Muni/bart Public Transportation Discount
Receive a $2 discount with proof of purchase from any Bay Area public transportation system, including BART, Muni, Caltrain, and more. This discount is available in person at the time of purchase only, does not apply to internet sales or previously purchased tickets, and cannot be combined with other offers.
- This offer applies to general admission for permanent collection galleries and to special exhibitions.
- Discount may be redeemed by presenting a proof of purchase from any Bay Area public transportation system.
Updated 5/26/21 Event info last checked via deyoung.famsf.org
History Of The De Young Museum San Francisco
The de Young Museum San Francisco originated in 1894. When it opened, they called it the Memorial Museum . It was built for the California Midwinter International Exposition as a temporary structure to house fine arts for the expo with no plans to turn it into a permanent museum.
During the expo, this museum was into a huge success. It was free to enter and thousands enjoyed its art. This allowed the museum to continue long after the expo.
Their first issue arose about eleven years later when it was severely damaged by the 1906 earthquake. It closed for 18 months as they worked to fix all of the damage.
As the museum grew, they planned out and built a larger structure to house more of the museum’s collection. They finished this building in 1919. They added on a few other wings to the building as it grew and renamed it the M. H. De Young Memorial Museum to honor Michael de Young, who was a key contributor to building out this fantastic museum.
Over the years, part of the building was torn down due to age and the impact of the salts from the Pacific Ocean that were eating away at the structure.
The building was once again damaged by a major earthquake in 1989. This one was the Loma Prieta earthquake that struck in October of that year. While they worked to try to come up with solutions to help sustain this structure , they eventually decided they needed to rebuild a new museum.
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De Young Museum Tickets Prices Free Days Hamon Tower
De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park is one of the largest public arts institutions in San Francisco.
The San Francisco museum gets its name from Michael H. de Young, who spearheaded the creation of the fine arts destination in 1895.
The museum is home to painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, from Africa, the Americas, and Oceania.
Besides costume and textile arts, visitors also get to explore international modern and contemporary art.
In this article, we share everything you must know before booking your De Young Museum tickets.
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Free Admission At The Deyoung Museum
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Parking For The Museum
Parking can usually be found on JFK Drive within reasonable walking distance from the museum. On busy days , parking is trickier. You’ll have to park farther away on JFK or MLK Drives, or try the parking spots around Stow Lake nearby. Outside the park is much tougher.
This section of JFK Drive is closed to cars on Sundays, and is also closed on Saturdays in the summer .
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Free + Reduced Admission
The de Young offers several programs for free or reduced admission to permanent galleries and special exhibitions. Details on these programs are outlined below.
Learn about the extra precautions to welcome you back. We will require timed tickets for every visitor, including general admission and admission to special exhibitions. To ensure your preferred time slot, please reserve your entry date and time in advance online.
Tourist Attraction Discount Passes
If you’re going to visit more than one museum or attraction in San Francisco, purchasing an attraction discount pass could help you save money and time on entrance fees.
Visitors who want to see it all in a short amount of time could get the best value out of an all-inclusive pass, which includes admission to dozens of popular attractions and activities over a specified amount of time.
Here are just a handful of the other notable locations you can visit at no extra cost using one of these services:
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Free Saturdays For Bay Area Residents
Reserve Online and Skip the Line
Every Saturday the de Young offers free general admission to all residents of the nine Bay Area counties. Saturdays feature engaging art experiences for the entire family, including art making, gallery guides, and tours with discussion and sketching in the permanent galleries.
- This offer applies only to the permanent collection galleries.
- Reserve your tickets in advance online. Please be prepared to verify with ID onsite.
- Free admission may be redeemed onsite with a drivers license or postmarked envelope.
- Visitors ages 17 and under always receive free admission to the permanent collection galleries.
- Qualifying counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma
How Long Does It Take To Visit
The de Young Museum San Francisco has an extensive collection of fine art pieces from around the world. If you like to just stroll through, admire the pieces, and not read much about them, then you’ll want to plan for about 2 hours.
If you like to stop and admire the pieces and read some of the descriptions, it will probably take you at least three hours.
Add another 30 minutes to an hour for your visit for each special exhibit you also plan to see.
In total, you could spend anywhere from around 2 to 4 hours at this museum.
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Hotels Near The De Young Museum San Francisco
Here are a few places to stay near this museum.
