Your Guide toSan Francisco's Museums and Galleries This Fall
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 St.
Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Korean Ceramics
Offering a rare chance to see contemporary Korean ceramics from the museum collection, this exhibition highlights clay creations by four prominent 20th-century artists. On display through December 1, 2025.
Rave Into the Future: Art in Motion
The Asian Art Museum presents Rave into the Future: Art in Motion, the first exhibition celebrating the collective joy and resilience found on the dance floors of West Asian diaspora communities. Throughout the exhibition, artworks by local artists join global voices to create a multi-sensory space that envelopes audiences in sonic and visual experiences. The exhibit opens October 25, 2025.
Berggruen Gallery
10 Hawthorne St.
Matt Kleberg: Bless Babel
Berggruen Gallery is proud to present Bless Babel, an exhibition of new work by San Antonio-based artist Matt Kleberg. Kleberg's paintings build around a singular central niche, suggesting the absence of a subject. Confronted with this vacancy, the viewer finds themselves at the center of Kleberg's geometric abstractions. On display through October 16, 2025.
Nicasio Fernandez
Nicasio Fernandez's work conveys a quiet intensity within moody, introspective settings, where his figures are steeped in a spectrum of emotions ranging from uncertainty and tension to concern and doubt. Drawing on film noir motifs—low-key light, deep shadows, and psychological intensity—Fernandez places otherworldly figures in eerie, dramatic atmospheres that leave the viewer both unsettled and curious. On display through October 16, 2025.
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr.
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 a visit with Claude, the resident albino alligator. 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.
Venom: Fangs, Stingers, and Spines
Discover how often-feared yet biologically important animals like spiders, scorpions, jellyfish, and snakes sting, suck, bite, and stun while using venom to capture prey and provide deadly defense against predators.
Unseen Oceans
Oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface—and yet it’s estimated that only 5% have been explored. Quench your curiosity about the mysterious marine world that surrounds us with Unseen Oceans.
Children's Creativity Museum
221 Fourth St.
Kahayágan: Storytelling and Creative Expression in California's SOMA Pilipinas
In partnership with South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN) and local artists Wilfred Galila and Ramon Bonifacio, the Children’s Creativity Museum (CCM) is proud to present Kahayágan, a public art installation that celebrates the histories and contributions of the Filipino American community.
Counterculture Museum
1485 Haight St.
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.
The de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr.
Matisse’s Jazz Unbound
In the final decades of a prolific career, modern artist Henri Matisse took up book illustration. This exhibition celebrates our 2024 acquisition of Jazz, Matisse’s 1947 artist book on the circus and theater. On display through September 28, 2025.
Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm
Nearly 60 years after the Beatles performed their final concert at Candlestick Park, Beatlemania is back in the Bay. Featuring more than 250 personal photographs by Paul McCartney, along with video clips and archival materials, this exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes look at the meteoric rise of the world’s most celebrated band. On display through October 5, 2025.
Art of Manga
This is the first major museum show in the Americas dedicated to exploring the art form of manga, the genre of Japanese comics and graphic novels characterized by evocative drawings. The 700-piece exhibition provides a rare opportunity to experience original drawings by some of the most influential manga artists, many of which have never been on public view. On display September 27, 2025 to January 25, 2026.
Edge on the Square
800 Grant Ave.
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.
FOR-SITE
2 Marina Blvd Building C
Black Gold: Stories Untold
Now on view at Fort Point, FOR-SITE’s highly anticipated exhibition Black Gold: Stories Untold invites 17 contemporary artists and collectives to reflect on the resilience, struggles, and triumphs of African Americans who lived in California from the Gold Rush to the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. On display through November 2, 2025.
ICA SF
1225 Fourth St.
Midnight March
The first fully site-responsive exhibition in the new ICA SF at The Cube, Midnight March will present Masako Miki’s work as never before in her largest presentation to date. The exhibition collapses Miki’s two-dimensional and three-dimensional practices, bringing her paintings known as “Night Parades” to life in experiential form. On display through December 7, 2025.
