Posted on Tue., March 25, 2025 by
Clockwise from top left: Puya chilensis. | Detail of Without Us. © 2024 Wang Mansheng. Image courtesy of the artist. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. | Wisteria sinensis. | Don Bachardy, Self-portrait 08-08-18, 2018, acrylic on paper, 29 × 23 in. Don Bachardy Papers. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. © Don Bachardy, 2018. | Camellia. | Christ on the Mount of Olives. Metal-cut relief print, hand-colored. Germany, ca. 1455–1465. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
From beautiful blooms to a centuries-old treasure in the Library and masterful works by two contemporary artists, here are four Huntington highlights to make the most of your visit this spring.
1. Lovely Blooms
Spring transforms The Huntington’s gardens into a gorgeous palette of colors. Marvel at the eye-catching camellias, explore the winding canopy of wisteria, and check out the amazing torch-like inflorescences of aloes or the towering agaves. Also, don’t miss the highly uncommon and spectacular puyas, which are flowering for a short time in the Desert Garden.
Christ on the Mount of Olives. Metal-cut relief print, hand-colored. Germany, ca. 1455–1465. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
2. A 15th-Century Print and the Gutenberg Bible Reunite
The Huntington recently acquired the exceptionally rare 15th-century devotional print Christ on the Mount of Olives, reuniting it with the institution’s prized Gutenberg Bible. Printed in the late 1450s or early 1460s, the illustration was bound within The Huntington’s copy of the Bible by an early owner shortly after the book was finished. The Bible and the print remained together for nearly four centuries before being separated in 1825 by an auctioneer. The acquisition brings together one of the world’s most influential books with its early pictorial insert for the first time in 200 years. Don’t miss the opportunity to view this print alongside the Gutenberg Bible in the Library Exhibition Hall through May 26.
Don Bachardy, Self-portrait, August 8, 2018, 2018, acrylic on paper, 29 × 23 in. (73.7 × 58.4 cm). Don Bachardy Papers. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. © Don Bachardy, 2018.
3. “Don Bachardy: A Life in Portraits”
This retrospective of Don Bachardy’s work includes more than 100 graphite and acrylic works on paper, many of which have never been exhibited. The prolific Los Angeles artist is known for creating distinctive portraits of generations of artistic, film, and literary personalities, including David Hockney, Bette Davis, Truman Capote, and Bachardy’s longtime partner, renowned writer Christopher Isherwood, whose papers are held by The Huntington. The exhibition, which also includes photographs of a young Bachardy with such stars as Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe, opens April 12 in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery.
Detail of Without Us. | © 2024 Wang Mansheng. Image courtesy of the artist. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
4. “Wang Mansheng: Without Us”
Opening May 17, this installation in the Chinese Garden’s Studio for Lodging the Mind 寓意齋 explores the interconnectedness of all living things through contemporary art and classical Chinese conceptions of nature. Wang Mansheng, the 2025 Cheng Family Foundation Visiting Artist in the Chinese Garden, created 22 delicate silk panels—painted in traditional ink and black walnut ink—that depict intricate scenes of trees, rocks, water, and other natural elements, some inspired by The Huntington’s Chinese Garden, Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance. Suspended from the gallery’s ceiling, the translucent panels invite visitors to animate the installation as they walk around and become part of the landscape.
Miranda Claxton is the communications coordinator in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.