The gallery renovation will be led by Paris-based Luis Laplace \u2014 the same architect designing Powell Jobs\u2019 renovation of the San Francisco Art Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Swiss juggernaut is setting up shop just two doors down from the former Pace Gallery. It will be the third Hauser & Wirth in California; the others are in Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNorthern California occupies an equally powerful position [as Los Angeles] as home to a fantastically dedicated community of collectors and the museums they have built,\u201d gallery president Marc Payot said in a statement.<\/p>\n Silicon Valley is home to a bevy of the world\u2019s top art collectors, according to ARTnews<\/a>, including Marc Andreesen<\/a>, Larry Ellison<\/a>, Komal Shah<\/a>, and SF Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s mother, Mimi Haas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hauser & Wirth is the first top-drawer gallery to bet big on the region since the exodus of Gagosian from San Francisco in 2021 and Pace Gallery from Palo Alto in 2022. Those closures led to hand-wringing<\/a> over the Bay Area\u2019s status in the international art world.<\/p>\n In response to Gagosian\u2019s exit in 2021, Pace president Marc Glimcher told The Art Newspaper<\/a> that the Bay Area is “not a place that responds to grandiose braggadocio \u2014 the trappings of power and exclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Some say it makes sense to have a high-end gallery in the Peninsula to cater to collectors who would otherwise have to fight through 101 traffic to get to San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s harder to engage those collectors who live down in the Peninsula when it takes an hour to get into a cocktail or lecture or book reading in the city,\u201d said Andrew Lueck, a vice president at Christie\u2019s San Francisco. \u201cSometimes you have to bring the mountain to Mohammed. I think that\u2019s what a lot of organizations are doing, is meeting people where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n With 17 galleries and counting, Hauser & Wirth is one of the biggest and most influential galleries in the world, with a reputation for building out more than just white walls to hang art. The galleries, in international jet-set haunts like Menorca, Monaco, SoHo, West Hollywood, and London, often are set in sprawling compounds with gardens and acclaimed bookstores and restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n Laura Sweeney, who has worked as an art adviser in San Francisco for more than 13 years, said Hauser & Wirth will enhance the Bay Area art scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis move means more shows, it means more artists, and more opportunities for collectors,\u201d she said. \u201cHauser has been such an extraordinary supporter of the institutions in the Bay Area, and they work closely with the curators here. They come to FOG, and they don\u2019t just bring old inventory, they bring great new works.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the gallery had the largest reported sale<\/a> at this year\u2019s FOG Design + Art fair:\u00a0 a painting by Avery Singer that went for $575,000. The gallery also facilitated loans from collectors to SFMOMA\u2019s much-loved \u201cAmy Sherald: America Sublime\u201d show. <\/p>\n Hauser & Worth\u2019s opening could signal a renewed vitality in the Bay Area art scene, which has recently experienced both notable successes<\/a> and significant losses<\/a>, amid a contracting market and ongoing challenges for institutions trying to regain pre-pandemic attendance.<\/p>\n The real challenge will be whether Hauser & Wirth succeeds where its rivals Pace and Gagosian failed.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/)
Laurene Powell Jobs and her nonprofit, Emerson Collective, have been major patrons for Hauser & Wirth. | Source: Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty Images for the Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n