As the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara celebrates 60 years, I jumped back in time to its original heyday at Second and San Fernando in downtown San Jose. Six decades is a long time for a free art museum.
For a brief couple of years (1966–1967), the Triton Museum was the primary visual arts institution of San Jose at 99 S. Second St., a glamorous operation in the former Lion & Sons Furniture Store building, a structure that still sits right on the northwest corner of Second and San Fernando in a much-refurbished form.
Back in the day, the Triton Museum encompassed three floors above ground and one basement level, none of which was properly up to various fire codes. We’ll get back to that in a second.
Robert Morgan, an attorney and horse rancher who was a legend around these parts in the ’60s, helped start what came to be known as the Triton Museum. Even before the Second Street locale, there was a place called the Triton Gallery on Martha Street between 11th and 12th, named after one of Morgan’s horses. A February 1966 high society pictorial in the Merc shows Phil and Susan Hammer hobnobbing with judges and politicians at a champagne preview of Norman Rockwell paintings.
Then in the summer of 1966, the Triton Museum of Art began its next journey with many local and international exhibits. The official inauguration unfolded in September of that year. The museum included a permanent collection of 19th-century European and American paintings, as well as a space for traveling exhibits. One floor was dedicated to California art. There was also a small theater facility that doubled as a lecture area.
The opening run of shows at the Triton included a famous 19th-century painting by Jean-François Millet, who specialized in depictions of peasants and hard laborers. In this case, The Man with the Hoe (L’homme à la houe) depicted a worker toiling away in the fields and leaning on his long-handled hoe. The painting is the same one that inspired poet Edwin Markham to write a poem of the same name. Unfortunately, today, that title means something entirely different, so it’s somewhat hard to write about.
The opening shows at Triton also included 40 selected paintings by the Argentine master Enrique McGrech. The collection was loaned to Triton by the Burke Museum in Seattle via the Argentine government, which owned the collection.
If one is to believe a swath of Mercury-News stories from the time in question, the Triton was the place to be for high society types in San Jose. In October of 1966, two new unnamed paintings were unveiled at a private champagne reception held place for Joan Kennedy, wife of US Senator Ted Kennedy, as well as Bernice Brown, wife of then California governor Edmund G. Brown. Two months later, a Picasso show of lesser-known ceramics, graphics and posters took place in December of 1966. The following year, IBM loaned a series of models of the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci for another show. The models were accompanied by reproductions of da Vinci sketches and notes.
In 1967, it all began to fall apart. Morgan did not install a sprinkler system in the museum until far too late and it was already insufficient. After all, this was a 60-year-old furniture-store building. Other aspects did not please the fire marshal in charge, John Gerhard. He wanted proper signage, more exits, flame-proof decorations and additional sprinklers, all of which together became outrageously expensive.
Morgan was livid. He made a scene at a San Jose City Council meeting, accusing Gerhard of selective enforcement, pointing out many other buildings around downtown San Jose that were even worse death traps.
In the end, Morgan didn’t wait around. The city of Santa Clara offered him a decades-long lease on a seven-acre patch of land, where he then built the next incarnation of the Triton Museum. The current facility was built in the ’80s.
Now, we will soon arrive at the Triton’s 60th year, or anniversary, depending on when you pinpoint the very beginning. You can read about the current shows elsewhere in this issue. Here’s to 60 more years in the Mission City!
