The OBE-awarded sculptor and creator of site-specific land art in the Presidio and de Young museum was honored by the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums
Words by CATHERINE BIGELOW
Photography by DREW ALTIZER
The “Do Not Touch” rule was briefly suspended on Thursday, April 16, at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Gala and Late Night after-party, when British landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy posed for a photo atop his site-specific work, Drawn Stone (2005), which crowns the courtyard of the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.
That artwork’s deliberate paving stone crack — an homage to the tectonic energy of California topography, stretching from the sidewalk to the museum’s entry doors — led 460 guests into a sold-out soirée, which benefited the exhibition and community programming at the de Young and Legion of Honor museums with a record-breaking $2.38 million.
Led by gala cochairs CoFAM trustee Lisa Zanze and her husband, Jim Zanze, the elegant, two-tiered fete also lauded the stalwart efforts of arts philanthropists Cynthia Fry Gunn and John Gunn, the former chairman of the San Francisco Opera Board. The couple’s decades-long beneficence also supports numerous FAM exhibitions and the Legion’s jewel-box theater.
“We are proud to be part of such a dynamic and creative arts community, and to share the power of art with the Bay Area,” toasted FAM director Thomas Campbell. “In 2025, more than 250,000 people visited the de Young and the Legion of Honor, and this extraordinary visitor response made the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco the seventh most-visited museum in the United States.”
Among this spring-clad glam squad: FAM board of trustees chair emerita Dede Wilsey; SF Mayor Daniel Lurie and First Lady Becca Prowda; Goldsworthy’s SF gallerist Cheryl Haines; Fisher family members, including Sako and Bill Fisher, Randi and Bob Fisher; designer and CoFAM trustee Stanlee Gatti; arts patrons Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang; artists, including Michael Jang, Clare Rojas, Catherine Wagner, and Chelsea Ryoko Wong. Grammy-winning opera composer Mason Bates dazzled late-night VIPs in Hamon Tower (where dazzling skyline views framed an exclusive Vita Brevis Club performance) with his DJ Masonic grooves.
“San Francisco, more than any other city, has fashioned me as an artist. It has been a privilege to have been part of its creative energy — an energy that is so important to its spirit and soul.”
Andy Goldsworthy
The evening commenced in Wilsey Court with cocktails and canapés as guests also gallery-gamboled among the swoon-worthy Monet and Venice exhibition (on view through July 26). Designer J. Riccardo Benavides set a scene that paid homage to both the Rose B. Simpson LEXICON “road warrior” installation in Wilsey Court — and beneath a clear tent set on the museum’s outdoor patio, he and Lisa Zanze channeled the decorous vision of a turn-of-the-last century Venetian salon infused with pale pink florals and sumptuous table-settings.
Those gilded tables groaned beneath a delectable McCalls Catering and Events three-course dinner, including a chocolate mousse and poached pear dessert that was accompanied by a Shinji Eshima–composed world premiere piece, Goldsworthy to Monet, commissioned for the event.
Earlier, Mayor Lurie praised the Fine Arts Museums’ vibrancy, declaring that this rich vein of culture is driving the City’s post-pandemic recovery. That enthusiasm was evidenced as 1,200 more, next-gen supporters lined up for the After-Party, reveling among craft cocktails, gourmet bites, photo ops, and rollicking DJ sets.
While those late-night guests were adorned in an array of sequins and silver go-go boots, Goldsworthy, an OBE-decorated artist, is more attuned to roaming misty fields dressed in wellies and an anorak. He was heartfelt, however, in his gratitude to local patrons and the city of San Francisco, which is home to the largest collection of his ephemeral installations in North America, most especially in The Presidio.
“San Francisco, more than any other city, has fashioned me as an artist. It has been a privilege to have been part of its creative energy — an energy that is so important to its spirit and soul,” Goldsworthy said. “[But] commissioning a work by me is not for the faint-hearted. It requires a leap of faith — a step into the unknown.” famsf.org.
Feature image: The After-Party in Wilsey Court is in full swing during the FAM Gala at the de Young Museum.
April 30, 2026
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