Jessica Silverman Gallery
621 Grant Ave.
Her Dark Materials
This group exhibition features artists whose innovative approaches to their chosen media —clay, wood, oil, and pastels —enchant the eye and tease the mind. Ann Agee, Rebecca Manson, Sarah Meyohas, GaHee Park, and Alison Elizabeth Taylor transform landscapes, portraits, and still lives into wonderlands with thought-provoking perspectives. On display through October 25, 2025.
Legion of Honor
100 34th Ave.
Ferlinghetti for San Francisco
Ferlinghetti for San Francisco explores the artistic practice of one of San Francisco’s most beloved and significant cultural figures: Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A poet, activist, publisher, and cofounder of City Lights Bookstore, Ferlinghetti was also an avid painter, draftsman, and printmaker. On display from July 19, 2025 to March 22, 2026.
Manet & Morisot
This is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artistic exchange between French Impressionists Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot. Manet was the era’s great pioneer of modern painting, and Morisot, the only woman to exhibit under her own name in the original Impressionist group. This exhibition traces the evolution of a friendship unfolding over a period of 15 years between two groundbreaking artists.. On display from October 11, 2025 to March 1, 2026.
Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD)
685 Mission St.
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 from October 1, 2025 to August 16, 2026.
Museum of Craft and Design
2569 Third St.
Judith Schaechter: Super/Natural
Centered around Judith Schaechter’s latest project, Super/Natural, this exhibition explores the universality of natural elements, patterns, and ornaments as vehicles for meditations on beauty. On display from October 4, 2025 to February 8, 2026.
Wunderkammer: The Collection of Susan Beech
After a lifetime of collecting art jewelry, Susan Beech’s collection reflects the distinctive personality of its owner. The Beech home is full of custom display cases, each showcasing an array of jewelry of various styles and functions. Together, they evoke 18th-century Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosity. Featuring nearly 100 works from the Susan Beech collection, Wunderkammer will bring visitors into the marvelous experience of her art jewelry. On display from October 4, 2025 to February 8, 2026.
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak St., Oakland
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain
This historical exhibition will explore how Black American communities in the Bay Area have resisted dispossession by carving out spaces of care, safety, and home. These stories are told through artworks and historical objects from OMCA’s permanent collection and loans from local repositories, including the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, the Hayward Area Historical Society, and the Oakland Public Library. On display through March 1, 2026.
Buy Oakland Museum of California Tickets
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
151 Third St.
Suzanne Jackson: What is Love
The first museum retrospective of Suzanne Jackson spans six decades, showcasing over 80 paintings and drawings that reflect her innovative use of color, light, and structure, developed in collaboration with the artist. On Display from September 27, 2025 to March 1, 2026.
KAWS: FAMILY
The KAWS exhibit presents a captivating exploration of the American artist's work, featuring more than 100 pieces from the last three decades. KAWS (born Brian Donnelly, 1974) started as a graffiti artist while he was a teen in the mid-1990s. KAWS’s recurring cast of characters is influenced by pop culture icons and mascots that he brings into his own unique visual language. His work now includes sculptures, paintings, and product collaborations, organized by thematic encounters. On display starting November 15, 2025.
SFAC Galleries
401 Van Ness Ave.
To Bright Disturbances
The exhibition will explore land use and, in particular, how the ways we utilize the land can be at times extractive, devastating, and restorative. On display from September 25 to December 13, 2025.
The Walt Disney Family Museum
104 Montgomery St.
Mary Blair: Mid-Century Magic
The Walt Disney Family Museum presents a reimagined Mary Blair: Mid-Century Magic. This exhibition that explores the artistic brilliance of one of Disney's most original and beloved designers. Blair influenced the look and feel of many of Disney’s animated films and theme park experiences, and the exhibit features nearly 150 artworks and historical photographs. On display through October 5, 2025.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission St.
Bay Area Then
With its iconoclastic spirit and deep commitment to community, this exhibition asks us to find power in creative persistence even during challenging times. On display through January 25, 2026.
MAKIBAKA: A Living Legacy
MAKIBAKA: A Living Legacy celebrates the Filipino community in the South of Market (SoMa) and the Bay Area. Presented by SOMA Pilipinas and YBCA, it combines contemporary artworks with community artifacts, honoring collective resistance. On display through January 4, 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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