The San Francisco Artwork Institute, Which Educated Artists From Ansel Adams to Kehinde Wiley, Has Filed for Chapter
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The school will liquidate its assets to pay creditors, but the fate of its famous Diego Rivera fresco remains unknown.
Art Institute San Francisco. Courtesy of Getty Images.
The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), saddled with outstanding debt, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The move will require the 151-year-old school to liquidate its remaining assets to pay creditors.
The submission marks what may be the final chapter in what was once an important institution declining operation in recent years finally closed its doors last July. However, one important question remains to be answered: What will happen to SFAI’s famous 1931 Diego Rivera fresco?
According to a report by Chronicle of San Francisco, The art school owes more than $10 million to various creditors. First up is the University of San Francisco, which is said to have owed more than $6 million after breaking up a deal to acquire SFAI last summer
The regents of the University of California and the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, owners of SFAI’s two separate campuses, say they are owed $450,000 and $750,000 in unpaid rent, respectively. Also on the list of creditors are the many former faculty members who lost their jobs and are now owed severance pay.
Regarding her assets, SFAI reported in the filing that she owns a painting by noted Mission School artist Alicia McCarthy valued at US$125,000 and office equipment and art supplies valued at US$50,000. The real treasure of the school is the Rivera mural, estimated to be worth up to $50 million. However, it remains unclear whether the institution can sell the artwork to pay off its debt.
Diego Rivera’s mural at the San Francisco Art Institute. Courtesy of the San Francisco Art Institute.
In late 2020, SFAI’s board of directors voted to explore “avenues and offers for endowment or sale” of the fresco to save the school, and Star Wars creator George Lucas was even said to have been interested in acquiring it. But the move promptly met with backlash from students, alumni and community members. Photographer Catherine Opie, who graduated from SFAI in 1985, called the potential sale an “incredibly unscrupulous decision.” Open letter to the school administration.
The mural was later declared a San Francisco landmark. Therefore, it may not be relocated without the approval of the city council.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who sponsored the landmark legislation, said so timeline that he wishes to transfer the piece to a public gallery or museum.
SFAI’s legacy rivals that of any art school in North America. His list of Alumni and former faculty members reads as in the 20th century art history phone book with names like Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Mark Rothko and Kehinde Wiley. But for many, the school’s earlier heights made its steep — and messy — decline that much more painful.
In March 2020, following the mass closures of the COVID-19 pandemic, SFAI announced that it would suspend its degree programs, halt student enrollment, and close indefinitely. Weeks later, the institution’s board voted to keep the school open on a limited basis and launched a “campaign to refocus and reinvent the school’s business model.”
By July, the prospects seemed even brighter than that The school received over $4 million in donations. The board promised to resume its courses in the fall and invited students to re-enroll.
But the wave of support proved too little, too late. SFAI officially ceased operations in July 2022.
“The reality is that tuition-based schools of this size are a vanishing species,” said Gordon Knox, a former SFAI president timeline. “And there is no changing evolution.”
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