Pier 24 Photography
Pier 24 Photography is a non-profit art museum located on the Port of San Francisco directly under the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The organization houses the permanent collection of the Pilara Foundation, which collects, preserves and exhibits photography. It produces exhibitions, publications, and public programs. Pier 24 Photography is the largest exhibition space in the world dedicated solely to photography. Collection. "Revelations"—the Diane Arbus retrospective organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2003—inspired the purchase of the Pilara Foundation’s first photograph, a portrait from her "Untitled" series. The collection has grown  to over 4,000 works spanning the history of the medium and its international breadth. At the collection’s core are those photographers first exhibited in two seminal twentieth century exhibitions: "New Documents" (1967) at the Museum of Modern Art and "New Topographics" (1975) at George Eastman Museum. In recent years, the Foundation has collected more emerging photographers in depth, developing holdings that reflect evolving practices within the medium. Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program. The Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program is a collaboration between Pier 24 Photography, California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art created  in honor of the influential Bay Area photographer and educator, Larry Sultan. Each year, the program brings six international artists to San Francisco. During their visits, artists provide a free lecture open to the public. They also work with graduate students at California College of the Arts, mentoring them in the studio and taking them on citywide fieldtrips. Larry Sultan Photography Award. In 2016, Pier 24 Photography in partnership with California College of the Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art launched the Larry Sultan Photography Award. The award includes a six- to ten -week residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, and a $10,000 cash award. The building. Located just south of the Ferry Building on the Port of San Francisco, Pier 24 Photography is housed in the Pier 24 annex. Originally designed to connect Piers 24 and Pier 26, the Pier 24 annex was originally built to be a 28,000 square foot cargo shed for truck side loading. Pier 24 was constructed between 1912 and 1916, and the annex followed in 1935-36. Several businesses were housed in Pier 24 annex over the twentieth century, including Nelson  Steamship Company, American-Hawaiian Steamship Company and Williams, Diamond & Company. The principal cargo stored by these companies included sugar, copra, vanilla, whale oil, and hides. Pier 24 was demolished after its transit shed and bulkhead caught fire in 1997. While the last remnants of Pier 24’s substructure were fully demolished in 2004, the Pier 24 annex remained intact. The building is rented from the Port of San Francisco, which until 2017 granted the museum rent credits in exchange for repairs and improvements; these expired with the end of the lease term in 2017, and since the museum refused to  pay the increased rent, in December 2019 the port served the foundation with notice that it must vacate the building and may be sued for underpayment of rent during the two years since the lease expired.