Geary Parkway Motel: This 2-star motel is just north of Golden Gate Park in the Inner Richmond District. Find out more and check for availability on Booking.com.
The Laurel Inn: This 3-star hotel is just a little further away, but is still pretty close. You’ll find it in the Pacific Heights District. Learn more on Booking.com.
You will also find a large concentration of hotels in Union Square . Here are a few of my recommendations in this district.
Another top option is Fisherman’s Wharf. This is where you will find quite a few hotels as well. It’s about five miles away. Here are some of my recommendations in this district.
Free Saturdays For Bay Area Residentsreserve Online And Skip The Line
Every Saturday the de Young offers free general admission to all residents of the nine Bay Area counties.
- This offer applies only to the permanent collection galleries. Additional fees may apply for special exhibitions.
Discover & Go offers free general admission for California library cardholders.
- This offer applies only to the permanent collection galleries.
- Full-priced admission to special exhibitions still applies.
- Free admission may be redeemed by presenting a Discover & Go voucher at the Ticketing and Membership Desks. Register online to receive a dated Discover & Go voucher prior to visiting pending ticket availability. Due to ongoing precautions related to COVID-19, gallery capacity is limited.
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Highlights For The De Young Museum San Francisco
- Timed ticket holders must enter the building within 90 minutes after the time on their tickets. Timed tickets must also be purchased in advance for special exhibits.
- Please remain 6 feet apart from other museum visitors.
- Follow directional signs to allow for easier social distancing.
- The café is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with seating both indoors and outside. Water fountains are open and a touchless bottle filling station is located on the lower level of the museum
Disclaimer: I receive a small commission from some of the links on this page.
First Thursdays + Free Days At Sfmoma
Thanks to the generosity of our funders, SFMOMA offers regularly scheduled free days and guests 18 and younger always enjoy free admission to the museum. We regularly update this page with upcoming dates and activities, but you can also sign up for our newsletter to be notified when new events, exhibitions, and activities are announced.
First Thursdays at SFMOMA
All residents of the nine Bay Area counties are invited to spend a day at the museum on us! From 18 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month, Bay Area residents can enjoy SFMOMAs galleries filled with lively and inspiring art and related events for free.
Tickets and event details become available about two weeks in advance, and reserving online is highly encouraged. Limit two adult tickets per reservation. Qualifying counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.
Upcoming Dates/Programs
Come celebrate the opening of Acción Latina: The 80s Matter in the Mission, an exhibition paying tribute to the organizers and artists who lived and worked in the Mission District in the 1980s.
First Thursdays SeptemberDecember5:30 p.m.
Every First Thursday from September through December, stop by the Wattis Theater to see a screening of Moving a Masterpiece, which documents the incredible four-year project involved with transporting Diego Riveras largest portable mural, Pan American Unity, from City College of San Francisco to SFMOMA.
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How To Get To De Young Museum
De Young Museum is at Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118. Get Directions
The building is an essential architectural landmark of San Francisco and also offers sweeping views of the city from a fascinating observation deck.
It is better to take public transportation, the weekend Golden Gate Park Shuttle, or walk to the museum.
We recommend the following options, which are within walking distance to the De Young fine arts Museum.
- 44 / OShaughnessy Bus
- 7 Haight/Noriega Bus
- N / Judah Muni Metro
Free Things To See At The De Young
Even if you dont attend on a free day, make sure to head up to the gorgeous glass-walled Hamon Observation Tower which offers stunning 360-degree panoramic views of downtown San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, the Bay, and the Marin headlands.
Also, stroll through the whimsical Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden to see modern works and James Turrels site-specific sculpture Skyspace.
Access to both the Observation Tower and the Sculpture Garden are free to the public. Please note, the Tower Observation Level closes one hour prior to the museums close.
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Visit The Legion Of Honor Art Museum
The sister museum for fine arts in San Francisco, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, also has an incredible collection.
Look there for Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, van Gogh & Rodin, Andy Warhol, and lots more.
With a ticket to the de Young Museum, you can also explore the Legion of Honor for free on the same day, and vice versa
Chase Private Client Arts & Culture
Tickets through the Chase Private Client Arts & Culture program will be available onsite, day-of only, and are subject to availability arrive early for best availability.
- This offer applies only to the permanent collection galleries
- Offer available for cardholder and one guest.
