It’s hard to overstate how radically the 1915 Panama-California Exposition catapulted San Diego into the future. The Panama Canal had just opened; the halves of the world were finally connected and the cultural possibilities (and tourism dollars) seemed endless. After passing through the canal on their way to the US, all of those new travelers from the east would land somewhere in the Golden State. The California city that won the right to host the expo would be in the global spotlight.
San Francisco fought tooth and nail to get it. In the end, some iconic San Diego players—including Ulysses S. Grant Jr. (son of the US President) and architect John D. Spreckels—nabbed federal support and brought the show to Balboa Park, making San Diego the smallest city to ever host a world expo.
It altered the city forever. The California Tower was built, as was the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. The San Diego Zoo got its start when Dr. Harry Wegeforth heard a lion roar at the expo’s animal exhibits. And—after 3.7 million visitors wandered the expo’s temporary halls filled with art and curated exhibitions and the exposition was extended from one year to two due to popular demand—cultural leaders knew San Diego couldn’t be a global city without a world-class art house. The project to bring a major museum to life began.
The dream gained momentum over the next decade. Funded largely by husband and wife Appleton and Amelia Bridges (she was heiress of the Timken family; her father made his fortune with the invention of the tapered roller bearing), the city commissioned architect William Templeton Johnson, who also masterminded the La Jolla Public Library (built in 1921) and San Diego Natural History Museum (1932).
Designed in Balboa Park’s ornate Spanish Colonial style, the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego opened its doors on February 28, 1926 at the site of the original Panama-California expo. It’d be another 52 years before it adopted the moniker we know it by today: the San Diego Museum of Art, or SDMA.
The museum celebrates its centennial this month with the exhibition SDMA: 100 Years. The show guides viewers on a chronological journey through its evolution and defining moments—including growth spurts, name changes, and royal visits.
“The guiding idea for the show is how the community co-authored a shared history of the museum and its place in the region’s growing cultural heritage,” explains Lucas Perez, the exhibition’s curator and SDMA’s manager of art & empathy programs, projects, and innovation.
Just one year after the museum’s founding, art created by San Diego children lined the walls—a nearly forgotten chapter that Perez discovered while combing through archives. By bringing these 1927 creations back on view today, the exhibition collapses nearly a century, reconnecting the museum’s earliest voices with the present.
“Digging through archival material felt like treasure hunting,” Perez says. He dove into the Martin Behrman negative collection at the Golden Gate Archives (Behrman was known for documenting California cities in the 1920s), expecting to find general info on Balboa Park. Instead, he uncovered a 1928 photo of the museum’s original façade. “I was elated,” he says. “It was my understanding that a lot of those records were at some time lost.”
After Pearl Harbor in 1941, the museum was converted into a naval hospital. The art was then moved to a Mission Hills mansion in 1943 donated by trustees Frank and May Marcy. Its rooms temporarily became San Diego’s most famous gallery, hosting exhibitions and lectures.
Perez uncovered a striking photograph from this time: nearly 150 nurses in white uniforms gathered in front of the museum. The handwritten caption reads, Just a few of us, perhaps not all? “Finding this was kind of a holy grail for me because there’s quite a gap in the record during that time period,” Perez says. Four years later, war over and hospital beds removed, the Fine Arts Gallery reopened.
The 1978 name change to SDMA reflected the institution’s commitment to going beyond traditional fine arts—painting and sculpture—to applied and decorative arts like ceramics and jewelry. Queen Elizabeth stopped by during her 1983 tour of Balboa Park, signaling the museum’s rising international stature. In the late ’80s, a 48-foot mobile art trailer called The Art Rig carried the collection beyond museum walls and into San Diego classrooms.
Structural renewal followed, with the 2009 restoration of the museum’s Spanish Baroque façade. A 2023 merger with the Museum of Photographic Arts brought 15,000 photographic works into SDMA’s holdings, establishing photography as a core pillar of the institution’s evolving identity.
Roxana Velásquez, SDMA’s CEO for the past 15 years, is charged with balancing historical heft with what comes now and next. She and her team choose new acquisitions—from Spanish Old Masters to Persian, Southeast Asian, and Indian art—to cultivate conversation between the past and the present. The museum’s holdings now encompass more than 32,000 works.
“Our goal is to build a collection that speaks to the world our audiences come from,” Velásquez says.
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And, with SDMA: 100 Years, those audiences can speak back: Visitors will have the chance to contribute to the exhibition by sharing photographs. “Our guiding question for [the exhibition] was, ‘Where is the community in this image?’” Pérez says. The museum now receives more than half a million visitors annually, bringing that community right to SDMA’s door—just as it has been for the last century.
SDMA: 100 Years is on view now through July 26, 2026.
