SFMOMA was founded in 1935 under director Grace L. McCann Morley as the San Francisco Museum of Art . For its first sixty years , the museum occupied the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center . A gift of 36 artworks from Albert M. Bender , including '' The Flower Carrier '' ( 1935 ) by Diego Rivera , established the basis of the permanent collection . Bender donated more than 1,100 objects to SFMOMA during his lifetime and endowed the museum 's first purchase fund . The museum began its second year with an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse . In this same year the museum established its photography collection , becoming one of the first museums to recognize photography as a fine art . SFMOMA held its first architecture exhibition , entitled '' Telesis : Space for Living '' , in 1940 . SFMOMA was obliged to move to a temporary facility on Post Street in March 1945 to make way for the United Nations Conference on International Organization . The museum returned to its original Van Ness location in July , upon the signing of the United Nations Charter . Later that year SFMOMA hosted Jackson Pollock 's first solo museum exhibition
United Nations Conference on International Organization
United Nations Conference on International Organization
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art