Art Institute chief on leave amid crisis
Board acts as school stops accepting new students
San Francisco Art Institute President Gordon Knox has agreed to take a leave of absence just one week after it was announced that SFAI would not accept incoming students for its fall semester, which will probably be canceled due to a budget shortfall complicated by the fallout from COVID19.
The move was made Tuesday by the Board of Trustees for the legendary school of fine arts, a San Francisco institution scheduled to celebrate its 150th anniversary in the spring of 2021. In Knox’s absence, the school will be run by vice president of academic affairs Jennifer Rissler, in partnership with interim chief operating officer Mark Kushner.
The decision was announced by SFAI board chair Pam Rorke Levy, in a letter to students and alumni, along with faculty and staff, most of whom have received 60 days’ notice in advance of layoffs.
Reached by phone Thursday, Levy would not say how long Knox’s leave will last, but she said that he will continue to be paid while taking unused vacation time. The leave is by mutual agreement, she said. Also by mutual agreement, she would not comment on Knox or his handling of the institution during his threeyear tenure.
Reached at home in Bernal Heights, Knox declined to comment on his leave status or the situation at SFAI.
“This is an important pivot point for higher education across the country,” he said, “as we look at challenges of public assembly.”
Knox, 64, has been president for three years after replacing Charles Desmarais, who resigned to take the position of art critic for The Chronicle. Knox came to SFAI in January 2017 from Arizona State Uni
versity, where he had run the campus art museum since 2010.
On March 23, SFAI revealed that efforts to merge with another art institution had collapsed and that drastic measures would be taken. These included advising some 400 students who had already been accepted for the fall semester, in both the undergraduate and graduate programs, that they could no longer plan to attend. Some already had sent in deposits.
It was also announced that the way forward probably would include a contraction to one campus or a stillhopeful merger. There is also the possibility that if its financial condition worsens, the school will shut down altogether.
Levy said the final decision will be made by midApril as to whether the fall semester will take place for 200 students at the undergraduate campus on Russian Hill, or 100 students at the graduate campus, which opened in 2017 on a remodeled pier at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.
Left hanging are the students, who have been advised by the administration to seek transfers. Before it was shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, the undergraduate campus, with its famed bell tower and Diego Rivera mural, was rife with rumors of a merger to relieve financial pressure, but nothing as dire as the possible closure that has since been revealed.
Marguerite Bradley, 29, a thirdyear student from Atlanta majoring in painting and art history, serves on the student alliance, which is trying to do its part.
“I do believe SFAI is paramount to fine art, and that translates to a positive contribution to society as a whole,” she said. Bradley has gone so far as to examine the public tax documents disclosed by the school as a nonprofit. The most recent form available, fiscal 2017, shows a net loss of nearly $2 million.
“It’s an expensive school to run,” said Bradley, who has not yet applied for a transfer, an indication that she believes SFAI will reopen, if not in the fall, then in the spring for the 150th anniversary.
“This school is unique in terms of history, dedication by the faculty and freedom to create,” she said. “We just need to get off of this longterm roller coaster of financial distress.”
This sentiment was echoed in an open letter signed by 60 prominent museum directors and curators, ranging from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to the Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome. Also signing was the president of the rival California College of the Arts.
“This small fine arts college has had a remarkably outsized impact,” the letter reads. “... That it might cease to exist has caused shock and dismay across the art world, especially here in the Bay Area.”