San Francisco Art Association

The San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established the first art school west of Chicago. The SFAA – which, by 1961, completed a long sequence of mission shifts and re-namings to become the San Francisco Art Institute – was the predecessor of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Over its lifetime, the association helped establish a Northern California regional flavor of California Tonalism as differentiated from Southern California American Impressionism. Early history SFAA was founded on March 28, 1871, by a group of some 23–30 artists, primarily landscape artists led by Virgil Macey Williams, with two goals: the forming of an art library, the promotion of art exhibitions, and the eventual establishment of an art school. Painter Juan B. Wandesforde hosted the organizational meeting and was elected its first president. Other early artist members included George Henry Burgess, Gideon Jacques Denny, Andrew P. Hill, Thomas Hill, William Keith, Arthur Nahl, Charles Christian Nahl and Ernest Narjot. The presence of painter-photographer George Henry Burgess among the founders connected the association with the nascent field of fine art photography. Within a few months, SFAA had elected its first honorary member: Albert Bierstadt, the financially successful landscape painter from New York who was at that time sojourning in California. Bierstadt was also interested in stereoscopic photography. By 1874, SFAA had 700 regular members and 100 life members, the latter paying $100 for the privilege. The quarterly receptions were attracting some 1000 people and the semi-annual exhibitions, running for two months each, brought over 7000 viewers. In 1874, there were similar public art institutions in only three other United States cities: New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. From the beginning of the Bohemian Club in 1872, a web of interconnections between it and SFAA was apparent. Many artists were members of both organizations, and art patronage from well-to-do Bohemians helped provide a living for the all-male artists who were invited to join the Bohemian Club. SFAA exhibits in the late 19th century were very successful—many of the participating artists sold a year's worth of production to wealthy Bohemian and society patrons. By 1915, SFAA prosperity was intimately tied to Bohemian purchasing habits.