Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, formally the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, is a public museum in San Francisco, California, specializing in Asian art. Founded in 1966 and owned by the City of San Francisco, it houses one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Asian art in the world, spanning more than 6,000 years and representing all major Asian countries, traditions, and the global Asian diaspora. The museum has played a pioneering role in exhibiting Asian art in the United States and, since 2011, has broadened its mission to include contemporary art and the work of Asian American artists.

The museum originated from a donation by Chicago millionaire Avery Brundage, a major collector of Asian art, to the City of San Francisco. The Society for Asian Art was incorporated in 1958 to secure Brundage's collection for the city. In 1960, San Francisco voters approved a $2.725 million bond to acquire the collection and construct a museum building. The museum opened on June 10, 1966, as a wing of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, with administrative functions handled by the de Young. Brundage continued to donate, and in 1969 he made a further gift conditional on the creation of an independent administration, leading to the establishment of the Asian Art Commission, a library, a conservation department, and an independent budget. The museum received its current name, Asian Art Museum, in 1973. Brundage died in 1975, bequeathing the remainder of his collection and bringing his total donation to more than 7,700 objects. As the collection outgrew its Golden Gate Park home, Mayor Dianne Feinstein proposed in 1987 a plan to revitalize Civic Center that included relocating the museum to the former Main Library. In 1995, Chong-Moon Lee, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and member of the Asian Art Commission, donated $15 million to launch the funding campaign for a new building; he had already given $1 million for the Korean art department. Voters approved the plan in 1994. The museum closed in Golden Gate Park on October 7, 2001, and reopened at its new Civic Center location on March 20, 2003. In October 2011, under director Jay Xu, the museum expanded its mission to increase visibility for Asian American artists, collect and exhibit contemporary art, and provide a platform for underrepresented cultural regions of Asia. This shift was accompanied by a new upside-down 'A' logo designed by Wolff Olins, symbolizing a new perspective and, in mathematical notation, 'for all.' In 2020, the museum publicly reckoned with founder Avery Brundage's legacy. Director Jay Xu acknowledged in an open letter that Brundage 'espoused racist and anti-Semitic views,' and the museum removed a statue of Brundage from its lobby after five decades, launching a thorough re-examination of his controversial legacy. A major expansion was announced in March 2016, adding more than 15,000 square feet across two levels, including an 8,500-square-foot pavilion for large contemporary works, a 7,200-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden, and the Koret Education Center. The Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion opened in July 2023 with an inaugural exhibition by Japanese art collective teamLab. The East West Bank Art Terrace opened in August 2023 as the newest and largest rooftop art venue in San Francisco. The museum has received accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums' Museum Assessment Program. Its 2016-2017 exhibition The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe received three major museum industry awards, including a Special Achievement Award for Interpretation in the Excellence in Exhibition.

The permanent collection contains more than 20,000 objects, with some sources citing over 17,000 works, ranging across 6,000 years. It represents all major Asian countries and traditions as well as the global Asian diaspora. The collection is organized into seven geographically defined departments: South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas and Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan. Objects include paintings, sculpture, ceramics, porcelain, textiles, furniture, and weapons.

The museum holds the largest and most significant collection of Korean art outside Korea, including paintings, books, and textiles. It also possesses the largest collection of Japanese bamboo baskets outside Japan and significant woodblock prints from the 18th and 19th centuries. The Chinese collection is notable for a bronze Buddha statue dated 338 CE, the earliest known dated Buddha image from China, and for documenting the development of Chinese porcelain and ceramics over 4,500 years. Jade objects date back to 4000 BCE. The museum also holds stone and bronze objects from Angkor Wat and one of the most important collections of Thai paintings outside Thailand. Indian stone sculptures trace the development of Buddhist art, while other objects represent the diversity of Indian architecture.

Approximately 2,000 objects from the collection are on rotating display at any given time. Among the most celebrated works is the 13th-century Chinese ink painting Six Persimmons, designated an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government. In 2023, the Asian Art Museum presented The Heart of Zen, marking the first time Six Persimmons had ever been displayed outside Japan. The New York Times described the work as the 'Zen Mona Lisa.' Since the 2011 mission shift, the museum has mounted major contemporary exhibitions including 28 Chinese (2015), First Look: Collecting Contemporary at the Asian (2015), Kimono Refashioned (2019), teamLab: Continuity (2021-2022), Carlos Villa: Worlds in Collision (2022), Takashi Murakami: Unfamiliar People, Swelling of Monsterized Human Ego (2023-2024), and Hallyu! The Korean Wave (2024-2025).

The museum is located in the former San Francisco Main Library in the Civic Center neighborhood, opposite the San Francisco Civic Center. The Beaux-Arts building was designed by George Kelham in 1917 and is considered one of the city's most important historic structures. Italian architect Gae Aulenti directed its renovation and adaptation for museum use, which included a seismic upgrade with base isolation. The building reopened on March 20, 2003, and is formally named the Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture in recognition of Lee's $15 million donation. The 2016 expansion added the Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion and the East West Bank Art Terrace, a 7,200-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden that opened in August 2023 as the newest and largest rooftop art venue in San Francisco.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is located in the Civic Center neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The museum building and its permanent collection are owned by the City of San Francisco. Soyoung Lee serves as The Barbara Bass Bakar Director and CEO. In January 2019, Abby Chen was appointed Head of Contemporary Art. The museum operates as a public institution with galleries devoted to the arts of South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, China, Korea, and Japan, featuring regularly rotating displays.