Fiesta

Dorothy Barbara Thomas Haddaway

Barbara Haddaway recorded the San Diego CPIE with a series of drawings, pastels and goauches in the mid 1930s. This gouache with graphite is of fiesta participants in the Spanish Village complex, created in 1935 to depict an old Spanish Village. Today it is the Spanish Village Art Center.

The California Pacific International Exposition was held in San Diego's Balboa Park during May 29, 1935 through November 11, 1935, and February 12, 1936 through September 9, 1936.

It was San Diego's second successful attempt to hold a World's Fair. The first was held in 1915 and many of the buildings from the original fair were used again in 1935. Two themes of the fair were "progress" and "beauty". An exhibition committee controlled the California Pacific International Exposition so the focus of the fair turned from the history of California toward corporate interests. The modernist Ford building, emphasizing progress and consumerism, was a startling contrast to the historic Spanish influenced buildings from the earlier fair.

The "beauty" was partly provided by the Zoro Garden nudist colony whose attributes could be enjoyed through knotholes in a fence. Visitors to the 1935 exposition could enjoy fourteen miles of exhibits and attractions.