While the genesis of “When They Were Wild: Recapturing California’s Wildflower Heritage” was The Huntington’s collections of wildflower paintings by Alice Chittenden and Ethel Wickes, other collections made their way into the exhibition through unexpected routes. One collection was originally among the plant specimens of the Pasadena City College (PCC) … Continue reading
Category Archives: Exhibitions
EXHIBITIONS | One Easy Piece
Deciding what goes into a library exhibition is far more difficult than you might expect. After months of research in books and archival collections, you’re expected to concentrate all of that knowledge and insight into fewer than 100 items. In my case, the effort to select appropriate pieces often means … Continue reading
EXHIBITIONS | Welcome to Los Robles Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
I came across quite a few interesting pieces when I was researching my current exhibition, “Cultivating California: Founding Families of the San Marino Ranch.” When I was researching George S. Patton (senior), I stumbled upon an item that was begging to be displayed. On an onion-skin sheet dated April 26, … Continue reading
EXHIBITIONS | Extending the Field of Photography
You have just a few more days to see the exhibition “A Strange and Fearful Interest: Death, Mourning, and Memory in the American Civil War.” Although it finishes its run on Monday, Jan. 14, you will be able to continue to explore the companion website, which allows you to take … Continue reading
VIDEO | The Poetry of Photography
Heavy boxes of glass. A portable darkroom. Noxious chemicals. A cumbersome camera. Field photography during the U.S. Civil War was an arduous process far removed from the relatively effortless digital image-snapping of today’s pocket-sized cameras and phones. And it was the strange beauty of this process—so labor intensive, so unfamiliar … Continue reading
EXHIBITIONS | The Installation Is the Art
In theory, putting on an art exhibition is a rather formulaic process. You develop a theme, select works, design a layout for the gallery, and then, in the final weeks before opening, the show is installed according to plan. Well, not always. For “Lesley Vance & Ricky Swallow,” on view … Continue reading
VIDEO | Voices on the Civil War
The Huntington is abuzz with the Civil War this fall. Manuscript exhibition “A Just Cause: Voices of the American Civil War,” curated by Olga Tsapina, opened just a few weeks ago in the West Hall of the Library and gives its visitors an opportunity to try to make sense of … Continue reading
The Drew Gilpin Faust Effect
Tuesday night, PBS will premiere “Death and the Civil War,” an installment of “American Experience” produced by Ric Burns and inspired by the 2008 book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust. The broadcast coincides with the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, … Continue reading
EXHIBITIONS | What Roger Medearis and the Italian Masters Had in Common
Paints are composed of pigments, normally mineral or plant based, and a binder, which is a sort of glue that holds the pigment together. Oil paints use an oil binder, such as linseed or walnut oil. By contrast, tempera uses eggs as a binder. Before the widespread adoption of oil-based … Continue reading
VIDERE | Lumen
Videre, Latin for to see, is a video series that plays with the idea of re-seeing. The short works featured here are explorations of sights, sounds, and sensing at The Huntington. Lumen is Latin for light, and is also a unit of how much light is generated by a source, … Continue reading