It’s been ten years since portions of the exceptional Fisher art collection, the 1,100 pieces of world-class art collected by Gap, Inc. founders Doris and Donald Fisher, were displayed at SFMOMA. I remember my excitement at seeing the opening of SFMOMA’s building expansion and that first Fisher show in 2016. The museum had closed for three years to enlarge it to exhibit even a chunk of the fabulous Fisher post-war and contemporary art collection.
The “Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10” marks a complete transformation of the Fisher Collection since it first opened to the public ten years ago. The collection spans approximately 60,000 square feet across four floors of the museum and features nearly 250 works by 35 artists.
The exhibition’s organizing principle embraces Fisher’s philosophy of collecting in depth the works of significant artists. And there are some fabulous works, many of which have never been publicly displayed before. So, the show, mainly on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors and in the Rooftop Garden, focuses on works by big-name artists, Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Philip Guston, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, William Kentridge, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. But pieces by several lesser-known artists interested me just as much, if not more.
The sixth-floor exhibit, “Memory and Matter,” explores the political conflicts that influenced the artists’ works. West German Anselm Kiefer, born in 1945, focuses on the trauma of World War II. The powerful, large canvas “Margarethe” uses straw to add depth and contrast. The “Museum,” a painting of the Hall of Soldiers in Berlin, reimagines the planned shrine to the German military during World War II as a ruin. William Kentridge, a South African who worked through the apartheid period and afterward, informs us about his experiences.
On the fifth floor are works by three influential artists whose work the Fishers collected in depth: Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, and Sol LeWitt. Kelly and LeWitt’s large pieces needed and received separate, outstanding displays. LeWitt designed wall drawings using repeating geometric patterns that could be painted over after each exhibit. For example, next to the huge Wall Drawing #477 is a small framed “Maquette” of it that illustrates the artist’s conception.
Kelly’s “Spectrum I” is a rainbow-like spectrum of colors that tests our ability to perceive and distinguish colors.
The Calder mobiles look terrific, including “Fish” and “Star and Crescent” (1976), a small mobile made close to his death (at age 76). I like the two small 1929 pieces, especially “The Aquarium”.
The Calder gallery seems a bit crowded, so I had to turn around several times to see everything.
“Ways of Seeing: Fourteen Artists” occupies the fourth floor and features a variety of media, styles, and approaches, from abstraction to figuration and from gesture to geometry. Among the featured artists are Dan Flavin, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. It was great to see some favorites, including Joan Mitchell’s “Bracket,” and Dan Flavin’s neon “untitled (to Barnett Newman).” This floor was lighter in mood, yet Roy Lichtenstein’s “Figures with Sunset” seemed to have a more static quality than I remember.
Ten years after the first Fisher Collection show, I admit I was feeling a bit blasé going to see “Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10.” We in the Bay Area have gotten used to thinking of SFMOMA as a first-rate museum with an outstanding collection. But the show was exceptional─ great art, brilliantly displayed, with accessible and thought-provoking wall placards. What a treat!
By Emily S. Mendel
©Emily S. Mendel 2026 All Rights Reserved
