting, wall coverings, and more from sixteen contemporary designers and artists.
🎟️ Tickets: Liberatory Living is viewable with general admission tickets to MoAD
🗓️ Dates: Oct. 2, 2024 – Mar. 2, 2025
📍 Location: Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94105
8. Table Manners
Examine a century of tableware and drinkware from the SFMOMA Architecture + Design collection. Learn about how design has shaped our relationship with dining over the decades, affecting our experience with connection and community through food. Artifacts include self-filling wine glasses, teapots made of tea, flatware made from discarded CDs, and more.
🎟️ Tickets: Table Manners is included with general admission to SFMOMA
🗓️ Dates: Sept. 14, 2024 – May 2025
📍 Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
9. When the World Is Watching
With the world’s eyes on the Olympics and Paralympics, SFMOMA is taking the opportunity to present several sports-related exhibitions, including the highly-anticipated Get in the Game opening in October. When the World Is Watching delves into how international sporting competitions mirror global societal problems, particularly in conversations about Indigenous, Black, disabled, and women athletes.
🎟️ Tickets: When the World Is Watching is viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA.
🗓️ Dates: Aug. 17, 2024 – May 4, 2025
📍Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
10. Unity Through Skateboarding
Jeffery Cheung and Gabriel Ramirez, founders of Oakland-based queer skate collective Unity, guest curate this new SFMOMA exhibition. Learn about the realities of queer, trans, BIPOC, and women skaters in a historically hypermasculine sport. The exhibition presents a range of media including artworks, skate decks, video, photographs, and skate publications.
🎟️ Tickets: Viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA.
🗓️ Dates: August 17, 2024 – April 27, 2025
📍Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
11. Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine)
SFMOMA commissioned artist Kara Walker, known for her work examining the exploitation of race and sexuality, to create this site-specific installation in the Roberts Family Gallery. See Walker’s automatons trapped in ritualistic cycles, enacting the memorialization of trauma in contemporary society. The mechanized sculptures are set in a landscape of black obsidian, which is thought to be healing.
🎟️ Tickets: Viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA.
🗓️ Dates: July 1, 2024 – Spring 2026
📍 Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
12. Neon as Soulcraft
Neon art organization She Bends curates this new exhibition about the art of neon bending and its significance as a manual trade skill. The installation presents works from neon residencies in three different U.S. cities., showcasing perspectives from both teaching artists and student artists in their exploration of neon as a medium.
🎟️ Tickets: Neon as Soulcraft is viewable with general admission tickets to the Museum of Craft and Design.
🗓️ Dates: July 20 – Nov. 4, 2024
📍 Location: Museum of Craft and Design, 2569 3rd St, San Francisco
13. Yayoi Kusama: Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love
Yayoi Kusama’s famous immersive mirror rooms came to SFMOMA for a massively popular exhibition that just recently closed. Luckily, if you missed it, a few of Kusama’s artworks remain on display including the popular Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love. The piece consists of a large cube containing a mirrored space that you’ll step into. The external light is filtered through colored holes, creating a dynamic, shifting environment among oversized transparent acrylic dots.
🎟️ Tickets: Yayoi Kusama: Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love is viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA.
🗓️ Dates: June 22, 2024 – Jan. 20, 2025
📍 Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
14. Leilah Barbirye: We Have a History
Right: Leilah Babirye, Prince Ggamotoka from the Kuchu Royal Family of Buganda, 2021. Private Collection. Photo by Cooper Dodds. Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery.
Ugandan sculptor Leilah Babirye creates emotive and engaging sculptures using wood carvings, ceramics, and found objects. Whether a tiny talisman or a towering totem, the pieces all serve as portraits of Babirye’s LGBTQ+ community. Walk among dozens of eclectic pieces to discover how she represents her cultural and personal identity.
🎟️ Tickets: Leilah Babirye: We Have a History is viewable with general admission tickets to the de Young Museum.
🗓️ Dates: June 22, 2024 – June 22, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
15. California: State of Nature
The California Academy of Sciences has debuted a brand-new, permanent exhibition dedicated to the evolution of California’s ecosystems in collaboration with Indigenous advisors. Guests will explore forest, coastal, desert, and city ecosystems through multimedia installations including two augmented reality experiences and several video kiosks.
🎟️ Tickets: California: State of Nature is viewable with general admission tickets to the California Academy of Sciences.
🗓️ Dates: Open now
📍Location: California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr, San Francisco
16. Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
The Visitors features nine large video screens projecting Kjartansson and eight of his friends as they present an intimate musical composition. The result is an hour-long piece in a single take, presented from nine different musical perspectives that are both highly individualized and inextricably linked.
🎟️ Tickets: The Visitors is viewable with general admission tickets to SFMOMA.
🗓️ Dates: Through Jan. 26, 2025
📍Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
From enormous immersive works to intimate gallery showcases, these SF art exhibitions and museum installations are worth an afternoon out of the house. Whether you’re hosting guests or want to take yourself on a solo date, there’s always something new to see in San Francisco. Which one will you visit next?