San Diego Vacation - Balboa Park Museums

Plaza De Panama

Time to wander around and learn something new and grow personally and spiritually!  Balboa Park has 16 museums and a Botanical Garden, 10 stand alone major gardens, renowned performing arts venues, and the world famous San Diego Zoo.  The 1200 acres also includes unique shopping and dining experiences.  This week I'm just an 8-minute taxi ride away from it all!  I purchased a week's pass for $55 that gets me into all of the museums, botanical gardens, and movies.  There are a few things that cost extra but not much.  I didn't need to pay anymore.  This post will include nine of the 16 museums which I enjoyed thoroughly and you can click on the highlighted links to learn more and/or see what's going on at the time you may be visiting.

I started out at The San Diego Museum of Man which includes the famous California Tower.  At this time, it features Beer History, Cannibals: Myth & Reality, and an Egyptian area with real mummies.  I especially liked the Ancient Maya History displays.  Also of interest was an exhibit about Race and many ways to look at it now and throughout history.  Balboa Park's California Tower offers a magnificent 360-degree panorama of the ocean, the mountains, Mexico, the harbor, and the zoo.  The Tower Tour costs extra.

San Diego Museum of Man

The Spanish Colonial architecture provided beautiful wide covered walkways and open areas for a variety of activities including musicians and art displays as well as vendors.  The streets are blocked off from vehicle traffic and has specific areas for trolleys, buses, and taxis.  Parking lots are a short walking distance.

Many of the museums are along the covered walkways with some having upper and lower levels in addition to the main street level floor.

 Next I went to the San Diego Art Institute which is a new curated, themed, or juired exhibition by local contemporary artists every 4-6 weeks.  I was not impressed by this week's major exhibit which had a display of costumes which were nothing but nude-colored material and men and women's cloth body parts sewn on in exaggerated ways.  These costumes were shown on real people in movies displayed.  I didn't get it...something about a not-so-nude nudest colony.  Moving on...


Then I came upon the Mingei International Museum.  Interesting folk art, crafts, and design from all areas and cultures; lots of Japanese toys, dolls, and treasures at this time and some African beads.

As I walked by the Visitor's Center, I noticed it would be a good place to stop and shop.  Next door was one large building that had three museums I wanted to see - Model Railroads, Photographic Arts, and the History Center.

With 27,000+ square feet, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum is one of the largest indoor model railroad displays in the U.S.  I spent a long time here as it had so many different detailed displays.  Some of the areas had old photos underneath that showed the area of San Diego it was replicating and usually from decades ago!  It was awesome!

The Museum of Photographic Arts is a state-of-the-art museum devoted to photographic film and video art.  Last month was about Photography and The National Parks and this month was about The Animal in Photography with a Beauty and The Beast highlight.  I really enjoyed this one!

San Diego History Center tells the diverse story of the region from the past, the present, and the future.  I highly recommend the movie shown there which looks back on what happened to San Diego after the 1915 Expo that put San Diego on the world map.  Very interesting!

Next was the Timken Museum of Art which has world-class European Old Master paintings, American paintings, and Russian icons.  It is considered one of the great small museums in the world.  Artist represented include Rembrandt, Rubens, Fragonard, Bierstadt, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, John Singleton Copley, and Eastman Johnson.  I enjoyed this a lot and felt like I was visiting the birthplace of many of my parochial grade school's Holy Cards!  I could only be reverent.

Madonna and Child with Saint Elizabeth, the infant saint John, and Saint Catherine by Paolo Calliari, called Veronese (1528-1588)

Christ on the Cross by Bartolome Esteban Marillo (1618-1682)

Our Lady of Jerusalem, Moscow (17th Century)

Orthodox Iconostasis - St. Peter, The Archangel Michael, The Virgin Mary, Christ the All Ruler, St. John the Baptist, The Archangel Gabriel, St. Paul, Holy Door (The Royal Gates) by Novgorod (15th Century)

San Diego Museum of Art

Plaza De Panama Fountain between the Museum of Man and in front of the Museum of Art

Inside the Museum of Art

The San Diego Museum of Art is the largest building in Balboa Park as far as I could tell and it is the county's largest and most visited art museum.  The permanent collection features European Old Masters, Asian art, American art, and Modern and Contemporary painting and sculpture.  

Some of my favorites on the second floor were Devotional European Art (1300-1800) which was an even bigger Hall of Giant Parochial School Holy Cards and Spanish Family Portraits (1500-1850). Then there were European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection which included Dutch & Netherlands Naturalism (1600+) with lots of landscapes, fruit, and flowers.  Then some Bourgeois Elite Catholic Church stuff.  In another room on the second floor was some interesting German/Austrian Expressionism from the early 1900's which included some erotica...all on the same floor!

The main floor had some large areas closed which was disappointing.  I spent a lot of time in the East Asian Art which had a Hall of Harmony and a huge Budda room.  The Quilts and Color display was here temporarily from Boston and I liked that a lot and it covered a large area to view.  Other areas some limited interest were the Brush and Ink Chinese Paintings and some Bronze Animal Sculptures.

So here's some of the ones I found interesting:

This was the erotica by Georg Tappert (1911).  It was titled "Betty." 

My favorite was The Young Shepherdess by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1885)

The most fun of all was the San Diego Natural History Museum and I saved that for last!   It is called theNAT and is a flagship institution in Balboa Park featuring the regional natural history and unique biodiversity of southern California and Baja California.  There are five floors of exhibitions and a 3D theater.  I saw all three movies presented which included Ocean Oasis, A Reef Reborn 3D, and Whales 3D all in about two hours.  The movies change so check the link for up-to-date schedules.  I cannot begin to summarize all that theNAT has to offer which also includes outdoor programs like blue whale watching!  This is a place that photos cannot capture well enough as it is all about the experience which includes fossil mysteries, all about water in California,  200 weird skulls, bird art photography, history of Citizen Science, the works of many nature photographers, and so many children activities!  Put this place on the top of your list!

The other seven museums I didn't see because they either didn't interest me or I didn't want to take the time this trip were:

Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
Automotive Museum
Hall of Champions (sports)
WorldBeat Center
Centro Cultural de la Raza
Air & Space Museum
Veterans Museum

My next post will feature the Botanical Building and eight of the ten garden areas in Balboa Park.