Watch, Read, Listen

For The Huntington’s 2022 Founders’ Day celebration, a conversation was held on March 2 between acclaimed writer Charles Yu and Huntington Trustee Simon K.C. Li. They discussed Yu’s experiences writing in multiple genres, the role of fiction in constructing identity, and current U.S. dialogues about identity and race.

The collection spans from 1943 to 2011, documenting the professional and personal life of the LA author and cultural figure through manuscripts, original works of art, journals, photographs, and correspondence

The life of Sonya Levien (1888–1960) reads like a rags-to-riches fairy tale. But it is also a story of fortitude, feminism, and the ability to balance personal, family, and financial ambitions.

In this lecture, renowned art historian David Solkin shows how Joseph Wright of Derby constructed conflicting messages out of an eclectic mix of elements drawn from different pictorial traditions in An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump and asks us to consider the artwork's relevance today.

On Feb. 15, 1774, a young man from Kilkenny, Ireland, wrote his name across the title page of an old book. Purchased in Kilkenny's robust secondhand book trade, the slim quarto of theology had once belonged to a local Protestant minister. But its new owner was no clergyman.

For The Huntington's 2022 Founders' Day celebration, acclaimed writer Charles Yu joins Huntington Trustee Simon K.C. Li to discuss Yu's experiences writing in multiple genres, the role of fiction in constructing identity, current U.S. dialogues about race and identity, and more.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced today that it has acquired the papers of Will Alexander (b. 1948), a multimedia artist and award-winning writer.

In this lecture, David Shields, professor of English language and literature at the University of South Carolina, discusses how Napoleon Sarony (1821–1896) singlehandedly dismantled the traditions of portrait photography in 19th-century America and devised a new photographic ideal.

In 1968, the third Monday of February was designated Presidents Day—a U.S. national holiday celebrating all presidents, past and present. The choice of the date was tied to Feb. 22, George Washington’s birthday, which had already been set as a holiday for federal workers in 1885.

In his book, Ordering the Myriad Things, Nicholas K.

In this lecture, Wendy Wall, Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, describes how 17th-century woman Hester Pulter, while sick and confined to her bedroom after giving birth to her 15th child, sought solace in an unusual way: she wrote poems about taking off into space to explore

Produced in partnership with LA Opera, the production is based on Lisa See’s book about her Chinese American family and was composed by Nathan Wang, 2022–23 Cheng Family Foundation Visiting Artist