Permanent and rotating exhibitions of classical and contemporary works spanning centuries and cultures, with a focus on European, Asian, and American art.

How to Get There

Take I-5 S to CA-163 N, exit at Park Blvd, turn left onto El Prado, and follow signs to the museum located in Balboa Park.

Overview

The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926, and changed its name to the San Diego Museum of Art in 1978.

Structure

The museum building was designed in a plateresque style to harmonize with existing structures from the Panama-California Exposition of 1915. The dominant feature of the façade is a heavily ornamented door inspired by a doorway at the University of Salamanca. The Cathedral of Valladolid also influenced the museum's exterior design, and the architects derived interior motifs from the Santa Cruz Hospital of Toledo, Spain. The original construction took two years. Sponsor Appleton S. Bridges donated the building to the City of San Diego upon its completion. In 1966 the museum added a west wing and a sculpture court which doubled its size, and an east wing in 1974 further increased its exhibition space.

Collections

The Museum's collections contains pieces ranging in date from 5000 BC to 2012 AD. The museum's strength is in Spanish works by Murillo, Zurbarán, Cotán, Ribera and El Greco. In 2012, the Museum of Art received 48 German Expressionist paintings, drawings and prints from a range of artists, including Otto Dix, Egon Schiele, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter and Gustav Klimt from the collection of Vance E. Kondon and his wife Elisabeth Giesberger. The museum houses works by Italian masters Giorgione, Giambattista Pittoni, Giotto, Veronese, Luini and Canaletto. Works by Rubens, Hals and van Dyck represent the Northern European School.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "San Diego Museum of Art", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0