Virginia Steele Scott Galleries
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Redesigned and expanded Scott Galleries now open
While Henry Huntington envisioned a collection of American art as early as 1919, his vision was not realized until sixty years later. In 1979 The Virginia Steele Scott Foundation made a major gift to The Huntington in memory of Virginia Steele Scott, art collector, patron, and philanthropist, which included a group of fifty American paintings, funds to construct a gallery to display the collection, and an endowment for its professional management. Designed by Paul Gray, The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art opened to the public in 1984, inaugurating American as a significant part of The Huntington's collections. Since then, the American art collection has grown dramatically, largely through the support of the Scott Foundation, the Huntington’s Art Collectors' Council, generous donations to the collection, and significant long-term loans.
American Transformation
The Huntington opened its newly expanded Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art on May 30, 2009 to reveal a completely transformed space in which the growing American art collection is displayed in an area more than twice its previous size. With 16,379 square feet of reconfigured galleries, this is one of the largest presentations in California of American art from the colonial period through the mid- 20th century. The Huntington's American art collection now comprises about 9,400 objects, approximately 500 of which are on display.
The $1.6 million redesign project involved a new installation of American art in the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery and the adjoining Lois and Robert F. Erburu Gallery. The project got under way in the spring of 2008, after the European art that had been temporarily exhibited in the Erburu Gallery was returned to the Huntington Art Gallery following that building’s renovation.
John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Sarah Jackson (Mrs. Henderson Inches), ca. 1765, oil on canvas. Collection: The Huntington. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation
“This is the culmination of an idea that began when the Erburu Gallery was conceived,” explains John Murdoch, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of Art Collections at The Huntington. “Now Frederick Fisher’s modern classical wing joins the neoclassical Scott Gallery to fulfill its role as the new home of our American art collections. Together, the galleries sit beautifully in the Huntington landscape, inviting views of the mountains and gardens from the glass loggia and helping to develop a sense of interplay between the works of art inside and the gardens outside.”
Designed by Stephen Saitas of Stephen Saitas Designs, New York, the installation highlights familiar masterpieces from the permanent collection as well as objects never before on view at The Huntington, including recent acquisitions and long-term loans from public and private collections. Visitors will see paintings by John Singleton Copley, Frederic Edwin Church, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, John Sloan, Robert Motherwell, and Sam Francis, among others, as well as American decorative arts ranging from silver by Paul Revere to furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
One of the highlights of the installation will be Harriet Hosmer’s monumental marble sculpture, Zenobia in Chains, acquired by The Huntington in late 2007. Considered the artist’s most important work, it was believed lost until a few years ago, when it was discovered in a private collection. The 82-inch-high marble sculpture is on view to the public for the first time in nearly a century.
The expansion and reconfiguration of the galleries also has created a space for temporary exhibitions. The Susan and Stephen Chandler Wing will showcase focused exhibitions from The Huntington’s rich collection of American prints, drawings, and photographs.
The reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art is made possible through the generous support of Heather and Paul Haaga, Susan and Stephen Chandler, and Steve Martin.
Erburu Gallery
The Lois and Robert F. Erburu Gallery of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art set the stage for a major development in the displays of the Art Collections.
The 21,000-square-foot structure, ultimately built to house the expanding collection of American art, opened to the public in 2005 with an inaugural installation of the distinguished collection of European art from the late 16th century to about 1900. With the re-opening of the Huntington Art Gallery, the building became available for the display of American Art.
Los Angeles architect Frederick Fisher, of the architectural firm Frederick Fisher and Partners in Santa Monica, created a modern classical building adjoining the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art on the southern edge of the Dorothy Collins Brown Garden. The new gallery is flanked on the west by the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery, where changing exhibitions are displayed, and by the Botanical Center to the north.
In addition to taking architectural cues from the surrounding buildings at The Huntington, Fred Fisher looked to examples of art gallery design from early 19th-century Europe, such as John Soane's Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, and to more modern American and European examples such as the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. Famous for its connection to nature, the latter inspired the idea of a glass-fronted loggia that would communicate with the gardens outside, rather than closing them from view. The visitor sees art on one side, nature on the other, and the glass loggia sweeps along the front of the addition, linking the new building to the existing Scott Gallery, designed in 1984 by Paul Gray.
The gallery adds 8,000 square feet of exhibition space and 8,000 square feet of storage area to the original building. While the storage space initially held objects displaced by the restoration of the Huntington mansion, it was designed with the goal of long-term expansion of the American collection.
The building's interior features four square and three rectangular galleries with an octagonal room at its center. The elegantly outlined, cleanly detailed and contemplative spaces will be lit with a combination of natural and incandescent light.
In relation to neighboring structures, from the exterior, the Erburu Gallery makes a welcoming and respectful statement, while inside, the building opens up as a series of magnificent spaces of great scale and power.
Capital funding for the $6-million building was made possible by the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation, Anne and Jim Rothenberg, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Weingart Foundation, the Fletcher Jones Foundation, the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, and Heather and Paul Haaga. Endowment support was provided by Bradford M. Mishler. The Lois and Robert F. Erburu Gallery is named in honor of the Huntington trustee emeritus and his wife for their many years of dedicated leadership.