The 12 best art galleries in San Francisco

Originally named Gallery Paule Anglim after its eponymous founder, this gallery has a long history in San Francisco. Paule founded the space in 1976 and became known for representing the California Beat artists and the Bay Area Conceptualists. Anglim Gilbert Gallery is particularly strong in the work of female artists, including Kim Anno, Veronica DeJesus and Pamela Helena Wilson.

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Gallerist Eleanor Harwood is a painter herself, with a particularly deft eye for emerging artists. She curated the gallery in Adobe Books from 2002 to 2006 before founding her own eponymous gallery. Her focus is on paintings, drawings, and sculpture, particularly work that entails complicated craft. Those represented at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery include painter Martin Machado, textile artist Kira Dominguez Hultgren, and illustrator Carissa Potter.

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Gallerist Karen Jenkins-Johnson founded the Jenkins Johnson Gallery in 1996 and has another location in Brooklyn, New York. She remains one of a small but influential group of black gallerists, and Jenkins Johnson Gallery is one of the few Black-owned galleries in the Bay Area. The gallery represents international contemporary artists across disciplines, showcasing 20th-century masters as well as many other mid-career and emerging artists of today. 

Back in 1996, Todd Hosfelet founded the Hosfelt Gallery in SOMA to showcase emerging artists from the Bay Area and beyond. A year later, former San Jose Museum of Art curator Dianne Dec joined as a partner. In its 25 years of existence, Hosfelt has showcased emerging artists, often through exhibitions that transform industrial buildings in off-the-beaten-path locations. Its current location is a 9,000 square feet former door factory located in what's considered the city's newest arts hub — given the name DoReMi (taking letters from its adjoining neighborhoods: the Mission, Potrero Hill and Dogpatch.)

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Located in Potrero Hill, Altman Siegel has operated as one of the most influential galleries in San Francisco since founder Claudia Altman-Siegal opened it in 2009. The gallery showcases "museum-level" artists, both from the Bay Area and around the world. Young and emerging artists tend to be on display in the core gallery, but strolling through the space you'll also see more historical exhibits. 

Jack Fischer represents more than 30 artists. In early 2014, he relocated the Jack Fisher Gallery from the haughty confines of 49 Geary to Potrero Hill to the Dogpoastch. His light-flooded Potrero space showcases self-taught and emerging artists like sculptor Byron Ryono and Annie Vought, who hand-cuts intricate paper texts. 

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Since founding her gallery in 1974, Rena Bransten has sought out artists whose work has cultural and societal relevance. Early in her career, she focused largely on ceramic and sculpture by California artists. In 2016, the Rena Bransten Gallery moved from Geary St to Minnesota Street Project in the Dogpatch, expanding her square footage and artistic scope. Her roster of nearly 40 artists includes painters, photographers, ceramicists, and video artists. Many of those represented have had works acquired by museums. 

Catharine Clark specializes in experimental video and digital media. Originally established in 1991, her gallery was the first in the city to have a dedicated media room. Now she represents 30 contemporary artists at the Catherine Clark Gallery, exhibiting work such as installations by Stephanie Syjuco, who pairs images and objects referring to American colonialist expansion in the Philippines in the early 1990s along with modern racial politics. 

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Wendi Norris is an influential name in the art world, with galleries in New York, Miami and its global headquarters in San Francisco (located downtown). She founded Gallery Wendi Norris after a successful run in the tech industry with a focus on showcasing modern and contemporary artists, hosting artist talks and visiting academics, and engaging in public art projects. 

Art collecting is in owner John Berggruen’s blood; his father, Heinz, was an acclaimed modern collector in Germany. John got his start selling prints in the ‘70s, building a strong reputation as an art dealer before opening the Berggruen Gallery. Today Berggruen focuses on 20th-century American and European paintings, drawings, sculptures, and limited-edition prints. Over the years, Berggruen has exhibited works by well-known talents like Matisse, Chuck Close, Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor. 

Jessica Silverman has always forged her own path: She founded her original gallery in the Dogpatch while still working toward a master's degree at the California College of the Arts. She moved from the Dogpatch to an off-the-beaten-path stretch of the Tenderloin in 2013 and, in the spring of 2021, moved the Jessica Silverman Gallery space to Chinatown. She’s since become known as a Bay Area wunderkind, recognized at art fairs around the world. 

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Brian Gross launched his Union Square gallery, Brian Gross Fine Art, in 1990 with a focus on abstract and reductive painting, multimedia installations, and sculpture. Five years later, he jumped to 49 Geary, and in 2013 he was among the first gallerists to establish themselves in the new art district of Potrero Hill. He represents around a dozen artists and hosts up to eight exhibitions a year, featuring the work of talents like Tony Berlant, Ed Moses, Peter Alexander, and Robert Hudson.