- Free admission may be redeemed by presenting a Chase Private Client Arts & Culture membership card and photo ID.
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Free Saturdays For Locals
Every Saturday, the de Young art museum offers free general admission to all nine Bay Area counties residents.
Locals must reserve tickets in advance and have a valid local ID for verification on the day of the visit.
Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma are the nine qualifying counties.
De Young Museum San Francisco Tickets
These are the admission prices to visit the de Young Museum San Francisco. Your general admission ticket offers you admission to both this museum and the Legion of Honor on the same day.
- Free: Youth and Children
- Free: Hamon Education Tower Observation Deck
They also host several traveling exhibits throughout the year. Most of these require an additional ticket. Prices for these exhibits range from around $10 to $35+ per exhibit.
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Free Admission Day At The De Young Museum San Francisco
The de Young Museum in San Francisco offers a free day once a month. You can visit for free on the first Tuesday of the month. On the free day, you will gain access to their permanent collection of more than 25,000 pieces of art.
For a limited time, they are also offering free admission on the first Saturday of the month for all SF Bay Area residents with a local ID. You must reserve your tickets online and in advance and only applies to the permanent exhibits.
There is a charge on their free day for most of their special exhibits.
Make sure to arrive early as admission is on a first come, first served basis.
Exploring The De Young Museum
Before entering the de Young Museum, there are two main access points to consider. The first comes in the form of the Music Concourse Garage, which holds 400 cars. For the low price of $5 per hour during the week and $6 per hour on the weekends, guests may cross into the museum through a simple tunnel walk from Fulton Street and 10th Avenue. Special event parking after 5:30 p.m. costs a flat rate of $17.
When choosing to park somewhere else, a rather large inviting entrance is situated on Tea Garden Drive. Additional parking is found at the UCSF Medical Center Garage for the cost of $3 per hour, with a maximum fee of $24.
Below you will find a brief explanation of what sort of de Young Museum treasures await your curiosity:
a) Concourse Level: The main entrance of the museum leads to the Concourse Level of the building. Some of the features situated in this region of the de Young include the following collections: Art of the Americas 20th Century and Contemporary Art Piazonni Murals Room and Native American Art. The café is also situated on this level, as well as an entrance to the sculpture garden. Other sections of the museum are positioned here, including an education gallery.
b) Exhibition Level: Located below the Concourse Level is where one will find the main attraction of this floor: the Herbst Special Exhibition Galleries. Entrance to this part of the museum is gained when coming from the underground garage.
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The De Young Sculpture Garden
Before or after you visit the museum, take a stroll outside of the museum.
Not only will this give you an opportunity to admire the buildings unique design and get an up-close view of the copper, but it will also provide you with an added art experience.
Through the various small gardens surrounding the museum, youll see sculptures both old and new, including some of the museums original sphinxes.
More Free Things To Do In San Francisco
In addition to these free museum admission days, here are a few other free things to check out during your stay in San Francisco.
Lombard Street: Have you heard about San Francisco’s famous crooked street? It’s called Lombard Street and it’s a fun place to check out during your visit. You can either walk or drive down this famous street with eight hairpin turns. For those walking, you will find a set of stairs on both sides where you can watch others as they try to maneuver around each turn. Learn more here.
Painted Ladies of Alamo Square: Another fun thing to do in San Francisco is to check out the famous Painted Ladies of Alamo Square. You will find them next to Alamo Square Park. They are six identical historic Victorians with a wonderful view of downtown SF behind them. Learn more about visiting here.
Street Art: One of the cool things about SF is that you will find street art all around town. My guide offers you details on where to find the best pieces and which neighborhoods have the largest concentration. Learn more here.
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Everything You Need To Know About The De Young Museum San Francisco
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Audio Tours At De Young Museum
Visitors who prefer an immersive experience of the Permanent Collections can opt for De Youngs audio tours, which are available for purchase.
Visitors can get the audio tour available in English and Spanish at the entrance for the price of $7 per person.
Or book them online along with your De Young Museum tickets.
The audio tour is customized for both kids and adults and is designed in collaboration with the museums curators.
Visitors must bring their mobiles and headphones.
If you dont plan to spend on the museums audio tours, check out this visitor guide.
De Young in San Francisco offers free entry to qualified visitors on the first Tuesday of the month and all Saturdays.
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