SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco today announced the advancement of Claudia Schmuckli to Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, a role designed to provide strategic leadership and direction on artistic and programmatic matters concerning modern and contemporary art. Schmuckli’s position has been generously endowed by longtime supporters Holly Johnson and Parker Harris. In her new role, Schmuckli’s priorities include developing a strategic vision for the presentation, collection, and community engagement with modern and contemporary art.
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“Strengthening the Fine Arts Museums’ long term financial sustainability through endowment-building is a top institutional priority. We are profoundly grateful to Holly Johnson and Parker Harris for their tremendous gift, which will make it possible for us to meaningfully advance both our contemporary and modern programs and our financial goals,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “Since Claudia Schmuckli’s arrival in 2016, her groundbreaking program has established the Fine Arts Museums as a significant interlocutor in the contemporary art world.”
During her tenure in San Francisco, Schmuckli has curated more than 20 stimulating exhibitions, installations, and collection presentations, including Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care (2024); Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence (2023), Judy Chicago: A Retrospective (2021), Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI (2020), and Specters of Disruption (2018), at the de Young museum; and Wangechi Mutu: I am Speaking, Are You Listening? (2021), Lynn Hershman Leeson: Vertighost (2018), Sarah Lucas: Good Muse (2017), and Urs Fischer: The Public and the Private (2017) at the Legion of Honor museum. She is also the curator of Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, the first US retrospective of internationally renowned artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, opening at the de Young on April 12. The next contemporary exhibition organized by Schmuckli at the Legion of Honor will see select works by Yinka Shonibare interspersed in dialogue with the museum’s European art collection and neoclassical architecture throughout the museum’s indoor and outdoor spaces.
“Parker and I are honored to support the Fine Arts Museums, some of the country’s most visited and most treasured art museums,” said Johnson. “We have great trust and admiration for the current leadership and curatorial staff, and we are thrilled to help further the legacy of the Fine Arts Museums as well as contribute to their unwavering commitment to contemporary and modern art. Claudia Schmuckli’s exceptional programming has set the bar high and we are excited for what is to come.”
In addition to organizing exhibitions, Schmuckli has spearheaded the acquisition of more than 100 works of art, including major works by Firelei Baez, Judy Chicago, Pierre Huyghe, Isaac Julien, Wangechi Mutu, Yinka Shonibare, Hito Steyerl, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others. In 2020, she led the selection process of 42 works by 30 emerging and underrepresented Bay Area artists and artist collectives acquired through a generous $1 million gift of the Svane Family Foundation. A selection of these artworks is currently on view at the de Young in About Place: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift (through November 30, 2025).
Schmuckli’s new position has been endowed through the generosity of longtime museum supporters Holly Johnson and Parker Harris. Johnson serves as a board member; supports education, public programs, and interpretation initiatives at the Fine Arts Museums; and serves as chair of the board’s education committee. She is deeply committed to visitor engagement and the vitality and relevance of contemporary art to existing and expanding audiences. This endowment by Johnson and Harris follows other recent endowments of curatorial positions at the Fine Arts Museums, including Emily A. Beeny (Chief Curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara A. Wolfe Curator in Charge of European Paintings) and Renée Dreyfus (Distinguished Curator and George and Judy Marcus Curator in Charge of Ancient Art).
“The creation and endowment of this new role underscores the Fine Arts Museums’ long term commitment to a contemporary vision that understands artists’ aesthetic efforts as a vital and transformative critical force,” said Schmuckli. “I am deeply grateful to Holly Johnson and Parker Harris for sharing this belief and inscribing it into the future of the Fine Arts Museums. Together we will continue to generate this vital cognitive load, ensuring that everyone has access to artists' decryption of the social, political, and technological dynamics that define our realities and is given the opportunity to partake in imaginative worldbuilding.”
As Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Schmuckli will further a broader vision of programmatic audience engagement through deeper collaboration across the Fine Arts Museums’ exhibitions, collections, public programs, and digital strategy. This will include integrating more performance, music, and film into the de Young and Legion of Honor’s auditoriums and free spaces, as well as creatively experimenting with technology to create transformative experiences for visitors.
Prior to joining the Fine Arts Museums, Schmuckli was Director and Chief Curator of the Blaffer Art Museum, where she forged a reputation as a pivotal figure in the presentation of contemporary art. Prior to the Blaffer Art Museum, Schmuckli worked in New York as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Modern Art, and as a Curatorial Assistant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She holds a master of arts degree in art history from the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany.
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