Reflecting on Black Artistic Influence in California
Tue., Feb. 20, 2024 | Lauren Cross
During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, California was an important site of African American creativity, even in the face of intense discrimination. Black enclaves emerged as places where African American leaders, activists, writers, performers, and visual artists could build community and make professional connections.
Petrarch Mania: Love, Poetry, and Fan Fiction in the Renaissance
Tue., Feb. 13, 2024 | Shannon McHugh
Centuries before the pop song, love sonnets provided the thrill of peeking into another’s romantic experience. Petrarch’s poems about his adoration of a woman named Laura still impacts how we talk about love today and spawned an early kind of fan fiction that swept the Renaissance reading public.
Lectures
Indigenous and Black Fridays: What Robinson Crusoe Tells Us about Race
Wed., Feb. 7, 2024
In this lecture video, David Roediger, professor of history at the University of Kansas and 2024's R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, considers the circumstances and limits of Robinson Crusoe’s Friday character and what it says about the history of race.
Guns, Secession, and a Secret Message in a Spool
Tue., Feb. 6, 2024 | Olga Tsapina
The Huntington’s Edward Davis Townsend collection contained something rather curious: a spool of thread with a note hidden inside that shed new light on the dramatic events that unfolded shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860.
Interview with Octavia E. Butler Fellow Lois Rosson
Tue., Jan. 30, 2024 | Kevin Durkin
Lois Rosson, The Huntington’s 2023–24 Octavia E. Butler Fellow, discusses her experience at NASA, her study of astronomical illustrations as extensions of the frontier West, and Butler’s alternative vision of space.
The Imagined Library of R.B. Kitaj
Tue., Jan. 23, 2024 | Sabina Zonno
American artist R.B. Kitaj, one of the major figures in the London art scene of the 1960s, loved books not only for their contents but as tangible objects. Kitaj created an imagined library in screen prints, which is on display in the Huntington Art Gallery through March 4, 2024.
New Conservation Discoveries: Edward Hopper’s “The Long Leg”
Tue., Jan. 16, 2024 | Christina M. O’Connell and Kevin Durkin
While examining and treating Edward Hopper’s iconic painting “The Long Leg,” Christina M. O’Connell, the Mary Ann and John Sturgeon Senior Paintings Conservator at The Huntington, discovered something that others have overlooked.
Greetings from The Huntington’s Archives
Tue., Jan. 9, 2024 | Sandy Masuo
The custom of using an eye-catching greeting card to convey good wishes is a time-honored tradition, one exceptional chapter of which can be found in The Huntington’s archives.
Revisiting 2023 at The Huntington
Tue., Dec. 26, 2023 | Kevin Durkin
The Huntington is a place of wonder, beauty, and intellectual engagement. With the following selection of Verso posts, we invite you to revisit some of The Huntington’s 2023 highlights.
Plant Conservation at The Huntington
Tue., Dec. 19, 2023 | Sandy Masuo
When Henry E. Huntington purchased his estate in 1903, plant conservation was not foremost in his plans, but his passion for rare and unusual plants created the foundation for botanical collections that are significant to conservation initiatives in the 21st century.
Art
Hdoc: Books of Pictures & Pictures of Books
Wed., Dec. 13, 2023
Museums have an origami-like relationship with time because visitors can fold together different eras while navigating the galleries.
Events
2023 Haaga Program: Ramesh Srinivasan and Todd Presner on Generative AI
Tue., Dec. 12, 2023
On Nov. 20, 2023, digital democracy advocate Ramesh Srinivasan and digital humanities scholar Todd Presner joined Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence in a conversation about the rise of generative AI, focusing on the ethical implications of its aggregation of data at an unprecedented scale.