Arts and Museums

Art & Empire: The Golden Age of Spain runs May-Sept. 2019 at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park. This is the first exhibition in the U.S. to examine the notion of “Golden Age” beyond the shores of the Iberian Peninsula by bringing together works from Spain’s European, American, and Asian realms. For the first time in the museum’s history, all five of the Spanish masters represented on the museum’s building façade—Velázquez, Murillo, Zurbarán, Ribera and El Greco—will be shown together. The exhibition represents more than 10 countries and includes the recently gifted panels by José María Sert (1874-1945). Painted by one of the greatest Spanish muralists, these panels illustrate three episodes of Sinbad the Sailor’s seven epic voyages. Sert was a Catalan muralist best-known for his commissioned mural, American Progress, painted for Rockefeller Center in New York.

Maritime Museum of San Diego, home to one of the world’s finest collections of vintage vessels, now offers public sails every other Saturday on the San Salvador, the 1542 Spanish galleon replica built in San Diego. Space is limited and reservations are required.