Fort Mason Center offers a variety of cultural activities as well as being in close proximity to the Marina Green, Crissy Field and the Golden Gate Bridge. Stop by and visit the museum while touring the Marina District and other nearby tourist destinations!

The Collection features a searchable database of five collecting areas of artworks from The Mexican Museum’s permanent collection. The site currently contains a tiny fraction of the overall permanent collection of over 16,000 artworks. Staff will be expanding the selection to include a larger representation of the museum’s core holdings as well as selected recent acquisitions.

Emphasizing the art of the present, the contemporary collection numbers over 1,000 works including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and ephemera. Nationally and internationally acclaimed Chicano artists such as Alejandro Colunga, Enrique Chagoya, Rupert Garcia, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ester Hernandez, Patssi Valdez, Gronk, and hundreds of other emerging and accomplished artists, working here and abroad, are represented in the Museum’s ever-growing Chicano and Contemporary Mexican American art holdings.

Colonial art from the 18th and 19th centuries include carved wooden santos, oil paintings, works on tin, metal jewelry, ecclesiastical textiles, and decorative arts. There are over 1,500 objects in the colonial art holdings.

The Museum’s 20th century fine art collections from Mexico and Latin America contain over 2,500 objects including paintings, sculptures and works on paper. Mexican masters such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo, Rosa and Miguel Covarrubias are well represented in the collection. The works on paper collection is historically rich and contains lithographs, serigraphs, etchings, photographs, posters, rare books, portfolios and archival material.

With over 5,000 objects, the popular and folk art collection represents the largest component of The Mexican Museum’s holdings. Spanning the 20th century to the present, the collection contains fine examples of handcrafted artifacts from all the major folk art regions of Mexico.

The Museum’s Pre-Hispanic collection, encompassing Mesoamerican, Central American and Peruvian cultures, span 2,500 years of history. Over 2,000 artifacts offer fine examples of vessels, ceremonial objects, tools, body ornaments and reliefs from major ancient cultures including Teotihuacan, Mayan, Zapotec, Nayarit, Colima and Peruvian Incan civilizations.

The soul and spirit of the arts and cultures of Mexico and the Americas are fundamentally linked. Through its programs, The Mexican Museum voices the complexity and richness of Latino art throughout the Americas, encouraging dialogue among the broadest public.

The Mexican Museum, initially located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, was founded in 1975 by San Francisco resident and artist Peter Rodríguez. The museum was the realization of Mr. Rodríguez's vision that an institution be created in the United States to exhibit the aesthetic expression of the Mexican and Mexican-American people. Today, our vision has expanded to reflect the evolving scope of the Mexican, Chicano, and Latino experience.

In 1982 The Mexican Museum moved to Fort Mason Center in San Francisco's Marina District, where it has amassed a permanent collection of over 16,000 art objects. This spectacular collection is unique in the nation and includes Pre-Hispanic, Colonial, Popular, Modern and Contemporary Mexican and Latino, and Chicano Art.

The museum is currently preparing for the completion of our permanent home which will be built in downtown San Francisco's Yerba Buena Arts District. The museum continues to offer educational and public programming throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.