Arts and Culture

San Francisco offers a myriad of arts and cultural opportunities. Visitors and residents alike embrace the city's diverse art scene. The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau reports that tourists most enjoy the people and diversity of San Francisco, and this is nowhere better represented than through art. The city is a primary visitor destination for arts and culture in the United States. Murals enliven the streets of the Mission District, museums are centered around Yerba Buena Gardens, children's poetry is displayed on side street kiosks in the Financial District, and, housed at Fisherman's Wharf is the museum of the City of San Francisco.

From Gold Rush times, San Francisco has had an arts tradition supported by early groups such as the San Francisco Women Artists Collective; an association that has been in existence since 1880 and still operates a gallery in Hayes Valley. In 1894, San Francisco Chronicle publisher MH de Young helped to bring the world's fair to the city and started a permanent museum as a memorial to the exposition. The MH de Young Museum is one of the fine-arts museums operated by the city of San Francisco, as is the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a gift from Alma Spreckles, wife of sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels.

For the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Palace of Fine Arts was created to house the works of living artists. Today, the classical building is one of the city's most picturesque spots, as well as home to the Palace of Fine Arts Theater, which hosts events such as the annual Ethnic Dance Festival, and the Exploratorium, a science and arts exploration museum.

The newly renovated War Memorial Opera Center in the Civic Center was built in 1932 and hosts the San Francisco Opera and America's oldest professional ballet company, the San Francisco Ballet. Nearby is Davies Symphony Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony, under the artistic direction of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Visitors and residents enjoy Broadway shows, improvisational comedy, musical revues and dramatic theater throughout the city. Situated on San Francisco's Union Square is TIX Bay Area, a half-price ticket booth that has day-of-tickets to performances at many of the large and smaller houses. Within walking distance are American Conservatory Theater, Cable Car Theater, Curran Theater, Mason Street Theater and Theater on the Square.

At the heart of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens, situated south of Market Street near the Financial District, is a bustling center for arts and culture, including the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The Jewish Museum and Mexican Museum are two of the many organizations in the process of building their new facilities nearby.

Arts organizations of all disciplines and sizes are supported in part by Grants for the Arts, the publicity and advertising portion of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. In 1999, this internationally admired model of municipal funding, established by ordinance more than 38 years ago, granted $10.7 million to the arts. Recipients range from the innovative LINES Contemporary Ballet to the eclectic Cartoon Arts Museum, Hawaiian performers from Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu and the 40-year-old San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Established by city charter in 1932, the San Francisco Arts Commission was established as a city agency that champions the arts. Commissioners are appointed by the mayor to serve four-year terms.

The Public Art division ensures that a percentage of new construction is allocated to integrating artworks into the site. As a result, artistic creations are pleasant surprises that fill downtown, open plazas, parking garages, neighborhood police and fire stations, and bus stops.

A unique partnership among hundreds of nonprofit arts organizations and the San Francisco Unified School District ensures students receive arts education. Streetside Stories teaches students creative expression through movement and storytelling, Friends of Photography's self-portrait project encourages self-discovery through visual arts, and San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum's traveling exhibitions promote cultural exploration.

The The arts are integral to the city's economic health. Studies done for the San Francisco Arts Commission and San Francisco's Economic Summit found:

• One in 11 jobs in San Francisco are related to the arts through employment in such sectors as graphic design, advertising, architecture, publishing, broadcast and film.
• Arts organizations provide a $1.3 billion boost to the local economy.
• The arts are the fourth-largest growth industry in San Francisco.
• The San Francisco Bay Area has the largest arts attendance per capita among US metropolitan areas.
• 50 percent of visitors to San Francisco from nearby communities say museum attendance is a reason for their visit; another 40 percent come to the city for live theater.