San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), founded in 1871, is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education in contemporary art. A small school with global impact, SFAI has been central to some of the most important art movements of the last century (fine art photography, Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, Funk art, avant-garde film, Conceptualism, video and performance art), and notable past faculty and alumni include Ansel Adams, Kathryn Bigelow, Enrique Chagoya, Angela Davis, Richard Diebenkorn, Karen Finley, Paul Kos, George Kuchar, Annie Leibovitz, Barry McGee, Catherine Opie, Laura Poitras, and Kehinde Wiley. SFAI is dedicated to the intrinsic value of art and its vital role in shaping and enriching society and the individual. As a diverse community of working artists and scholars, SFAI provides students with a rigorous education in the arts and preparation for a life in the arts through an immersive studio environment, an integrated liberal arts and art history curriculum, and critical engagement with the world. Programs in Art and Technology, Film, New Genres, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, History and Theory of Contemporary Art, and Exhibition and Museum Studies foster creativity and original thinking in an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary context. Approximately 500 students are enrolled in the degree programs, taught by a faculty of leading contemporary artists and scholars. SFAI offers a robust array of exhibitions, lectures, public programs, and public education courses, which create meaningful dialogues between artists, students, and the broader Bay Area community. The institution also fosters partnerships with cultural organizations including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Kadist Art Foundation. Students and alumni benefit from engagement with the culturally rich, socially progressive, and diverse Bay Area community, recognized internationally as a center of art and innovation. At SFAI, the focus is on educating artists who will become the creative leaders of their generation.

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