San Francisco Art Institute headquarters sold to a group led by Laurene Powell Jobs
The main campus of the bankrupt San Francisco Art Institute, home to a beloved Diego Rivera mural, has been sold to a new nonprofit led by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs.
The nonprofit, made up of local arts leaders and supporters including Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, purchased the debt-plagued campus through a limited liability company for about $30 million. Sales, reported previously in The San Francisco Chronicle, features “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City,” a 1931 mural by Rivera that is valued at $50 million and will remain in a viewing room.
The former school will house an unaccredited institution that will include a residency program where artists can “develop their work and show their work,” said David Stull, president of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, who is a member of the new non- profit organization. Advisory Committee. He described the new center “as a platform for supporting artists and creating a hub for the community around the arts.”
The purchase comes as the institute, with approximately $20 million in debt, filed for bankruptcy last April; the two-acre estate in the Russian Hill neighborhood was for sale last summer.
Artists and city leaders argued that the mural should remain and San Francisco regulators declared it a landmark to prevent its removal.
“San Francisco has long been a center for the development of the arts and it remains an important center for developing ideas,” Stull said. “An institution like the art institution must be part of that future.”
In addition to Stull, the advisory committee includes Brenda Way, the founder and artistic director of San Francisco dance company ODC; Lynn Feintech, the president of Los Angeles-based Liberty Building and a longtime ODC board member; Stanlee Gatti, event designer and former chair of the San Francisco Arts Commission; and Stephen Beal, a former president of the California College of the Arts.
‘San Francisco needed good news and, with Macy’s closing and a doom-loop story, this is a huge shot in the arm for the entire city and county,” said Aaron Peskin, the chairman of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Peskin, who said he helped guide changes in local zoning laws through the legislative process to accommodate a redesigned institute, said work on the campus is expected to take four years. “This is a sign that arts and culture can be part of San Francisco’s recovery,” he said.