Current Exhibitions
March 9–July 8, 2013 (extended from June 10)
MaryLou and George Boone Gallery
“When They Were Wild: Recapturing California’s Wildflower Heritage,” showcases more than 300 items—drawings, paintings, herbarium specimens, photographs, and other objects—that trace the journey of California’s plants from the flower fields into the home garden. The exhibition is a collaborative project of The Huntington, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, Calif., and the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants in Sun Valley, Calif. Works from all three collections, along with loans from several other public and private collections, will be on view in the Huntington show, with related displays at the two other institutions and at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
May 1, 2013–Dec. 31, 2013
Online Exhibition Only
The Huntington–USC Institute on California and the West present an innovative, web-based digital exhibition with more than a dozen authors, critics, and scholars curating photographs from the 70,000-strong Southern California Edison archive at The Huntington. "Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990" is part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A., an initiative of the Getty celebrating the city's modern architectural heritage through exhibitions and programs at arts institutions in and around Los Angeles.
Feb. 23–June 17, 2013Huntington Art Gallery, Works on Paper Room
Physically complex and supremely expressive, hands are, notoriously, the most difficult element of a figural subject to portray successfully. Because of this, artists often spend a considerable amount of time sketching hands, working through the descriptive and compositional challenges this portion of the human anatomy presents before embarking upon a final image. The works in this exhibition—studies and sketches spanning nearly three centuries—provide glimpses into how artists such as Peter Lely, Charles West Cope, and David Wilkie attempted to capture the emotive force of the human hand. “A Show of Hands” focuses on approximately 15 European works from The Huntington’s permanent collection ranging from meticulous studies of a single hand, each vein and shadow fully wrought, to multiple sketches quickly rendered in a burst of inspiration. Though separated from their bodies, the hands in these images articulate individual personas, inviting reflection on the character, vocation, and attitude of their subjects.