A month or so before the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego opened its doors on Feb. 28, 1926, inaugural director Reginald Poland arrived in town with a trove of precious international artworks to fill the new Balboa Park building’s galleries.
Among the works donated and lent by galleries and private collectors for the opening exhibition were a 12th-century illuminated manuscript from Spain, an El Greco, a Velasquez, a Murrillo, some French Impressionist works and the local Spreckels family’s collection of 104 bronze sculptures by Arthur Putnam. There was also the museum’s most prized possession, its first acquisition, Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla’s 1907 oil painting “Maria at La Granja.”
San Diego Evening Tribune visual art columnist Hazel Boyer Braun wrote in her Feb. 1, 1926, column that the opening of such a grand new arts institution in Southern California had triggered such a frenzy of generosity, it created “a wave of happiness which ends only in infinity.”
Construction under way in 1925 on the facade of the Fine Arts Gallery in Balboa Park. The building was renamed the San Diego Museum of Art in 1978. (SDMA Archives)
A century of art
The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego — which was renamed the San Diego Museum of Art in 1978 — celebrates its 100th birthday next month.
After starting out with a mix of mostly borrowed and donated items a century ago, the museum today boasts a world-renowned collection of more than 39,000 items, including many Spanish Old Masters and significant numbers of French, Indian, Asian and American works. Annual attendance now tops 550,000, about five times its visitor numbers in 2010.
San Diego Museum of Art 100-year timeline
To mark the diamond anniversary this year, the museum’s staff is dedicating its galleries to exhibitions that celebrate its past, present and future.
Four exhibits scheduled from this month through September will showcase the history of the museum and important works in its collection. And an ongoing exhibit will give visitors a taste of what’s to come.
Since 2023, the museum has been working toward building a new and larger west wing to replace the small and outdated wing that opened in 1966. This year, full details on the construction project’s capital campaign will be announced, with a goal of breaking ground on construction in the second half of 2027.
The new west wing, being designed by the internationally renowned architecture firm Foster + Partners, would double the museum’s existing gallery space, introduce state-of-the-art storage vaults for its collection and enhance the visitor experience with more restaurants, a new theater, digital art galleries and much more.
San Diego Museum of Art Executive Director and CEO Roxana Velasquez.
Roxana Velásquez, who has served as the museum’s Executive Director and CEO since 2010, said that while the museum has transformed over the years its mission has always remained the same.
“One hundred years is a great moment to look back into the past and see what have we have accomplished, how we have served the community and how the museum has played an important part in our city,” Velásquez said. “The museum has always brought the best art produced around the world to the people, allowing them to be exposed and ignited by this wonderful work.”
“Our centennial is not just a reflection on our remarkable history, but a bold declaration of our future. We are celebrating with world-class exhibitions and inclusive initiatives to ensure art remains accessible to everyone in San Diego.”
To mark the 100th anniversary, a public birthday party wil take place on Feb. 28 with free admission, live entertainment and more.
Today and tomorrow
San Diego Museum of Art is best known for its Spanish Old Masters collection, but over the decades, donations of large collections of French, East Asian and South Asian art have deepened its vast catalog. And when the museum merged in 2023 with the Museum of Photographic Arts, more than 10,000 photographic images joined the collection.
Velásquez, who came to San Diego in 2010 after running three prestigious museums in Mexico City, said her goal in San Diego has been to deepen and fill in the gaps of the existing collection. Not including the MOPA collection, she has acquired more than 6,000 pieces for the collection over the past 15 years.
“I’ve devoted lot of my tenure building strength in our collections by acquiring Old Masters at the highest level possible,” she said. “It’s not about budget, it’s about finding the perfect piece.”
Among the most high-profile deals she secured were the 2021 acquisition of Jusepe de Ribera’s 1615 work “Susanna and the Elders,” and the 2018 acquisitions of Lucas Cranach the Younger’s 1540 “The Nymph of Spring” and John Singer Sargent’s 1892 “Portrait of John Alfred Parsons Millet.”
Velásquez has also overseen the growth of the museum’s touring art program, which has sent both individual artworks and complete exhibitions out into the world. The museum’s 2023 exhibit of works by Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore has traveled to four other museums in the U.S. and Canada, and in 2025, pieces from the museums collection were shown in Tokyo, Kyoto and Seoul.
San Diego Ballet dancers Jessica Conniff and Marshall Whiteley in front of the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. The dance company is in the midst of a one-year residency at the museum. (Patricia Martinez)
Velásquez has also been at work expanding community outreach and deepening the museum’s ties to San Diego’s performing arts community. San Diego Ballet is in the midst of a one-year residency at the museum, and the museum regularly hosts concerts and other performances.
“We don’t want to be just a museum of paintings and engravings,” she said. “We want to be a space for performing arts.”
