With its historic ties to Asia and long-established Asian American communities, San Francisco is an ideal home city for the Asian Art Museum.
San Francisco’s ports were the entry point for the first wave of Asian immigrants to the United States, who played a key role in building the transcontinental railroad in the late 19th century. The city’s Chinatown is the first in North America and the largest Chinatown outside of Asia. San Francisco’s Japantown is one of only three remaining in the United States, having endured for over a century.
Today, more than one-third of San Francisco’s residents come from diverse Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds, with people of Chinese descent accounting for one-fifth of the city’s population. In the last 15 years, San Francisco’s Indian American population has more than doubled; currently, Indian Americans and Filipinx Americans each comprise approximately 16% of the Bay Area’s AAPI residents. People of Asian descent constitute the largest ethnic group in the Bay Area counties of Alameda (home to Oakland and Berkeley) and Santa Clara (home to San Jose).
Thanks to San Francisco’s strong connections to Asia and significant AAPI population, the Asian Art Museum is uniquely positioned to preserve and promote the art and culture not only of the 48 countries of the Asian continent, but of the Bay Area’s many Asian diasporic communities. Acclaimed artists of Asian descent who have contributed to San Francisco’s artistic legacy include:
Image: Looking [at] the Waterfront of San Francisco City, April 27 or May 3, 1906. by Chiura Obata (American, 1885 – 1975). Watercolor and graphite on paper. Asian Art Museum, Gift from the Estate of Chiura Obata, 2021.42. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.