Diana W. Thompson
Verso
Before leaving the foyer of the exhibition “Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin,” take a moment to examine two glass cases filled with tiny, exquisite hummingbirds…
Los Angeles Service Academy (LASA) students gather at the Los Angeles River in Frogtown, March 2017. Photo by William Deverell.
Who will be the civic leaders of tomorrow and guide the decisions Los…
The striking blues, pinks, and purples of the Australian native Acacia baileyana 'Purpurea' at the center of the allée often stops visitors in their tracks. While not a California native, it does…
Kyoto-based landscape designer Takuhiro Yamada (far right) and his pruning crew, from left to right: Kaori Ashida, Tomohiko Kawamura, Yusuke Nakabayashi, and Shigeki Masuda. Photo by Andrew Mitchell…
Detail of Harriet Goodhue Hosmer's Zenobia in Chains, 1859, marble. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Photo by Kate Lain.
The history of art is peppered with tales of…
Recent rains were welcome relief for Camellia japonica ‘Are-Jishi’, which has red-pink flowers in a peony form. Photo by Kate Lain.
The eastern side of the North Vista contains some of The…
As visual strategists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Dan Goods and David Delgado use art and design to explain science. Their newest project is the Orbit Pavilion sound experience, which…
Growth had slowed on this coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) near the Boone Gallery. Photo by Kate Lain.
Huntington arborist Daniel Goyette first investigated the two-story-high coast live oak (…
Detail of bird eating fruit, Painting 2, Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, ca. 1633–1703, woodblock-printed book mounted as album leaves, ink and colors on paper. The Huntington…
“Lari Pittman: Mood Books” features six oversized books, with paintings and some text, that sit on stylized pedestals by architect Michael Maltzan. Photo by Kate Lain.
Visitors familiar with the…
The variegated yellow and red-blushed leaves of this Gasteria batesiana from South Africa set it apart from the typical form of the species with green leaves. Photo by Karen Zimmerman.
The…
Candace Hunter, XEN 4:7, (based on Xenogenesis), 2016, collage on canvas. Photo by Candace Hunter.
Chicago-based collage artist Candace Hunter first started reading Octavia Butler’s speculative…
The newly installed permanent exhibition of Greene & Greene architecture and design in the Dorothy Collis Brown Wing. A black walnut and ebony chiffonier and matching chair from the master…
Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Stepping-stones from the Imperial Carriage Stop to the Gepparo, Katsura Imperial Villa, 1954, gelatin silver print © Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Center.
What does…
Bird on flowering rose branch by unidentified artist, Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting 十竹齋書畫譜, Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period to early Qing dynasty, ca. 1633–1703, compiled and…
Royal Porcelain Manufactory, Sèvres, Garniture of Three Lidded Vases, c. 1781. This extravagant set of porcelain once belonged to the Countess Carnarvon, the real-life inhabitant of Highclere Castle…
About 60 percent of the offerings at the Spring Plant Sale (April 22–23 for members; April 24 for the public) will be water-wise selections. Photo by Martha Benedict.
You’ve heard the dire news…
Matilija poppy (Romney coulter). Photo by David Leaser.
While traveling in the Amazon region of Ecuador, award-winning photographer David Leaser had an epiphany. What if he could use a computer to…
One of The Huntington’s partner schools is Esteban E. Torres High School in East Los Angeles. Last month, students from their Engineering and Technology Academy visited The Huntington as part of a…
In a library collection as deep as the one at The Huntington, it’s not unusual for scholars to encounter items that propel them on new paths of research. That’s what happened recently to The…
Takuhiro Yamada envisioned mature Japanese pine trees framing the Seifu-an teahouse. When he couldn’t find them, he chose two mochi trees (Ilex integra), a type of holly native to central and…
Anthony van Dyck's Anne (Killigrew) Kirke came to The Huntington in 1983, thanks to a generous bequest by local collectors. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
A major U.…
Charles Courtney Curran (1861–1942), A Breezy Day, 1887, oil on canvas, 11 15/16 x 20 in. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Henry D. Gilpin Fund.
The relationship between garden…
Has hard pruning left your rose garden looking like this? You might consider mild-climate bulbs that bloom at different times than roses. Photo by Kate Lain.
