Timken Museum of Art
The Timken Museum of Art preserves the Putnam Foundation Collection of European and American art for the education and benefit of present and future generations of San Diego area residents and visitors. The museum celebrates the important role of art as a way of enriching the lives and nurturing the creative spirit in all of us.
The Timken Museum of Art board and staff have further defined the mission of the museum by embracing the following values:
- Stewardship of the Putnam Foundation Collection
- Excellence in all museum endeavors
- Free access for all visitors
- Diverse educational opportunities for the public
- High-quality care and conservation of the collection
- Growth of the collection through wise and selective acquisitions
- A desire to share the extraordinary European art collection of Amy and Anne Putnam with San Diego residents and visitors resulted in the establishment of the Timken Museum of Art.
The Timken Museum of Art has its roots in the serendipitous relationship between two sisters, Anne R. and Amy Putnam - members of the Ohio-based Timken family of the Timken roller bearing fame - and San Diego attorney Walter Ames.
The Putnam sisters arrived in San Diego in the early 1900s from Vermont, accompanied by their elderly parents and preceded by their uncle, Henry Putnam, who retired in San Diego in 1898. The Putnam sisters spent decades acquiring European old master paintings. Initial paintings from the sisters' collection were donated to San Diego's Fine Arts Gallery (now the San Diego Museum of Art). Their later acquisitions were loaned to prestigious museums around the country until the Timken Museum of Art opened in 1965.
From Left - W.R Timken, John Walker, former director of the National Gallery of Art and Timken Museum of Art advisor, with Walter Ames, founding director of the Timken Museum of Art, in the early 1960s.
In 1951, with the assistance of longtime friend and advisor Walter Ames, the Putnam sisters established the nonprofit Putnam Foundation, under which their artworks became designated as the Putnam Foundation Collection. In the early 1960's, Ames secured financial support from the Timken family to help build the museum.
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 Art Museum. Located on the Prado in San Diego's beautiful Balboa Park, today's Timken Museum of Art displays more than 60 extraordinary artworks, predominantly paintings augmented by a small holding of sculpture and decorative art objects.
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 view 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 Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The museum is closed Monday. Admission is always free.
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