The San Francisco Art Institute was on the verge of losing its campus and art collection to a public sale last fall when the University of California’s Board of Regents bought its $ 19.7 million debt from a private bank, to save the 150-year old institution from collapse.
The deal provides a lifeline, but the future of a beloved work of art – a $ 50 million mural by Diego Rivera that official figures could help balance the budget – is still in the air, and faculty and alumni are outraged.
The work from 1931 entitled “Making a Fresco Showing the Building of a City” is a fresco within a fresco. The tableau shows the creation of a city and a mural – with architects, engineers, craftsmen, sculptors and painters who work hard. Rivera himself can be seen from behind, holding a palette and a paintbrush with his assistants. It is one of three frescoes by the Mexican muralist in San Francisco that had a tremendous impact on other artists in the city.
Years of costly expansions and declining enrollments at the institute put it at risk, a situation that worsened during the pandemic.
The school has stressed that no final decision has been made to sell the mural. Behind the scenes, however, the institute’s administrators and directors are strongly pushing for it as it would pay off the debt and allow them to make ends meet on an annual operating budget of around $ 19 million.
In a December 23 email to employees in the New York Times, Jennifer Rissler, vice president and dean of academic affairs, admitted that a number of people had raised concerns about the possible sale of the mural. She added that “As part of its fiduciary duty, the board has voted to review all options to save the SFAI and continue to explore avenues and offers to furnish or sell the mural.”
At a board meeting on December 17, SFAI chair Pam Rorke Levy stated that filmmaker George Lucas was interested in buying the mural for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Details of this discussion were provided by a participant who asked for anonymity as the participant was not authorized to discuss internal matters.
Speaking to faculty members on Dec. 17, Ms. Levy outlined another plan that would see the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art take possession of the mural but leave it on campus as an adjoining room, said Dewey Crumpler, associate professor at the school .
A spokeswoman for the institute, Sara Fitzmaurice, the founder of the PR firm Fitz & Co., declined to discuss ongoing negotiations about the possible sale. “A number of discussions were held with several institutions about the possibility of renting or purchasing the mural in order to secure the future of the school,” she said in a statement.
In an interview last March, Ms. Levy said she would be receptive to selling the painting. “When you have an asset that is this valuable, there is always a discussion,” she said. “As a small college in an expensive city, we feel the pain.”
Faculty and staff have repeatedly raised objections. The final counter-argument came in a December 30 letter to the school community from a union representing their additional teachers, nearly 70 of whom were fired during the pandemic but who previously made up the majority of the faculty.
“The Diego Rivera mural is not a commodity whose identity and value is solely based on market valuation,” the letter said, “while selling it would resolve immediate financial bottlenecks,” it would represent a limited lifeline and would not appeal to samples Misconduct and mismanagement by the board and senior executives of the SFAI. “
In a statement, the institute described the allegations of bad leadership as “gross misrepresentation” and said that almost all board members joined the school after the debt arose.
The Rivera mural is intertwined with the legacy of the SFAI, which claims to be the oldest art school west of the Mississippi and has former students such as Annie Leibovitz, Catherine Opie and Kehinde Wiley. Selling the mural, having become such an important part of the institute’s identity over the past 90 years, may alienate the students, alumni, and faculties who value it.
“It’s insulting and heartbreaking,” said Kate Laster, an alumna of the institute who produced student exhibits in a gallery featuring the mural before graduating in 2019. “Selling the mural is an impractical option given the school’s duty to protect its own historical heritage.”
Aaron Peskin, an elected official in the district where the institute is located, also opposes the sale. “The idea of anyone, let alone the University of California, selling this is heresy,” he recently told Mission Local’s news site, which first covered the deal with the regents on December 30th. “It would be a crime against the arts and the city’s heritage. Educational institutions should teach art, not sell it.”
The money for the institute comes from a 2016 loan that was used to finance the construction of the new campus in Fort Mason. Collateral for the loan included the school’s older campus on Chestnut Street and 19 works of art. Last year, the financial burden led school principals to consider permanent closure. It remained open in limited capacity after receiving $ 4 million in donations.
But it wasn’t enough. In July, Boston Private Bank & Trust Co. notified the institution that it had violated the loan terms by failing to repay a $ 3 million annual credit line required to extend the loan. The bank issued a public sale notice in October listing the collateral, including the Rivera mural and frescoes, including those by Victor Arnautoff, whose paintings are threatened with destruction elsewhere in San Francisco.
The Board of Regents blocked the sale by buying the institute’s debt earlier that month. With the new agreement, the public university system acquired the institute’s charter and became its landlord. The SFAI administrators have six years to buy back the property. Otherwise, the University of California would take possession of the campus.
And if the institute lost its home, school administrators would have to make more difficult decisions about the future of the mural. “If the SFAI gets out of the Chestnut Street campus for good, we may have to move the Diego Rivera mural,” said Ms. Fitzmaurice. “We were informed that such a potential move could be a multi-year process, so we started to investigate what is possible in this case.”
