San Francisco Art Institute
 |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Established | 1871 |
| Chairman | Christoper Tellis |
| President | Gordon Knox |
| Location |
San Francisco, California,  United States37°48′12″N 122°25′02″W / 37.803456°N 122.417144°WCoordinates: 37°48′12″N 122°25′02″W / 37.803456°N 122.417144°W |
| Campus | Urban 4 acres (1.6 ha) |
| Colors | Gray and Clear |
| Website | sfai.edu |
| Designated | 1977 |
| Reference no. | 85 |
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) is a private, non-profit college of contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. Approximately 400 undergraduates and 200 graduate students are enrolled. The institution is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD).
Founded in 1871, SFAI is one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River.
San Francisco Art Institute began in 1871 with the formation of the San Francisco Art Association - a small but very influential group of artists, writers, and community leaders, most notably, led by Virgil Macey Williams and first president Juan B. Wandesforde, with B.P. Avery, Edward Bosque, Thomas Hill, and S.W. Shaw, who came together to promote regional art and artists, and to establish a school and museum to further and preserve what they saw as a new and distinct artistic tradition which had developed in the relative cultural isolation and unique landscape of the American West.
By 1874 the SFAA had 700 regular members and 100 life members, and had raised sufficient funds and the necessary momentum to launch an art school, which was named the California School of Design (CSD). Painter Virgil Macy Williams, who had spent nearly ten years studying with master painters in Italy and had taught at Harvard College before coming to San Francisco, became the school's first director and painting instructor—positions he held until his sudden death in 1886. During Williams' tenure, the CSD developed a national reputation and amassed a significant collection of early California and western fine art as the foundation collected for a planned museum.
In 1893, Edward Searles donated the Hopkins Mansion, one of the most palatial and elaborate Victorian mansions ever built, to the University of California in trust for the SFAA for "instruction in and illustration of the fine arts, music and literature." Named the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, it became San Francisco's first fine art and cultural center, and housed both the CSD's campus and SFAA's art collection. Through this new affiliation, students of the University of California, Berkeley were able to enroll in classes at the CSD.
...
Wikipedia