SF Cartoon Art Museum closes weeks after former curator’s arrest

A longtime San Francisco museum has abruptly closed after citing a slow, difficult recovery from the pandemic, opting not to renew its lease. 

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The Cartoon Art Museum, located in Fisherman’s Wharf, officially closed on Sunday, saying the closure may not be permanent but it will give the organization time to determine its next move. 

“So while our lease may be ending, our story will continue,” museum staff said in a Friday news release announcing the closure. 

Summerlea Kashar, the museum’s executive director, said the museum faced “significant challenges” after moving to its most recent location in 2016 on Beach Street in an 8,000-square-foot, historic brick building near Ghirardelli Square. Before the move, the museum was displaced from its longtime home at 655 Mission St. after the building’s rent doubled, SFGATE previously reported.

Museum staff also decided to close its doors because of the “slow recovery” from the pandemic, according to the news release. 

“After navigating the pandemic and the difficult recovery that followed, it is time to close this chapter,” Summerlea Kashar, the museum’s executive director said in the release. “We are not disappearing. We will take this time to recharge, reset and consider what comes next. We hope our community will continue to follow and support us as those plans take shape.”

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The museum has been open for 42 years and the most recent location had more than 80,000 visitors, including school tours and cartooning classes, staff said in the news release. The gallery’s permanent collection includes about 9,000 original works, ranging from comic books and comic strips to magazine cartoons and concept sketches, according to the museum’s website.

The closure also comes after a curator was arrested in June after he was accused of secretly filming people in his bathroom while hosting a birthday party. The curator, Andrew Farago, is also an author and historian, but he is no longer employed by the museum. 

Kashar previously told SFGATE that when the “situation became known” to museum staff, Farago was placed on administrative leave and eventually fired. Kashar did not respond to SFGATE’s questions on Monday about the museum’s closure.