Your Guide toSan Francisco's Museums and Galleries This Summer
Explore inspiring exhibitions from esteemed creators of the past and present at these San Francisco institutions.
San Francisco is home to dozens of must-see museums and acclaimed art galleries. Need help deciding which to visit during your stay? No problem! We’ve gathered the goods on the most exciting exhibitions on display across the city. Keep reading to learn more and buy your tickets.
Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street
Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries
Debuting as a solo museum exhibition in the Bay Area is this collection of work by Berlin-based Japanese contemporary artist Chiharu Shiota. Throughout her career, Shiota’s visual language evokes the fragility and resilience of memory through installation, sculpture, video, and performance. On display through July 27.
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive
NightLife
Every Thursday, the California Academy of Science invites visitors (21+) to a vibrant evening of dancing and musical performances, participating in thought-provoking talks and presentations. And to ensure you're having a fabulous night, the café and bars at NightLife serve pizzas, pastas, specialty cocktails, craft beer, and delicious wines.
Vivid: Immerse Your Senses
An all-new exhibit transports you to six ecosystems that reveal Earth's mysterious, magical worlds through ultra high-definition video projections, ambient soundscapes, nature-inspired scents, and animated animal avatars. On display through September 6, 2026.
Tiny Chef, Big Impact
In a museum-wide takeover, including an inspiring short film in the Morrison Planetarium, Tiny Chef will host a pop-up exhibit celebrating how tiny actions can make a big impact on our planet. Now on display through September, 2026.
Children's Creativity Museum
221 Fourth Street
The Children's Creativity Museum is the perfect place to spend time with the children in your life! Visitors can explore two floors of multimedia exhibits and activities designed to guide children of all ages through self-discovery while building creative confidence and collaboration skills.
Counterculture Museum
1485 Haight Street
The Counterculture Museum is a brand-new museum in San Francisco’s historic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that explores the city’s role as the epicenter of America’s countercultural movements. From civil rights and racial justice to LGBTQ+ liberation, women’s rights, and the hippie era, the museum highlights how these transformative movements helped shape the city—and the country—through immersive exhibits and powerful storytelling.
de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Monet and Venice
Although Claude Monet visited Venice only once, his paintings of the city are among his most dazzling. The exhibition will bring together more than twenty of Monet’s Venetian views from public and private collections around the world, including two masterpieces from the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—The Doge’s Palace and The Grand Canal, Venice. On display through July 26, 2026.
Treasures of the Pharaohs
This exhibition brings the world of the pharaohs to life through 130 exquisite works spanning 3,000 years of history. From towering stone statues to gilded masks to intricate gold jewelry, these objects reveal the power, beauty, and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. On display from August 1, 2026, to January 31, 2027.
Edge on the Square
800 Grant Avenue
All Eyes On Us
All Eyes on Us: Invention & Ingenuity During Artistic Diasporas, shines a spotlight on “hidden dragons”: individuals whose artistic careers, practices and expressions shape-shifted or became dormant as they navigated the complexities of immigration, assimilation and survival.
Legion of Honor
100 34th Avenue
Drawn to Venice
Spanning the Renaissance to the Rococo period, this exhibition celebrates the vitality and originality of the arts in Venice and the Veneto region through more than 30 drawings and prints. From landscapes and figure studies to designs for sumptuous decorations, the works presented in this exhibition offer a fresh look at this memorable place in history and art. On display through August 2, 2026.
The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy
Drawing on the latest archaeological discoveries and cutting-edge scholarship, this is the most comprehensive exhibition on Etruscan culture in the United States to date. Over 150 exquisitely crafted and well-preserved examples of bronze and terracotta sculpture, gold jewelry, ceramics, and architectural features, as well as the longest-surviving piece of Etruscan writing, reveal a legacy that continues to captivate today. On display through September 20, 2026.
Museum of Craft and Design
2569 Third Street
Video Craft
Video Craft brings together nearly 20 artists at different stages of their careers, from early pioneers of video production to emerging digital natives. The exhibition hopes to illustrate an unlikely partnership between the heavily embodied practices of craft and the ephemeral nature of the screen. Now on display through August 16, 2026.
Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD)
685 Mission Street
UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe
UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe is a groundbreaking exhibition that explores the intersections of Blackness and the cosmos. Curated by Key Jo Lee, MoAD’s Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs, the show invites visitors to reimagine Blackness not as fixed or earthbound, but as infinite, expansive, unknowable, and cosmically rich. On display through August 16, 2026.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
151 Third Street
Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal
Experience the moment Matisse used color to break the rules of modern art. In 1905, Henri Matisse sent shockwaves through the art world with Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat), a portrait of his wife, Amélie, painted in bold color and loose brushstrokes that defied convention. This exhibition brings the original stakes into focus and explores the enduring impact of one of Matisse’s most iconic works. On display through September 13, 2026.
Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs
Drawn primarily from SFMOMA’s permanent collection, Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs traces different ways image makers have represented dance. On display through February 28, 2027.
The Presidio
640 Old Mason Street
I Am An American
I Am An American is a traveling free exhibition honoring the service and sacrifice of World War II Nisei soldiers. Opening its national tour at the Presidio’s MIS Historic Learning Center, the exhibition highlights powerful firsthand accounts, historic photographs, and rarely seen artifacts that illuminate the experiences of second‑generation Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. Army despite widespread wartime discrimination. On display through July 31, 2026.
The Walt Disney Family Museum
104 Montgomery Street
Happiest Place on Earth: The Disney Story
The Walt Disney Family Museum continues its celebration of the 70th anniversary of Disneyland with the debut of Happiest Place on Earth: The Disneyland Story, an original special exhibition curated by award-winning producer and Disney Legend Don Hahn with museum Director of Collections and Exhibitions Marina Villar Delgado. Inspired by the 2025 book, this treasure trove of Disney history will take guests behind the scenes of one of the most groundbreaking endeavors of the 20th century—the creation and opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. On display through September 13, 2026.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street
Diedrick Brackens: gather tender night
Throughout the exhibition, single and paired figures are depicted in resplendent scenes of water, flora, and fauna, launching the viewer’s imagination. For Brackens, the outdoors is an important space where queer folks can be themselves and freely participate in spaces of desire and sensuality. On display through August 23, 2026.
Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements
Conjuring Power is a multimedia exhibition exploring the resilient beauty, cultural richness, and fierce resistance of Bay Area queer and trans communities. The exhibition will include work by Ester Hernández, Serge Gay, Jr., Tanya Wischerath, and Crystal Mason, as well as emerging artists from the Queer Ancestors Project, archival material from the GLBT Historical Society, and audio clips from Caro De Robertis’ oral histories with the groundbreaking Elders Project. On display through August 23, 2026.
Lucas Mittenentzwei is a digital project and content consultant. Originally from Germany, he has lived in California since 2010, calling San Francisco his home for several years. Lucas started in the hospitality industry before joining Visit California in its mission to inspire the world to visit the Golden State. He is passionate about all aspects of the travel experience, but trying new restaurants (or tried-and-true classics) is at the top of his list.
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