Living Artists at The Huntington

From Kehinde Wiley’s A Portrait of a Young Gentleman to the “Borderlands” exhibition featuring works by Sandy Rodriguez and Enrique Martínez Celaya, The Huntington’s efforts to include living artists is far-reaching, putting its historic collection in conversation with contemporary art.

When renowned artist Kehinde Wiley was young, his mother enrolled him in a summer art program that included a trip to The Huntington, where he encountered monumental British portraits of 18th- and 19th-century nobility. That formative experience helped shape his own artistic practice as he focused on representations of Black and brown people missing from the museums he visited.

In October 2021, The Huntington unveiled a newly commissioned painting by Wiley, A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, the same title that Thomas Gainsborough used for his iconic Blue Boy—the inspiration for Wiley’s contemporary portrait.

“Throughout time, artists have chronicled history, reflecting the values of our society,” says Robert C. Davidson Jr., the retired chair and CEO of Surface Protection Industries, who is also an avid art collector and a member of The Huntington’s Board of Governors. “In addition to collecting work by European and American artists from much earlier time periods, The Huntington must also include works by living artists to remain relevant. We would be missing a whole genre of art if we didn’t have Kehinde Wiley’s work. And the fact that he has a prior relationship with us makes its inclusion even more refreshing.”

Three people inside an art gallery with the Kehinde Wiley painting A Portrait of a Young Gentleman.

Kehinde Wiley with Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence (right) and Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum. | Photo by Sarah M. Golonka.

The Wiley commission was possible thanks to donor support, says Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum. Several donors made significant gifts to ensure the piece would remain in The Huntington’s collection in perpetuity. “Putting our historic collection in conversation with contemporary art helps emotionally connect our signature collections with current and future audiences,” Nielsen notes. “Adding living artists creates a direct throughline to people who will love the Art Museum in the future.”

The Wiley commission is just one example of how The Huntington’s collections serve as a beacon for artistic expression. The Huntington’s recent exhibition “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts”—organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Wallace Collection in association with The Huntington—explored how 18th-century decorative art, such as Sèvres porcelain, inspired Disney Studios’ animated films and theme parks. And The Huntington’s efforts to include living artists is far-reaching, as exemplified by the “Borderlands” installation, which opened in November 2021 in a suite of rooms in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art.

A view at dusk of the exterior of an art gallery's windows lit up from inside. Painted drawings can be seen on the glass.

Exterior installation view of Enrique Martínez Celaya’s There-bound at the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art at The Huntington. | Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

“Borderlands” occupies roughly 5,000 square feet of gallery space and features more than 70 works. Focusing on themes of place and migration, the exhibition explores sites of cultural convergence—like Los Angeles—as well as the movement of artists and materials across borders and oceans to reveal the global and hemispheric nature of American art.

The exhibition includes several living artists—two of whom were artists-in-residence at The Huntington: Sandy Rodriguez and Enrique Martínez Celaya. Other highlights include works by Indigenous photographers Cara Romero and Mercedes Dorame.

Three people stand next to a large art piece hanging on a gallery wall.

Artist Sandy Rodriguez discusses her work YOU ARE HERE / Tovaangar / El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula / Los Angeles with Huntington Governor Robert C. Davidson Jr. (left) and Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art. | Photo by Sarah M. Golonka.

Rodriguez’s YOU ARE HERE / Tovaangar / El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula / Los Angeles served as a thematic anchor in “Borderlands” during the first year of the exhibition. The 8-foot-by-8-foot watercolor is a multilingual map of the greater Los Angeles area, representing the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time.

“Sandy spent a lot of time at The Huntington, looking specifically at plant species that are used by Indigenous communities for artistic materials or medicinal purposes,” says Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art. “Her work focuses on the layers of history of this place: Indigenous, colonial, contemporary.”

Like the Wiley commission, the inclusion of living artists in “Borderlands” was made possible by donor generosity. “Sandy’s residency was in many ways catalyzed by a significant gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that’s shared between Caltech and The Huntington,” Nielsen explains.

Black-and-white photo of a young adult dressed in multiple necklaces standing among splashing ocean waves.

Cara Romero, Hermosa, 2021. Archival HD pigment print on Canson Baryta Photographique paper, 50 × 40 in. | © Cara Romero. All Rights Reserved. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation and longtime supporter Nancy Berman, a member of The Huntington’s Board of Governors and the current chair of the Governors’ Art Committee, have been instrumental in expanding the collection of living artists, including the acquisition of photographs by Romero and Dorame. Nancy Berman notes the important role that contemporary artists can play in education and the degree to which they can offer a broader vision of what America means. “Living artists can respond to the art in our historic collections in a way that brings new awareness and understanding of the original work,” she says. “They can speak for newly recovered histories.”

As both a patron and a collector, Berman knows numerous artists throughout the region. “I find that so many contemporary artists are enthusiastic about The Huntington and its art collections,” she says. “They engage, are inspired by, and have dialogue with the historic art and see their own art as part of a continuum of meaningful artistic production for our own times.”