San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art holds the distinction of being the first museum on the West Coast devoted exclusively to twentieth-century art. When it opened in 1935, it did not even have its own building, instead occupying the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building. The museum was led by its visionary founding director, Grace McCann Morley, who fought against the elitist conventions of the era by keeping the galleries open until ten at night to ensure that art remained accessible to the working public. Her commitment to contemporary expression was so infectious that in 1940, over a thousand visitors famously refused to leave the building at closing time, staging a sit-in simply because they wanted one last look at a landmark Picasso exhibition.