The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Board Chair Charles R. Schwab has announced that the museum has received landmark contributions totaling more than $250 million to expand the museum and grow its endowment. Comprising more than 50 percent of a projected $480 million campaign goal, these pledges from museum leadership will fuel SFMOMA's plans to triple its gallery and public spaces; offer enhanced exhibitions, educational programs, and services for the public; and showcase the Fisher Collection, one the world's finest private collections of modern and contemporary art. Of the total raised to date, $100 million will go toward SFMOMA's endowment—increasing it by 100 percent—to support expanded programming and operations and to ensure the institution's long-term success. These early commitments, which will enable the museum to move forward confidently with its expansion, are structured as challenge grants in order to catalyze support from other potential patrons.
Neal Benezra, director of SFMOMA, also announced that the museum has extended its groundbreaking agreement with the family of Doris and the late Donald Fisher to house their unparalleled art collection from a 25-year loan to a period of one hundred years, which will be renewable thereafter. The Fisher Collection will be on display in a new wing that will be built as part of the museum's expansion. Select works from SFMOMA's collection will also be presented in the new wing, and works from the Fisher Collection will be interwoven throughout the museum. The Fisher Collection will also become an integral part of SFMOMA's exhibitions, educational and public programs, and ongoing scholarship
Benezra also announced that SFMOMA is launching an international search to select an architect to design the expansion. The museum will invite a select group of firms to submit proposals and anticipates choosing an architect in fall 2010.
"As we mark the museum's 75th anniversary, this transformative expansion and the addition of the Fisher Collection will dramatically increase SFMOMA's educational, economic, and cultural role in San Francisco—a city celebrated worldwide as a hub for innovation and creativity," said Schwab. "These pivotal contributions give us great momentum to galvanize others in support of a project that will strengthen one of the Bay Area's greatest public resources. I am confident that this early show of support will inspire SFMOMA trustees and friends to meet the challenge of securing SFMOMA's position among the world's top modern and contemporary art museums."
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art-plans-expansion/
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