Another outreach program is the MySDMA Partnership with San Diego Public Library, which was launched in October. This art and literacy program at the library’s City Heights branch provides weekly, free hands-on art-making activities based on the museum’s collection.
An artist’s rendering of Foster + Partners’ design concept for the San Diego Museum of Art’s new west Wing (at center left). (Foster + Partners)
The new west wing
As the museum’s collection and programs expand, it increasingly outgrows its buildings. Velásquez said there’s only enough gallery space now to exhibit 10% to 12% of its collection. That’s why the new west wing project is moving front and center in the museum’s priorities moving forward.
Velásquez said the museum’s fundraising project for the new wing is on track with more than 25 percent of its goal already raised. Soon, the museum hopes to announce the project’s lead naming donor.
The proposed design of the new wing will maintain roughly the same height profile as the other museums along El Prado and will have shaded loggias wrapping around its two-story exterior, with two additional stories of gallery and archive space below ground — doubling the museum’s exhibition space.
The design will retain the outdoor sculpture garden, but the garden would include a new free-to-all arts education center and reading room, and the tall steel fencing that now separates the garden from the public along El Prado and near the Old Globe theater campus would be removed.
The new wing would also include new dining options at different price points including a grab-and-go market and a more upscale rooftop restaurant that will overlook the park. The existing patio restaurant/bar Panama 66 will carry on in the new west wing plans. The museum is also hoping to enhance the empty courtyard in front of the main building with a water feature and trees.
An ongoing exhibit of Foster + Partners’ renderings and models for the new wing have been warmly received by museum visitors.
“We hear nothing but excitement,” Velásquez said.
Here is a deeper look at this year’s exhibitions and how they will help tell the museum’s past and future.
A Fabergé Egg balloon is grounded in front of the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park to promote its 1989 exhibition “Fabergé: The Imperial Eggs.” (SDMA Archives)
SDMA 100 Years — January 24 through July 26
This exhibition of photographs, ephemera and historical film footage will highlight the key moments in the history of the museum. This includes how the museum started as an idea in 1915-16, its construction and opening in 1926, its conversion into a hospital during World War II, its modernization with a new west wing in the 1960s and ’70s, blockbuster exhibits in the 1980s and ’90s and plans for the future west wing. Museum visitors will be invited to share their own personal memories and photographs from the museum’s past. Galleries 14 and 15, Mrs. Thomas J. Fleming Sr. Foyer.
Local Visions: Reimagining the facade — January 24 through July 26
Bridging the past and present, this exhibit offered 10 local artists the opportunity to reimagine the museum’s Spanish Colonial Revival facade from their own contemporary perspective. Featured artists will include San Diego artists Stefanie Bales, Hilary Dufour, Annie Holley, Mary Jhun, Lori Mitchell, Tim Novara and Susan Stone; Chula Vista artists John Chang and Wagner Humphreys; and Jamul artist Brandon Palma. Gallery 6, first floor.
“Moulin Rouge — La Goulue, 1891,” a lithograph poster on paper by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was donated to the San Diego Museum of Art in 1987 by the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation. It will be part of “Cafés and Cabarets: The Spectacular Art of Toulouse-Lautrec,” showing at the museum April 4-Sept. 20, 2026.
“Cafes and Cabarets: The Spectacular Art of Toulouse-Lautrec” — April 4 through June 20
This exhibit will showcase one of the museum’s most prized collections.In 1987, the Baldwin Foundation donated more than 100 paintings, drawings and prints from the collection of Baldwin M. Baldwin, a Toulouse-Lautrec connoisseur whose holdings of the artist’s work were among the most comprehensive in the world and which were first shown at The San Diego Museum of Art in 1972. Fifty items from this collection will be exhibited in the “Cafes and Cabarets” show. Gallery 18, second floor.
Forging a Legacy: 15 Years of Landmark Acquisitions — May 16 though Sept. 7
This exhibit will showcase some of the museum’s major acquisitions since Velásquez arrived. Among the museum’s most prominent recent purchases were the 2021 purchase of Jusepe de Ribera’s 1615 work “Susanna and the Elders.”
An early concept proposal for the San Diego Museum of Art’s new west wing, which will be built in 2026. This perspective faces west, with a new museum entrance where Panama 66 restaurant now stands. (Foster + Partners for SDMA)
A New Vision for the Next Century – Ongoing
This exhibition, which opened last August, features design concepts for the museum’s new west wing project, designed by London’s Foster + Partners. The exhibit includes artist’s renderings and large-scale models of the project. Gallery 11, first floor.
San Diego Museum of Art Birthday Fest
What: To celebrate the museum’s centennial, admission will be free all day, followed by hands-on art crafts, live entertainment and a booth fair on museum’s front steps (from 4:30-7 p.m.).
When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 28
Where: San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego (also 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at MOPA@SDMA)
Admission: Free
Phone: 619-232-7931
Online: sdmart.org/event/birthday-fest