Earlier this month, a group of…
The Desert Garden is particularly vibrant in winter. Drought has concentrated the levels of anthocyanin pigment, casting a red hue in plants such as Aloe pluridens, foreground. Photo by Kate Lain.…
With LOOK>>, we venture into our wide-ranging collections and bring out a single object to explore in a short video. In this piece, we look at an 18th-century printed fan.
Printed fans had…
The Huntington records many lectures and conference talks and makes them available to the public. Give a listen at the links below.
Did you hear that The Huntington possesses an illuminated prayer…
Camp Convalescence, Alexandria, Virginia. Jan. 1864. Albumen print. Photograph by Andrew J. Russell (1829–1902). The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
By the spring of…
Cover of a brochure for the RMS Aquitania, from Cunard Steamship Company, ca. 1925. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
After they married in 1913, Henry and Arabella…
Instructor Emily Earhart leads children through The Huntington’s historic Valencia orange groves to pick fruit. Photo by Deborah Miller.
Huntington Explorers summer camp recently finished its 14th…
As part of periodic maintenance, the tea garden’s machiai or waiting bench received new rice paper to line its walls. Kyoto landscape designer Takuhiro Yamada consults his notes. Photo by Andrew…
During an initial scouting trip, photographer John C. Lewis looked for locations that would most accurately recreate the original composition of panoramic photos made a century before.
What happens…
Less water, more blooms? The Huntington’s Rose Garden is more beautiful than ever, thanks in part to the smoky-red ‘Hot Cocoa’ roses (seen in the foreground), a hybrid by rose curator Tom Carruth.…
Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, known as the First Folio, published in London in 1623. The poem on the left is by Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's contemporary and fellow playwright. The…
The new Mapel Orientation Gallery offers historic and behind-the-scenes information on The Huntington, as well as a variety of imaginative things to see, hear, and smell.
Did you know that the…
The San Gabriel Mountains form a backdrop to the Celebration Garden, with the new Mapel Orientation Gallery on the left and new café on the right.
When the Steven S. Koblik Education and Visitor…
In the past, sumptuous furnishings may have tempted visitors to touch. Now, thanks to interactive displays—such as this one on the Savonnerie carpets—visitors can.
One of the first things visitors…
Zimmerman’s kind of six-pack: half a dozen aloe hybrids. On the bottom left is a young Aloe ‘Gargoyle’; on the bottom right is Aloe ‘DZ’. She’s waiting for the others to develop before she decides…
J.M.W. Turner, Neapolitan Fisher-girls Surprised Bathing by Moonlight, ca. 1840, oil on canvas. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Interest in the 19th-century British…
The view as you enter the new Huntington Store. Photo by Tim Street-Porter.
Anchoring the north section of the new Steven S. Koblik Education and Visitor Center complex that opened in January is…
Scene in the House of Representatives on Jan. 31, 1865. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Feb. 8, 1865. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
One hundred and…
Visitors to the Library’s permanent exhibition “Beautiful Science” can see an original plate from Epitome, then touch the copy, imagining how medical students of the time peered into the body.
As…
Photographs like Timothy H. O'Sullivan’s On the Battlefield of Gettysburg, showing bloated dead bodies, made war painfully real for many Americans. (1863, printed ca. 1891) The Huntington Library,…
Henry Fuseli’s The Three Witches, recently acquired by The Huntington, is currently on view on the second floor of the Huntington Art Gallery.
It’s as if Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), the Anglo-Swiss…
Don Bachardy in 1991, posing in front of his portrait of novelist Christopher Isherwood (1983). Photo by Marilyn Sanders, reproduced by permission. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and…
The Japanese House, photo by Lisa Blackburn.
When it comes to the history of traditional Japanese architecture in the United States, there are many stories to tell. Now The Huntington has a way of…
Many of the 20 million people who have visited the Japanese Garden since it opened to the public in 1928 have stepped onto the wisteria terrace for a first view of the garden and experienced a…
Visitors in the 1930s view the ponds of the Japanese Garden from the moon bridge (the structure was later closed to pedestrians).
When The Huntington's Japanese Garden reopens to the public on April…
Frontiers
The fruits of a return trip to NamibiaThe Spring/Summer 2014 issue of Huntington Frontiers featured Huntington conservation technician Cody Howard's search for Ledebouria bulbs