Museum Events
Join our community of Santa Barbara enthusiasts for lively talks (with wine!), walks, concerts, and other opportunities to connect with local history.
Watch past talks on TVSB or online HERE.
1st Thursday
Join us after hours
Thursday, March 6
5-8:00 PM
Location: Museum
Join the Museum for after-hours wine and music by TONY YBARRA and friends while you enjoy our latest exhibitions.
Free. All ages welcome. No RSVP required.
From Ireland to Santa Barbara via Utah: Adventures of Dr. Owen Hugh O’Neill
Join us for a talk by Bill McKinnon
Wednesday, March 19
5:30 PM
Join historian Bill MacKinnon as he shares the never-told tale of how a well-educated but now-forgotten Irishman, Owen Hugh O’Neill, emigrated to the U. S. and then made his way across the American frontier to Santa Barbara by way of involvement in two of our country’s greatest undertakings of the 1850s: construction of the Pacific Wagon Road project; and prosecution of the Utah War of 1857-58.
The full story of O’Neill’s travels and adventures before arriving here to practice medicine, marry into the Hill-Ortega family, and die heroically in 1875 is unknown even to his descendants, some of whom still live in this part of California.
Flamenco Íntimo
Join us for an intimate concert in our adobe
Sunday, April 6
Location: Covarrubias Adobe
Enjoy an intimate show in the museum's Spanish era adobe. The show will feature award-winning artists dancer Manuel Gutierrez (Spain), singer Pepele Mendez (Spain), guitarist Andres Vadin (Cuba), and percussionist Diego Alvarez (Venezuela). Dancer Alda Escarcega from our community will join the artists for the unforgettable evening.
Co-hosted by Flamenco! Santa Barbara.
Tickets will be available soon
1st Thursday
Join us after hours
Thursday, April 3
5-8:00 PM
Location: Museum
Join the Museum for after-hours wine and music while you enjoy our latest exhibitions.
Free. All ages welcome. No RSVP required.
Don Louis Perceval: His Vision of the West
Join us to celebrate a new exhibition
Thursday, May 1
5:00 PM
Location: Museum
As a young man, Don Louis Perceval (1908-1979) became fascinated with the Hopi and Navajo people and began documenting their life through his sketches. After studying at the Royal Academy and service to the Royal Navy, he was drawn back to the west and commissioned to create advertisements for the Rio Grande Oil Company.
This exhibition is being created by Marlene R. Miller.
Members should RSVP to [email protected]
1925: Santa Barbara Remembers the Earthquake
Join us for a talk by Neal Graffy and exhibition launch
Wednesday, May 21
5:30 PM
Location: Museum
Boom! At dawn on June 29, 1925, our city shook with a 6.3 earthquake leaving much of downtown destroyed or heavily damaged. The twin towers of Mission Santa Barbara collapsed, and eighty-five percent of the commercial buildings downtown were destroyed or badly damaged. A failed dam in the foothills released forty-five million gallons of water, and a gas company engineer became a hero when he shut off the city’s gas supply and prevented fires like those that destroyed San Francisco twenty years earlier.
Out of the rubble would come a new Santa Barbara with the headline, “Spanish Architecture to Rise from Ruins.”
The exhibition is being held in conjunction with EQ2025: A City Transformed. For more information click here.
Tickets for this event will be on sale April 1.
