TIMKEN MUSEUM OF ART
WELCOME Affectionately known as San Diego’s
“jewel box” of fine art,
the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego’s historic Balboa Park is home to the Putnam Foundation’s significant collection of European old masters, 19th century American art and Russian icons. The collection also includes the only Rembrandt painting on public display in San Diego. Considered one of the finest small museums in the world, the Timken Museum of Art, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2015, provides visitors with an accessible and enriching cultural experience featuring a beautiful collection, intimate surroundings and perennially free admission. The museum is open from: Tuesday – Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sundays: 12:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed on Mondays and all major holidays.
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For more information visit: timkenmuseum.org or call (619) 239-5548.
HISTORY Located on the Prado in
San Diego’s beautiful Balboa Park,
the museum displays more than 60 extraordinary artworks, predominantly paintings augmented by a small holding of sculpture and decorative art objects.
In an effort to secure the Putnam Foundation Collection for San Diego, Ames secured financial support from the Ohio-based Timken family of the Timken roller bearing fame to help build a new gallery for San Diego. The institution first opened its doors to the public in October 1965. The institution was named the Timken Art Gallery (now the Timken Museum of Art) because of the very generous contributions the Timken family had made to the cultural life of San Diego. In the years between the Foundation’s establishment and the opening of the museum, the Putnam Foundation Collection paintings remained on loan to institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum. In 1965, the paintings were reunited, and hung in their new permanent quarters at the Timken. The works in the Putnam Foundation Collection are primarily in three distinct areas: European old master paintings, 18th and 19th-century American art, and Russian icons. Each collection boasts unique and priceless representations of the specific genre. Notable works in the collection include Rembrandt’s Saint Bartholomew (the only painting by the Dutch artist on public display in San Diego); Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Parable of the Sower; John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Gage; Eastman Johnson’s classic The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket; and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s View of Volterra. The Timken is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 AM to 4:30 PM, and Sunday from noon to 4:30 PM. The museum is closed Monday. Admission is always free.
ARCHITECTURE The mid-century modern Timken Museum of Art today stands on a prime location in Balboa Park’s Plaza de Panama, the site of an important, but temporary, edifice for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. That structure, the Home Economy Building designed by architect Carleton Winslow, was demolished in 1963. The Timken is arguably the second most important mid-century building in San Diego, after Louis Kahn’s iconic Salk Institute. The Timken is all the more
While the Hope firm established a
significant for being designed by a local
working team for the project, John Mock,
architect.
Hope’s architect in charge of
The groundwork for the museum began in 1951. With the help of longtime friend and lawyer Walter Ames, the sisters Amy and Anne Putnam established the nonprofit Putnam Foundation, under which any art acquired became part of the Putnam Foundation Collection. After Ames secured financial support from the Timken family and its foundation, the firm of Frank L. Hope and Associates, the largest
contemporary design, was responsible for the conception of the building. Mock attended several meetings with Walter Ames and Frank Hope Sr. and Jr. to discuss the main design feature – the ability to embrace Balboa Park from within the building. In contrast to other Balboa Park structures that focused internally on their own exhibits, the light and airy “see-through museum” took shape.
of its kind in the region, was hired to
The symmetry, balance and palette of
design and build a museum to display the
materials (travertine, bronze and glass)
collection in San Diego in perpetuity.
set the stage for an experience unlike any other structure in Balboa Park. Standing
next to a 19th century cast of Giambo-
Johnson’s museums in Utica, New York
logna’s Mercury in the foyer (consciously
(1960), Fort Worth (1961) and Lincoln,
echoing a similar cast in the west building
Neb. (1963).
of Washington’s National Gallery of Art), visitors can enjoy the lily pond to the east and the Plaza de Panama to the west as the sun rises and sets. Garden courts dissect the structure’s middle and blur lines between interior and exterior spaces and engage San Diego’s moderate climate and abundant sunshine.
The firm hired internationally-acclaimed lighting designer Richard Kelly to design the museum’s interior and exterior lighting scheme. Kelly, who was favored by architects such as Kahn, Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, provided a unique skylight program for filtered sun-
light to bathe the masterpieces in a way that was both considerate to the health of the art and consistent during the sun’s daily journey across the sky. During mid-summer there is often no need for artificial lights in the galleries.
