Fraenkel Gallery

Fraenkel Gallery Contemporary art gallery focused on exploring photography and its relation to other media.⁣ Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The gallery represents the work of Robert Adams, Sophie Calle, Lee Friedlander, Adam Fuss, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Richard Learoyd, Richard Misrach, Nicholas Nixon, Alec Soth, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, and works closely with the estates of Diane Arbus, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Peter Hujar, and Garry Winogrand. In recent years, the gallery has expanded its roster to include multidisciplinary artists suc

h as Elisheva Biernoff, Mel Bochner, Kota Ezawa, Martine Gutierrez, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Christian Marclay, Wardell Milan, Richard T. While photography has been a consistent through-line of our exhibitions and more than 70 publications, it is far from the whole story. Many exhibitions have featured artists whose work is not strictly, or not at all, photographic: Mel Bochner, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Agnes Martin, and Sol LeWitt among others. Fraenkel Gallery maintains long-established relationships with museums, private collectors, and corporations around the world, and welcomes the experienced collector as well as those just beginning.

Featured in our current exhibition Slice of the Pie is Erica Deeman's "Untitled 07" (2014). Deeman’s work explores the i...
06/17/2026

Featured in our current exhibition Slice of the Pie is Erica Deeman's "Untitled 07" (2014). Deeman’s work explores the intersections of race, gender, and the hybridity of Black identity. Picturing women of the African diaspora, her "Silhouette." series employs a portrait technique that references the 18th-century pseudoscience of physiognomy, creating a complicated expression of identity that suggests her subjects’ power and strength of character.

ANTHONY MEIER (Founded 1984) specializes in post-World War II contemporary masters, and exhibits emerging, mid-career, and established artists. First serving as a private dealer in the secondary market, in 1996 Anthony Meier opened a public gallery space in San Francisco, and in 2023, the gallery opened a new location in Mill Valley.

→ Slice of the Pie: Fourteen Bay Area Galleries & What Makes Them Different is on view in our gallery through August 15. Also featured in the show are Anthony Meier artists Libby Black and Sigmar Polke. Learn more: https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/explore-slice-of-the-pie

📸 Image courtesy of the artist and Anthony Meier, Mill Valley

“I myself have always stood in awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalp...
06/16/2026

“I myself have always stood in awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.”
—Irving Penn

Irving Penn (born on this day in 1917) was one of the twentieth century’s great photographers, known for his arresting images and masterful printmaking across the genres of fashion, portraiture, n**es, still life, and advertising. Celebrated as one of Vogue magazine’s top photographers for more than sixty years, Penn also created an extensive body of personal work, pursuing projects that depicted unexpected subjects and expanded the technical boundaries of the physical print.

Penn's photographs of flowers, begun in 1967 as a commission for Vogue, transform botanical subjects into elegant studies of form, texture, and color. Penn continued to photograph flowers through the 2000s, capturing both the vitality and the impermanence of flowers once they pass their prime.

Discover more images of Penn's flowers: https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/irving-penn-flowers
—
Images by : Bull Thistle: Cirsium Vulgare, New York, ca. 1973; Dandelion / Taraxacum officinale, New York, 1973; Persian Violet Cyclamen / Cyclamen persicum, New York, ca. 1973; Single Oriental Poppy (C), New York, 1968; Tulip / Tulipa: China Pink, New York, 2006 © The Irving Penn Foundation, Condé Nast

Peter Hujar: The Gracie Mansion Show opens today at Unlimited, Booth U10.Co-presented by Fraenkel and Ortuzar, the show...
06/15/2026

Peter Hujar: The Gracie Mansion Show opens today at Unlimited, Booth U10.

Co-presented by Fraenkel and Ortuzar, the show restages one of the most significant exhibitions of Peter Hujar's lifetime, the 1986 presentation of 70 photographs at Gracie Mansion Gallery in New York's East Village.

The non-hierarchical sequencing encourages open-ended associations and allows for rare insight into how Hujar understood the relationships between his images. Learn more: https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/peter-hujar-art-basel-unlimited

Often employing methods of surveillance and exploring the idea of privacy in her work, Sophie Calle also utilizes “ready...
06/14/2026

Often employing methods of surveillance and exploring the idea of privacy in her work, Sophie Calle also utilizes “ready-made” images to address these themes. In her series Cash Machine, photographs are made from ATM video surveillance footage. Each work is exhibited as a sequence of two to eleven images. About the work, Calle writes:

"In 1988 an American bank invited me to do a project. Their automatic tellers had video cameras that filmed clients as they went unsuspectingly about their business. I managed to get a hold of some recordings. The images were beautiful but I thought if I just used them as found documents, without adding anything of my own, I would be betraying my own style. I needed an idea to go with these faces. Fifteen years later I decided to go back over my research, delineate the anatomy of this failure and, at last, free myself of these images. Give up before their presence."

Explore more works from Calle's Cash Machines: https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/cash-machine

Pictured: , Cash Machine (03-19), 1991 - 2003, three gelatin silver prints; Installation view of the exhibition Sophie Calle at Fraenkel Gallery, 2015.

Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection is now on view at Jeu de Paume in Paris...
06/13/2026

Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection is now on view at Jeu de Paume in Paris, following its debut at the V&A in London in 2024. On view until September 27, the exhibition features photographs from the couple’s collection, including work by Fraenkel artists Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Adam Fuss, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Peter Hujar, Christian Marclay, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Wardell Milan, Irving Penn, Alec Soth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carrie Mae Weems, and Garry Winogrand, among many others. The exhibition features more than 300 prints, from 1950 to the present, from more than 90 artists. Organized into five thematic sections, the exhibition explores themes such as desire, celebrity, fashion, reportage, and affirmation of identity.

Learn more: https://jeudepaume.org/en/evenement/fragile-beauty/
Image: , Anthony by the sea, Brighton, England, 1979 [detail], Thanksgiving, 1973-1999

Featured in our current exhibition Slice of the Pie is Fraenkel artist Wardell Milan's "Two warriors looking for euphori...
06/13/2026

Featured in our current exhibition Slice of the Pie is Fraenkel artist Wardell Milan's "Two warriors looking for euphoria" (2018).

Milan often imagines spaces where the marginalized body moves freely, combining elements of photography, drawing, painting, and collage. In this multimedia work, he builds figures with fragments cut from Robert Mapplethorpe’s Black Book and other sources, layering them over his own photograph of a tropical scene.

→ Slice of the Pie: Fourteen Bay Area Galleries & What Makes Them Different, is a group exhibition that brings together a vibrant cross-section of some of the Bay Area’s most influential and idiosyncratic art galleries. Discover more works featured in the show: https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/explore-slice-of-the-pie

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction, opening June 16 at​ Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art​, presents selections from six dec...
06/11/2026

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction, opening June 16 at​ Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art​, presents selections from six decades of the artist's photographic practice.

Weaving together ​subjects of ​ancient history​,​ the natural world, ​the scale of our human ​imagination and limits​ of ​our perception, Sugimoto collapses past and present​ into a single meditative space​, and invites viewers to consider the ​impermanence of all things across deep time.

The exhibition will be on view through September 13, 2026. Learn more: https://www.momat.go.jp/en/exhibitions/569
—
Pictured:
• Bay of Sagami, Enoura, 2026
• Mathematical Form: Surface 0003, 2004
• Palace Theater, Gary, 2015

Our current exhibition Slice of the Pie has received several Bay Area write-ups. 📝In the SF Examiner, Max Blue writes ab...
06/10/2026

Our current exhibition Slice of the Pie has received several Bay Area write-ups. 📝

In the SF Examiner, Max Blue writes about how the group show counters the doom loop narrative: "If San Franciscans are good at one thing, it’s coming together when the going gets rough. When a handful of local galleries shuttered last year, the City’s art scene was shaken. “Slice of the Pie” is the riposte the community needs to remind us how strong we remain in spite of the odds."
🔗 https://www.sfexaminer.com/culture/visual-arts/sf-summer-gallery-guide-shows-art-scene-continues-rebound/article_cca17b8b-278b-47ea-a1ca-7dfd56063120.html

Tony Bravo writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, "In a spirit of community over competition, Fraenkel Gallery has assembled a show that can only be described as the Justice League of Bay Area galleries. This group exhibition highlights how local art spaces have always pushed boundaries and created new global dialogues. It’s part of how Fraenkel Gallery, founded in 1979, is doubling down on creative collaborations as part of its program."
🔗 https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/arts-exhibits/article/bay-area-summer-art-shows-2026-22257526.php

Slice of the Pie is on view in our gallery through August 15.

Now on view at , Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs​,​ traces different ways image makers have represented dance. Dance...
06/06/2026

Now on view at , Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs​,​ traces different ways image makers have represented dance. Dance and photography operate on different temporal planes. One unfolds over time through fluid movement, whereas the other freezes that motion in a single frame. Something electric happens when these two art forms merge.

The exhibition opens ​with fourteen works by depicting Anna Halprin's ​troupe​ performing the improvisational dance, "The Bath." Halprin's choreography emphasized movement emerging from everyday gestures, an idea that transformed​ modern dance.​ In "The Bath," n**e dancers bathed each other, sometimes miming the movements, and sometimes in fountains​ and using buckets of water. Penn's studio-based shoot was an assignment for Look magazine​ to document the 'Summer of Love' in San Francisco. Deemed too shocking to be published at the time, the images remained unseen and unprinted until Halprin contacted Penn in 1995, seeking the images for her archive.

Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs​ runs through January 31, 2027​. Learn more and plan your visit: https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/feel-the-beat-dance-in-photographs/

"At times I work with people three, four times. Each person is so distinctive and every person responds to the camera in...
06/03/2026

"At times I work with people three, four times. Each person is so distinctive and every person responds to the camera in a unique way, I always rely on their collaboration. I always rely on their generosity and I’m always surprised at how open and how creative people are."
—Katy Grannan

Happy birthday to our friend Katy Grannan. 🎈

Grannan's recent portrait series Mad River depicts subjects who reflect the independent spirit of Northern California’s Humboldt County, an area known for its privacy and seclusion. Often building relationships with her subjects, Grannan explores the connections between self-presentation and place, creating a kind of collaborative fiction.⁠

Discover more images from Mad River: https://fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/deep-dive-katy-grannan-mad-river
—
Image: , Damla, Agate Beach, CA, 2025

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49 Geary Street #450
San Francisco, CA
94108

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Friday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm

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