Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco

Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco

The Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco was established in 1966 to manage the private assets that support the Asian Art Museum. Fred M. Levin, a pivotal figure in its formation, serves as Chair, while Salle Yoo leads as President. The foundation's corpus was initially seeded by the Avery Brundage Collection, a foundational trove of Asian art that gave the museum global standing from its inception. Major donors Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, and his wife Akiko Yamazaki provided transformative gifts, including the funding for the Yamazaki Yang Pavilion, a landmark expansion of the museum's physical footprint. The foundation's strategy centers on building a permanent capital pool to fund the museum's operations, acquisitions, and outreach. Its investment portfolio is a traditional endowment mix, drawing on San Francisco's deep philanthropic and venture capital networks. The foundation's commitments are not publicly disclosed, but its assets underpin a wide-ranging program that spans the arts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, China, Korea, and Japan. Beyond its permanent collection, the foundation supports rotating exhibitions that have showcased everything from ancient Buddhist sculpture to contemporary Asian American art. Anchored by a board that includes prominent Bay Area technologists and philanthropists like board member Anjali Pichai and donor Chong-Moon Lee, the foundation reflects an unusual confluence of art world governance and Silicon Valley wealth. The foundation also coordinates closely with the Society for Asian Art, a professional network that serves as a support organization for the museum. In 2024, the museum celebrated the reopening of its refreshed collection galleries for South and Southeast Asia, a project funded by the foundation's endowments and donor base. Structurally, the foundation operates as the fiscal spine of a city-owned museum, making it a public-private hybrid with a distinct governance model. While the museum and its collection are owned by the City of San Francisco, the foundation retains autonomous control over its investment portfolio and its donor relationships, giving its leadership outsized influence over the institution's strategic direction and its acquisitions. This architecture ties capital stewardship directly to the museum's long-term curatorial ambition.