From Rubens to Warhol, art provides a lift

Summer may not be the peak time for visual arts exhibitions elsewhere, with so many attractions in the open air. But San Francisco’s foggy days can send visitors and even longtime residents scrambling to find a sheltered spot. A museum visit can be every bit as enjoyable as a day at the beach, and a lot more comfortable while waiting for the sun. Museums here are in full swing, and there are excellent galleries with active summer programs, often with broad surveys of their regular programs or introductions to newer artists. But many commercial art galleries in the Bay Area — as in cities around the world — close for a month or more in summer, so if your destination is not on this list, be sure to doublecheck hours and days of operation. Here are suggestions for exhibitions that will bring some sunshine indoors over the coming months.

The artist who virtually defined American culture from the late 1960s into the ’70s and who died in 1987 gets the star treatment he always required when alive. Beyond painting and sculpture, Warhol had his hand in film, music, design, photography and — as we learn from this deeply researched exhibition — the social changes surrounding sexual freedom and identity. and horror films or costume dramas do today. region’s best commercial and nonprofit exhibition spaces. And it’s all free. Frequent special events and pop-up exhibitions, like the San Francisco Art Book Fair July 19-21, round out the regular offerings.

Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. / Artists Rights Society, New York.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Top: Andy Warhol, Liz #6 (Early Colored Liz), 1963, at S.F. Museum of Modern Art. Above: Peter Paul Rubens, “Head of Medusa,” 161718, at Legion of Honor.