The first public presentation of the Fisher Collection, a stellar private collection of contemporary art, will be presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art June 25⁓eptember 19.
The museum recently announced a partnership with Doris and the late Donald Fisher, founders of The Gap, to provide a home at the museum for their collection of more than 1,100 works, most never before publicly displayed.
This sweeping exhibition, “Calder to Warhol: Introducing The Fisher Collection,” will offer a preview of the depth and breadth of the Fisher holdings, with iconic works by Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Anselm Kiefer, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Wayne Thiebaud, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and others.
The exhibition will also serve as the centerpiece of the museum’s yearlong 75th anniversary celebration and exhibition series in 2010, “75 Years of Looking Forward.”
Organized by Gary Garrels, the Elise S. Haas senior curator of painting and sculpture at the museum, “Calder to Warhol” will provide a window into the vast collection assembled by the Fishers over more than four decades.
The entire fourth and fifth floors of the museum, including the Rooftop Garden, will showcase approximately 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography and video.
Unlike most private collections, it includes extensive groupings of seminal pieces by Twentieth Century masters and traces their creative evolution through entire bodies of work.
“At this momentous time in SFMOMA’s history, we are not only celebrating 75 years of accomplishments and innovation, we’re also looking forward to a new era of growth and community service that will be greatly enhanced by the museum’s presentation of these outstanding works of art from the Fisher Collection,” said museum director Neal Benezra.
In the fifth-floor galleries, the presentation explores in-depth holdings of five artists in particular ⁃alder, Kelly, Kiefer, Richter and Serra, with large galleries devoted to numerous works by each. The Overlook Gallery will be devoted to minimalist art with works by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Donald Judd.
Half of the fourth-floor galleries will highlight the collection’s holdings of abstract art, beginning with gestural paintings by Francis, Guston, Lee Krasner and Mitchell. Early sculptures by Mark di Suvero and John Chamberlain will serve as counterpoints.
Single galleries will be devoted to the paintings of Martin, Frank Stella and Twombly, as well as later works of Guston. Other galleries will include paintings by Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Marden and Robert Therrien, and sculptures by Martin Puryear.
The other half of the fourth floor will center on Pop and figurative art. Major groupings of Pop works by Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg will share a large gallery. Two galleries feature the early and late paintings of Warhol, with iconic pieces such as “Triple Elvis,” 1962, and “Silver Marlon,” 1963, and key works from the artist’s “Most Wanted Men” series and later self-portraits.
In addition, two galleries will be dedicated to the work of Close, showcasing four of the artist’s monumental portraits of other artists. Figurative works by David Hockney and Thiebaud will be shown together as will groupings of photo-based works by John Baldessari, Sophie Calle, Barbara Kruger, Ed Ruscha and Jeff Wall.
In the first completely new installation since the opening of the museum’s Rooftop Garden in 2009, the outdoor space will display the Fisher Collection’s strengths in large-scale sculpture, with works by Calder, di Suvero, Beverly Pepper and Isamu Noguchi.
In conjunction with the exhibition, SFMOMA will publish an illustrated catalogue.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is at 151 Third Street. For information, 415-357-4000 or www.sfmoma.org .
