Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at SFMOMA

The news here is not that SFMOMA still has the Fisher Collection. It’s that the museum has fundamentally changed how you see it. “Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10” opened on April 18, 2026, and it’s the first full reinstallation of those galleries since the museum’s 2016 expansion. That matters because the Fisher Collection is not some side room — it occupies four floors and shapes a huge chunk of what visitors think SFMOMA is. (sfmoma.org) ### What is this, exactly? It’s a new presentation of the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, the privately assembled trove of postwar and contemporary art that has been a major part of SFMOMA for a decade. (sfmoma.org) The museum says the new version includes nearly 250 works by 35 artists, spread across floors 3 through 6. Think less “special exhibition” and more “a major internal rebuild of the museum’s permanent experience.” (sfmoma.org) ### Why is the 10-year mark a big deal? Because this was always due for a reset. The Fisher galleries debuted with SFMOMA’s 2016 reopening, and after ten years on view the museum used the anniversary to fully rehang and redevelop the space. That’s different from swapping a few paintings around. SFMOMA is calling this the first complete transformation of the collection since it opened there. ### What actually changed in the galleries? (sfmoma.org) The museum didn’t just reshuffle masterpieces. It changed the organizing idea. The new hang leans into storytelling, visitor experience, and more approachable interpretation, with interactive and family-friendly elements built into the display. Basically, SFMOMA is trying to make a blue-chip modern art collection feel less like a wall of canonical names and more like something you can move through with a point of entry. (sfmoma.org) ### How big is this overhaul? Big enough that “overhaul” is not hype. The installation covers roughly 60,000 square feet. It includes artists like Joan Mitchell, Andy Warhol, and Gerhard Richter, and the opening weekend was treated like a museum-wide event with dance, sound, and readings from Bay Area artists. That gives you a sense of the scale — and of how much SFMOMA wanted to signal that this is a relaunch, not routine maintenance. (sfmoma.org) ### Why does the Fisher Collection matter so much to SFMOMA? Because it’s foundational to the museum’s identity. SFMOMA describes the Fisher Collection and its own holdings together as one of the world’s major repositories of postwar and contemporary art. The backdrop is a 100-year partnership with the Fisher Art Foundation, which means these works are deeply woven into the museum’s long-term future, not just borrowed for a season. (sfmoma.org) ### Who shaped the new version? SFMOMA says the project was led by Ted Mann, the museum’s project assistant curator of the Fisher Collection, and Gamynne Guillotte, its chief education and public engagement officer, working across curatorial, design, and interpretive teams. That detail matters because it helps explain the shift: this wasn’t only a curator’s rehang. (sfmoma.org) It was also an education-and-experience redesign. ### So what should a visitor expect now? Expect the same collection to feel newly legible. The catch with famous modern art galleries is that they can become wallpaper — important, expensive wallpaper, but still wallpaper. SFMOMA is trying to break that spell by changing the sequence, the framing, and the ways people interact with the work. If you saw the Fisher galleries years ago, this is meant to feel different enough to justify another trip. (sfmoma.org) ### Bottom line This is really a story about a museum rethinking one of its biggest assets in public. SFMOMA didn’t acquire a new blockbuster. It did something harder — it made a familiar collection strange again, and hopefully more open to people who never felt fully invited in before. (sfmoma.org) (sfmoma.org)