The San Francisco Art Institute has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, its most recent move amid its ongoing saga of financial troubles. At risk of liquidation are $65m worth of assets, including Diego Rivera’s mural, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931), reportedly worth $50m.
In 2020, SFAI announced it would suspend degree programmes after almost 150 years of operation. In the following years, various financial routes were explored to save the institution, including discussions of the University of San Francisco acquiring it, the University of California Regents purchasing its $19.7m debt, the re-opening of enrolment, and various other fundraising efforts. All fell through, or were insufficient action to keep SFAI’s doors open.
SFAI has long been a renowned educational institution on the West Coast that has seen artistic giants walk through its halls as faculty and students, including Ansel Adams, Clifford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, Annie Leibovitz, Angela Davis, Mark Rothko, Bruce Nauman and Okwui Enwezor. The SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive was established by the institute’s librarians in an effort to preserve its archives and facilitate ‘the proper transfer of its contents to a permanent home, and ensure future access’.
