About Us
FLAX art & design, San Francisco’s oldest and well-loved retail art supply store, has been serving the creative community in the Bay Area for 72 years. Centrally located on Market Street in SF, the store holds 20,000 square feet of art supplies — brushes, paints, canvases, thousands of different papers, stationery, fine pens, frames, albums, journals, kids stuff and gifts — a veritable treasure-trove of arts and crafts materials and products.
A family-owned business headed by its CEO Howard Flax, who represents the third generation along with his sister Leslie Flax Abel, FLAX has a long history supporting artists and the Bay Area arts community.
Origin
In the Great Depression, Herman and Sylvia Flax lost virtually everything. Inspired by the success of Herman’s brother Sam in New York, who got his start selling art supplies out of the trunk of his car to vacationers in the Catskill Mountains, Herman took his family west from New Jersey and in 1938 with $100, opened a small art supply store in downtown San Francisco. Initially the family lived in the store’s backroom, but soon they rented an apartment and converted the free space into a custom framing department. Flax’s Artist Materials was born and soon rose to success, buoyed by the artists’ movement that grew during WWII. Herman’s other two brothers also established independent, successful art supply outlets in Los Angeles and Chicago, and the Flax art supply presence spread to Phoenix, Orlando and Atlanta. In 1954, Herman passed away at an early age, and upon returning from military service, Herman and Sylvia’s youngest son Philip took over the San Francisco business alongside his brother Jerry.
History
The SF-based Flax brothers grew close to their customers, becoming well-known for their generous support of struggling artists and the Bay Area arts scene. Their retail store soon drew nationwide attention for its incredible breadth of products (over 35,000 items), its helpful and knowledgeable staff, and its ability to inspire creativity through inventive presentation of merchandise.
In 1981, having outgrown the confines of the downtown location, Flax moved up the street to 1699 Market Street, right next to the historic trolley line. The warehouse behind this new retail store afforded enough space to venture into the mail-order catalog business. Then, in 1989, the catalog a success, Flax Artist’s Materials became FLAX art & design, a different name to reflect its broader, more diverse products, and moved its distribution and customer service centers ten miles south to Brisbane. A bustling e-commerce website soon followed.
Today
FLAX has become an icon of creative inspiration and a San Francisco institution; the store is visited regularly by residents and tourists alike. Whether a serious art student, established professional, or weekend dabbler, at FLAX you can awaken your inner Picasso with tools, supplies and gifts for whatever your artistic passion — painting, drawing, silk screening, sculpting, carving, calligraphy — at whatever your age or level. As one pleased customer said, “FLAX is a candy store for the creative.” We invite you to come in and let your imagination soar.
Timeline
1938 – Flax store opens at 437 Kearny St. (now the driveway of St. Mary’s Square garage).
1951 – Store moves to 255 Kearny at Bush (after being bought out of the lease at 437 Kearny by the developers who built the St. Mary’s Square garage).
1952 – Herman Flax passes away. His sons, Philip and Jerry, lead the business.
1956 – Flax Framing opens, a small custom frame shop on the same block as 255 Kearny.
1958 – Flax trivia: Kim Novac visits Flax in the shooting of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The back door of the frame shop provides the lead in for the scene in the Podesta Baldocchi flower shop.
1959 – Philip Flax opens “Philips”, a fine art store at 121 O’Farrell. At this time the other Flax store catered mostly to commercial art needs.
1966 – Flax store and Flax Framing move to 250 Sutter Street.
1968 – Philips closes, as the Sutter Street store has the space to accommodate both commercial and fine artists.
1977 – Another Flax location opens at 1699 Market. Initial intent was for this location to serve commercial accounts only.
1979 – Flax opens a store in Sunnyvale, CA, Flax Discount Art Supplies (closed in 1990).
1981 – Sutter St. closes after remodeling of the Market St. store expands the selling space.
1984 – Flax begins distributing a mail-order catalog across the country.
1998 – Flax launches an e-commerce site.
2007 – Flax discontinues mail-order and e-commerce sales channels.
2010 – The third generation takes the reigns of the company.
