Margery Channing Anneberg (1921–2003) was an American museum founder and museum director, curator, gallerist, goldsmith, and jeweler. She founded the Anneberg Gallery (1966–1981) in San Francisco, considered the first professional contemporary craft gallery; and she co-founded the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum (1983–2012).[1] She was named an honorary fellow by the American Craft Council (ACC) in 1979.[2][3]
Anneberg founded a gallery selling crafts and displaying local artists in 1966, initially named The Jewelry Shop and Gallery on Hyde Street; a year later it was renamed as the Anneberg Gallery.[7] Her gallery also sold international contemporary folk art (such as textiles, masks, baskets, metalwork, and sculptures), with a few pieces of historical folk art.[7][8] It was the first professional gallery for contemporary crafts.[9] The gallery closed in 1981.[9]
Center for Folk Art and Contemporary Crafts
In 1972, Anneberg co-founded the Center for Folk Art and Contemporary Crafts, a nonprofit focused on crafts and folk, which never had a building.[2][9]
Museum of Craft and Folk Art
In October 1983, Anneberg and Gertrud V. Parker co-founded the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum on Balboa Street at 6th Avenue in the inner Richmond District; it occupied a 2,400 square feet (220 m2) building that once housed a psychiatric hospital.[2][10] The museum collection was decommissioned in 1991, with three quarters of the work placed into educational institutions.[10] San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum was later known as the Museum of Craft and Folk Art (MOCFA), and was relocated to Fort Mason Center.[1][11][12] The museum held more than 200 exhibitions, and closed in 2012.[10]
Late life and death
In her later life she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which progressed and forced an early retirement in 1986.[1] She died on May 19, 2003 in a hospital, from complications of multiple sclerosis.[1]