San Francisco Art Institute

Posted: 10.18.2019 | Updated: 02.06.2025

The San Francisco Art Institute is a place where the passion and interests in art have helped students accelerate their careers in modern art. Located in the heart of the City By The Bay and the SF art institute is known for its 600 students in attendance, there are some others that might be wandering the campus. More specifically, these “others” are among the residents of the spiritual world.

Join us as we talk about the history of the Art Institute San Francisco and why the oldest art school west of the Mississippi River might be one of the most haunted places in San Francisco.

Walk into the world of the San Francisco’s most emboldned, and often enriched, spirits on a San Francisco ghost tour!

Is The San Francisco Art Institute Haunted?

While the Art Institute of San Francisco has been closed for a couple years, there are still rumors of haunted happenings with its once prestigious walls. The tower is one of the most haunted spots on campus and has even inspired its own artshow!

History Of The San Francisco Art Institute

The San Francisco Art Institute was established in 1871 along with the San Francisco Art Association. Put together to promote local and regional artists who have wished to showcase their artwork, the group quickly grew.

In three years’ time, the association had gained well over 700 members. This was enough to procure funding to open up the SF art institute, originally known as the Hopkins Institute. While the school was named after multi-millionaire Mark Hopkins, one of the first notable faculty members, and early co-founder was Virgil Macey Williams. The distinguisned landscape painter assumed the role of director and also taught painting.

He held both positions until his death in 1886. In the 1890s. The Hopkins Mansion and some of the surrounding buildings of Nob Hill were donated as additions to the growing San Francisco Art Institute.

The Hopkins Institute was soon destroyed along with a large part of the city during the Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Replacement cost was estimated at around $3 million.

However, thanks to a generous insurance policy the institute was rebuilt within a year. The campus was rebuilt and later named the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1916, the San Francisco Art Association merged with the San Francisco Society of Arts and took over operations of the San Francisco Museum of Art at The Palace of Fine Arts.

The school relocated to its current address, 80 Chesnut Street, smack in the heart of downtown in 1926. Since then, the San Francisco Art Institute has educated many art students. Many have gone on to have illustrious and lucrative art careers.

Famous Students of The Art Institute of San Francisco

• Maynard Dixon
• Henry Kayama
• Ansel Adams
• Annie Lebowitz

One such artist was Maynard Dixon, whose artwork was used to document some of San Francisco’s historic movements like the city’s labor movement. Dixon was also responsible for creating artwork that captured the beauty and majesty of the Western U.S. landscape.

Henry Kayama, who taught at the Institute for a time published the first graphic novel in the United States entitled “Four Immigrants Manga”.

Photographer Ansel Adams was one of the faculty members in the late 1940s having taught photography and helped start up the fine art-photography department. Around this time, the institute became a major hub for the art form of “Abstract Expressionism” and many of its early adopters were fixtures of the institute.

In the 1960s, one such alumnus named Annie Lebovitz became well known for her photography that has been showcased across many magazine covers and pages and galleries worldwide. Liebovitz would go on to become a photographer of celebrities worldwild.

One such photo was a Rolling Stones cover that featured Yoko Ono and John Lennon. The photo for the cover was taken the same day Lennon himself was murdered outside of his apartment.

The school wasn’t just a place where it wasn’t just photography and paintings. The Art Institute played a role in the punk music scene with some bands forming on campus or featuring students from the University.

Even today with the development of modern technology, most students have continued to utilize art through old school means. In 2016, the school was recognized for its history and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hauntings Of The San Francisco Art Institute

Rumors have spread for many years that the San Francisco Art Institute is haunted. It is rumored that the campus was once a burial ground of those who had died during the Gold Rush years.

Over the years construction workers renovating the campus have reported tools going missing. Students have heard phantom noises such as footsteps, screams, and even visions of spirits appearing at odd hours of the day in hallways.

Most people have said that the art institute’s tower is a hotbed for paranormal activity. The San Francisco Art Institute even hosted an art exhibit based on the tower’s hauntings.

The exhibit was fittingly enough named “Ghost Of The Tower.” It was unclear when the hauntings have begun, but it was a long been a legendary story told from student to student.

Ghost hunters had first investigated the institute in the 1960s after repeated accounts by construction workers who had heard various screams and noises. Some of them even refused to keep working after hearing stories of the grisly accidents that happened prior to the renovation.

Haunted San Francisco

The San Francisco Art Institute continues to be a major hub of American art. But it’s stories of hauntings and unfortunate events are still being told even to this day.

If you are ever in San Francisco and want to find out if the Art Institute of San Francsico still haunted then you may be dissapoainted. The Art institute closed in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy the following year.

But, you can still hear the eerie haunted tower and many other San Francisco hauntings on a San Francisco ghost tour!

In the meantime, follow our blog and keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for more spooky content!

Sources:

• https://www.sfai.edu/about-sfai/sfai-history
• http://www.hauntedbay.com/features/SFAI.shtml
• https://www.innsf.com/blog/the-most-haunted-places-in-san-francisco
• https://collections.theautry.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=PE218211;type=701