When the Timken opened the walls were a color complimenting the travertine floors, with the intention that the neutral tonality of the interior would have disappeared and one’s eye only attracted to the rich colors of the paintings and the gold
frames. Two other points should be remembered when considering the Timken building in the context of Balboa Park. The first is that it continues a trend of building structures of contemporary design in the park. The dominant architectural style in 1915 was revival: on the East Coast Colonial Revival architecture reflected the nation’s 18th century origins; in the Midwest one sees Romanesque Revival; in San Diego it is natural to find Spanish Revival. Twenty years later there was a trend toward modernist designs and the buildings created for the 1935 Exposition,
Hope’s design leader Howard Shaw
such as the Ford Building (now the San
provided the designs for the grill work and
Diego Air and Space Museum) are
bronze fascia scheme on the exterior. He
art deco in form. So the creation of a
also embellished the entry in floral-themed
mid-century modern, International Style,
bronze plates and continued the abstrac-
museum in 1965, especially in Southern
tion to the bronze railings, gates and
California, should come as a logical
grill-work that punctuates the light, airy
progression.
feeling of the Timken’s glazed openings.
The second point is that the Timken was
According to experts, the Timken
the most expensive building erected in San
represents some of the best evidence of
Diego up to that time. The benefactors
1960s modernity by some of the best
were proud that not only was no expense
talent San Diego had to offer. It is a major
spared, but that on completion it was
example of a post-World War II trend to
given to the city for the benefit, pleasure
build contemporary museum buildings to
and inspiration of the citizens of San
display the art of the past, projects that in-
Diego and visitors to the city. The build-
clude Kahn’s museums at Yale University
ing and its contents are available free to
(1953 and 1976) and the Kimbell in Fort
everyone.
Worth (1972), William Pereira’s 1966 Ahmanson Building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Philip
OUR COLLECTION The Timken’s collection spans nearly 600 years of art from early Italian Renaissance devotional paintings to late nineteenth century paintings from the United States and includes important examples of French, Dutch and Flemish paintings in addition to Italian and American. A special feature of the museum is the significant collection of Russian icons, many from the Moscow and Novgorad Schools, ranging from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.
The world-class Putnam Foundation collection of European and American masterpieces is on permanent display at the Timken Museum of Art. Don’t miss San Diego’s only painting by Rembrandt, Saint Bartholomew;
Jacques-Louis David’s revolutionary portrait of the Irishman Cooper Penrose; and a masterpiece by Eastman Johnson, The Cranberry Harvest. The foyer is adorned with Parisian seventeenth century tapestries illustrating the Stories of Queen Artemisia.
AMERICAN
Thomas Birch An American Ship in Distress, 1841 Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 136.5 cm (36 x 53-3/4 in.)
John Singleton Copley Mrs. Thomas Gage, 1771 Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.6 cm (50 x 40 in.)
DUTCH & FLEMISH
Anthony van Dyck Mary Villiers, Lady Herbert of Shurland, ca. 1636 Oil on canvas, 101 x 83.8 cm (42 x 33 in.)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Parable of the Sower, 1557 Oil on panel, 73.7 x 102.9 cm (29 x 40-1/2 in.)
FRENCH
Nicolas de Largilliérre Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, Wife of Barthélemy-Jean-Claude Pupil, 1729 Oil on canvas, 138.4 x 106.4 cm (54-1/2 x 41-7/8 in.)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard Blindman’s Buff, ca. 1775 - 80 Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 45.1 cm (24-5/8 x 17-3/4 in.)
ITALIAN
Paolo Veronese Madonna and Child with St. Elizabeth, the Infant St. John the Baptist, and St. Catherine, 1565-70 Oil on canvas, 103.8 x 158.1 cm (40-7/8 x 62-1/4 in.)
Niccolò di Buonaccorso Madonna of Humility with St. Catherine and St. Christopher, The Annunciation, and the Crucifixion, ca. 1370-75 Tempera on panel, 152.5 x 58.5 cm (25-7/8 x 21-1/2 in.)
RUSSIAN ICONS
Our Lady of Jerusalem 17th century, Moscow School Tempera on wood panel, 131.1 x 106.7 cm (51-5/8 x 42 in.)
The Royal Gates 15th century, Novgorod school tempera on wood panel left, 169.5 x 41.3 cm (66-3/4 x 16-1/4 in.) right, 169.2 x 39.7 cm (66-5/8 x 15-5/8 in.)
FRENCH TAPESTRIES
Four Entrefenetre Tapestries from the series Stories of Queen Artemisia Central designs by Antoine Caron (French, 1521-1599), France, ca. 1562-65
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Contact Information: Timken Museum of Art 2250 Fifth Ave Suite 500 San Diego, California 92103
Phone: 619.239.5548 Fax: 619.531.9640 Reservations: 619.261.9236 Email: info@timkenmuseum.org