SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA–SFGate’s Sam Whiting reports that Gordon Knox has been named the new president of the San Francisco Art Institute. The Knox appointment follows a yearlong search by SFAI’s board for a replacement for Charles Desmarais who left the Institute in 2015 to become the San Francisco Chronicle’s art critic. Knox was most recently the director of the Arizona State University Art Museum and has previously held positions at other Bay Area art and education organizations including the Montalvo Arts Center and the Stanford Humanities Lab. Knox’s tenure begins January 23.
SFAI was founded in 1871 and is one of two schools in the country that hosts exclusively fine arts degree programs. In fall 2017, the Institute expects to open a permanent home for its graduate school in the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, a decommissioned United States Army post in the Marina District. Following years of robust enrollment, the student population at SFAI has dropped from 700 to approximately 600 students between its undergraduate and graduate divisions. Knox said his mission for the school is “to rejuvenate student, faculty and staff culture around the core values of fearless disruptive thinking and sublime communication.”