06/07/2025
800 Chestnut Street should not be confused with the San Francisco Art Institute. SFAI was a 150 year-old renowned, accredited fine art school that was forced to close in July 2022 after years of mismanagement. Tenured faculty, staff, and students were ousted. Tenured faculty and long-time staff negotiated a settlement agreement but only received a small portion of this, in part because the new owner of 800 Chestnut paid so little ( for a large unique property and Diego Rivera mural valued at 50 million!) There were rumors that faculty would receive the remaining amount of the settlement after the sale but this never happened. Faculty have small 403b accts and no pension. The closure continues to be devastating for many former employees and for the art world, especially in San Francisco where radical, irreverent expression flourished at SFAI - intersecting with major social movements ( anti-war, Black Panthers, punk scene, Mission School, and much more.)
( general description of recent history
from Save SFAI FB page )
How and why we got here;
In 2020, the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) owed $19.7 million in debt to a private lender for building graduate studios in a rented space located at Fort Mason. The University of California Regents rescued SFAI from default by paying off the loan and acquiring the 800 Chestnut campus with a deal to help SFAI buy back the campus through a rent-to-own arrangement.
In July 2022, the school closed permanently. Then in August, a new nonprofit, the SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive (SFAI LF+A) was formed to protect the name, the historical artifacts, and preserve the history of the SFAI. Later that year SFAI LF+A moved its contents to 20 Hawthorne in SF next to Crown Point Press, with plans to be available for academic researchers and general inquiries. https://www.sfailegacyarchive.org/
In April 2023, SFAI filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, forcing them to liquidate their assets, vacate 800 Chestnut, and be evicted from Fort Mason for defaulting on their lease. The UC Regents, working with SFAI’s bankruptcy attorney and the US Bankruptcy Court, put 800 Chestnut on the market, which includes the most valuable asset belonging to the school —a historical landmark, Diego Rivera's mural, “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City.”
In December of 2023, The US Bankruptcy Court overseeing the San Francisco Art Institute approved an agreement allowing a newly formed Arts Nonprofit funded by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, to pay off the SFAI debt of $7.5 million to purchase the 800 Chestnut Campus and also the Diego Riviera mural from the UC Regents for a total of $22.5 million.
June 5, 2025, Laurene Powell Jobs’s nonprofit BMA Institute announced the forthcoming creation of the California Academy of Studio Arts (CASA), which will take over the historic SFAI campus at 800 Chestnut as a free, non-accredited yearlong experimental studio program devoted to up to 30 emerging artists per annual cohort. Additionally, CASA will engage with the city through exhibitions, workshops, and artist talks.
(General timeline by Steve Hurd )
