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San Diego Museum of Art

The inspiration for a permanent public art gallery in San Diego can be traced to the Panama-California International Exposition, held in Balboa Park during 1915-1916. The Exposition, which was organized to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and to promote San Diego as a seaport, also showcased San Diego as a growing cultural center. Among its numerous displays representing various industries and products was a prominent exhibition of fine arts featuring European old masters, American art, and works by California and San Diego artists. The public response to the art exhibition convinced civic leaders and prominent local artists that San Diego needed its own fine arts gallery and collection.

Planning for the new museum began in 1922. The Fine Arts Society formed in 1925 from the merger of the San Diego Art Guild and the Friends of Art to operate the new museum. One of San Diego\’s leading architects, William Templeton Johnson (1877-1950), was inspired by sixteenth-century Spanish Renaissance and borrowed motifs from the Cathedral of Valladolid, Spain, the façade of the University of Salamanca, Spain, and the Hospital de la Santa Cruz in Toledo, Spain. Architectural sculptor Chris Mueller added elements to the facade including life-sized sculptures of Spanish Old Master painters Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán as well as heraldic devices and the coats-of-arms of Spain, the United States, California, and San Diego.

The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego opened on February 28, 1926. The core of the Museum\’s early collection was formed and programs established to foster appreciation of the arts for both children and adults through free artistic demonstrations by local artists and free Sunday lectures given by critics, historians, and artists.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, the Museum sent many of its most important artworks to other art museums in the Midwest for safekeeping. In 1943 the Museum was requisitioned for military use along with the other cultural facilities in Balboa Park. The United States Navy converted the Museum into a hospital housing 423 beds, X-ray facilities, and a surgical suite. Suddenly homeless, the Museum was fortunate to find temporary quarters in a mansion generously donated by trustees, Frank and May Marcy. Located on Sunset Boulevard in Mission Hills, this large residence was converted into a gallery until 1947 when the Navy relinquished control in Balboa Park and the Fine Arts Society was able to resume normal operations.

The Museum underwent an important period of expansion, in terms of both its collections and gallery space, under directors Warren Beach, who served as director from 1955 until 1969, and Henry Gardiner, who served as director from 1969 until 1979. The completion in 1966 of the west wing doubled the space of Bridges\’ original structure, and coincided with the receipt of major donations of works of art by Mr. and Mrs. Norton Walbridge, Earle W. Grant, and Pliny F. Munger in the late 1960s and 1970s. In addition to augmenting an already significant collection of old masters, these gifts rounded out the Museum\’s holdings in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European art, American art, and large scale sculpture, which filled the newly built May S. Marcy Sculpture Court. Additional gallery space was added with the completion of the Gildred-Parker-Grant (east) wing in 1974.

In 1978, Trustees changed the name of the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego to The San Diego Museum of Art in recognition of the Museum\’s status as a repository for applied and decorative arts in addition to the fine arts of painting and sculpture. During the following two decades, the Museum became the beneficiary of three remarkable donations of art: a collection of English and French works of art from Ambassador Maxwell Gluck and his wife in 1985; a collection of prints, posters, and paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec given by the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation in 1988; and the 1,453-piece collection of Indian and South Asian art given by Edwin Binney 3rd in 1990.

Entering the new century under the directorship of Dr. Don Bacigalupi, who served from 1999 until 2003, the Museum expanded and improved. In 2000, the Museum Art School moved into new facilities –, including studio, classroom, and offices – in the rebuilt House of Hospitality. While celebrating its 75th anniversary in early 2001, the Museum unveiled the fruits of extensive conservation work that brought the Museum\’s John M. and Sally B. Thornton Rotundaback to the original brilliance of its debut in 1926. And visitor-friendly renovations were completed in The Museum Store, galleries, May S. Marcy Sculpture Garden, and James S. Copley Auditorium.

Dr. Derrick Cartwright, Museum director from 2004 until 2009, oversaw further improvements in the physical plant and programs of the Museum, including expansion of the Museum\’s outreach efforts into the community, its bilingual initiatives, and publications program. In 2008 the long-awaited restoration of the building\’s façade was finally completed. The following year, a significant collection of African, Oceanic and Native American artworks was transferred to the Museum from the Sana Art Foundation, along with more than a thousand books, periodicals, and catalogs.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user gliuoo https://flic.kr/p/64WRzw CC BY-ND 2.0

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Location

1450 El Prado
San Diego, California
United States

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