San Diego Public Library’s Visual Arts program is dedicated to providing access and connection to the Arts & Culture landscape in San Diego while providing visible opportunities to local and regional artists. The visual arts program demonstrates the library’s role as a cultural institution embracing a broad range of disciplines while assisting San Diego's emerging, mid-career and professional artists achieve wider local, regional, and national attention.

For more information about library exhibitions, email us at OnView@sandiego.gov.

Featured Exhibitions

James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation | March 9, 2024 - August 4, 2024 | Learn More

Featured Programming

• Film Screening - James Hubbell: Between Heaven & Earth directed by Marianne Gerdes
  Tuesday, March 19, 2024  | 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. | Register Here
• Dave Hampton on “James Hubbell at Midcentury: His Early Years in the San Diego Art Community”
  Monday, April 22, 2024 | 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. | Register Here
• Keith York on “James Hubbell and Sim Bruce Richards: Collaborations”
  Tuesday, May 21, 2024 | 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. | Register Here
• Ilan-Lael Docent Tours. Registration Required.
  • Thursday April 18, 2024 – Morning Tour - 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, April 27, 2024 – Afternoon Tour - 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, June 22, 2024 – Morning Tour - 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
• Stained Glass Workshop with ArtReach SD
  Friday, May 17, 2024 | 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. | Register Here

Upcoming

Helen & Newton Harrison: California Works
September 21, 2024 – January 12, 2025

As part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art and Science Collide, San Diego Public Library’s Visual Arts Program presents Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work, a retrospective exhibition about the work of husband-and-wife team of Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison, who were among the earliest and most notable ecological artists. Founding members of the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego, Helen and Newton were local San Diego artists for nearly four decades, where they developed their pioneering concepts of Ecological Art. 

Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work is the first exhibition to focus on their California work, between the late 1960s and 2000s. California Work revisits the Harrisons’ groundbreaking ecological concepts through re-staged performance artworks, drawings, paintings, photography, collages, maps, archival documentation of large-scale installations, and unrealized proposals for real-world ecological solutions.  

 

Curated by Tatiana Sizonenko
Organized by La Jolla Historical Society

Image: Helen and Newton Harrison, Serpentine Lattice, 1992
(Credit: The Harrison Family Trust)

OnView - Local Arts

Central Library-2nd Floor
Friendship@Friendship Park
Students from San Diego Unified and Tijuana schools
April 15 - May 31, 2024

Central Library-Popular Library Fairway
Voices on the Inside
Poetic Justice
April 29 - July 31, 2024

Allied Gardens/Benjamin
Write Out Loud
April 2 - April 30, 2024

Carmel Valley
Youth Activism in Art
Unconfined the Project
March 29 - April 29, 2024

La Jolla/Riford
Up Up & Away!
Kite Flight
March 10 - May 13, 2024

Mission Hills/Hillcrest-Knox
Buddy Cushman
March 29 - April 30, 2024

Mission Valley
James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation-
Pacific Rim Park Project
March 12 - August 4, 2024

North Park
Sun-Bleached Tranquility
Hayley Reeder
March 25 - May 31, 2024

Otay Mesa-Nestor
James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation-
Lado A Lado
March 9 - August 4, 2024

Pacific Beach/Taylor
Vujà dé
Sihyeon Park
April 1 - June 6, 2024

Point Loma/Hervey
Point Loma Artist Association
April 5 - June 29, 2024

Rancho Bernardo
Wild Legacies
Betty Byrd
April 4 - June 30, 2024

Rancho Peñasquitos
Write Out Loud
March 25 - April 27, 2024

San Ysidro
Our River, Our Water
Oscar Romo
March 22 - May 8, 2024

Scripps Miramar Ranch
James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation-
A Mountain Home & Studios
March 9 - August 4, 2024

Serra Mesa-Kearny Mesa
Industrial Fragments Revisited - Mixed Media Works
Don Strandberg
April 15 - May 31, 2024

University Community
Write Out Loud
April 2 - April 30, 2024
 

Various Locations | Fleet on the Go | Throughout 2024

Central Library - Teen Center: Wentzscope | April 5 - May 31, 2024

Collage-Rolando: NANO-Reading Table, What’s New About NANO? | April 4 - May 31, 2024

Linda Vista: New Science | April 3 - May 31, 2024

Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Knox: How a Telegraph Works | April 5 - May 31, 2024

North University Community: NANO-Ferrofluid Table, and What does NANO Mean for Us? | April 4 - May 31, 2024

Oak Park: NANO-Static Table | April 3 - May 31, 2024

San Ysidro: Face Mask & Bone Density | April 5 - May 31, 2024

Serra Mesa-Kearny Mesa: Einstein Seen | April 4 - May 31, 2024

Skyline Hills: NANO-Magnetic Sand Table | April 5 - May 31, 2024