Walker Art Center

NEAL BENEZRA is not a showman. But as museum directors nationwide face plummeting endowments and potentially crippling budget cuts, Mr. Benezra’s even-keeled approach and penchant for collaboration in his stewardship of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art may be a blueprint for how to endure the financial uncertainty.

Some 150 yoga fanatics, mats in hand, gathered in the second-floor atrium of the Museum of Modern Art one recent Saturday morning. They were there to “Put the oM in MoMA,” as the invitation read.