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The new Chinese garden, the renovated Huntington Art Gallery, major exhibitions, and a new gallery on the history of science are among activities for 2008

Here's a look at what's HOT right now, and what's AHEAD...

NOW!

Liu Fang Yuan, The Garden of Flowing Fragrance

Opened Feb. 23

Some 10 years in the making, Liu Fang Yuan, the Chinese garden at Tthe Huntington, is open to visitors. A remarkable and ambitious undertaking, the Chinese garden reflects traditional Suzhou-style scholar gardens and features a 1.5-acre lake, a complex of pavilions, a teahouse and tea shop, and five stone bridges set against a wooded backdrop of mature oaks and pines. The garden is a showcase for an ancient and influential style of landscape architecture and is intimately linked to China’s artistic and literary traditions. More about Liu Fang Yuan ...

NOW!

Grand Reopening—

The Huntington Art Gallery

Opened May 28

Once the home of Henry E. Huntington and his wife, Arabella, the Huntington Art Gallery opened in 1928, displaying one of the greatest collections of 18th-century British art in the country, including the celebrated Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough and View on the Stour near Dedham by John Constable, as well as a valuable collection of French decorative arts. After a $20 million renovation, the gallery offers visitors an enhanced experience with one of the finest collections of European art in the nation as well as a more accurate sense of the lifestyle of one of the most prominent millionaires of the early 20th century. In addition to a thoroughly updated infrastructure, the refurbished mansion includes 5,300 additional square feet of public space, new interpretive components, and new gallery presentations of approximately 1,200 objects of European art from the 15th to the early 20th century. Learn more...

NOW!

Major Exhibition

A "New and Native" Beauty:

The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene

Through Jan. 26, 2009

The most comprehensive display of Greene and Greene materials ever presented, this exhibition

organized by The Huntington and the Gamble House comprises some 200 works drawn from The Huntington’s collections as well as those of the Gamble House and private and institutional lenders. "A 'New and Native' Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene” covers the entire breadth and depth of the architectural and design careers of the brothers Greene, whose firm’s output of exquisitely crafted homes and furnishings in the early 20th century secured for them a defining legacy within the American Arts and Crafts movement. The exhibition curators are Edward R. Bosley, the James N. Gamble Director of the Gamble House, and Anne E. Mallek, curator of the Gamble House. Learn more...

AHEAD!

Grand Opening—Dibner Hall of the History of Science

Nov. 1, 2008

The Huntington’s new Dibner Hall of the History of Science will open on Nov. 1, with an innovative approach to an extraordinary topic: how scientific knowledge has changed over time. Drawing on The Huntington’s rich archive of rare books and manuscripts, Dibner Hall’s permanent exhibition, “Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World,” will tell the story of the continuum of change in science—that is, how scientific knowledge has been modified, improved on, and in some cases drastically undermined in the ongoing quest for a more accurate understanding of the workings of the universe. In four sections—Astronomy, Natural History, Medicine, and Light—the exhibition presents books, illustrations, manuscripts, and instruments that show the elegance of scientific endeavor. The exhibition will feature interactive kiosks and displays, including a 200-year-old book that visitors can touch and examine, a prism experiment, a replica of a Galilean telescope, a replica of Leeuwenhoek’s tiny microscope with a slide featuring an actual 17th century flea, and a wall lined with 250 different historical editions of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The hall is named for Bern Dibner, founder of the Burndy Library, a collection of more than 67,000 volumes on the history of science and technology, given to The Huntington in spring 2006. Learn more about Dibner Hall...

AHEAD!

Grand Reopening—

Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art

May 2009

In May 2009, The Huntington will reopen the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art to reveal a completely transformed space in which the expanding American art collection will be displayed in an area twice its previous size. The newly redesigned Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art will treat visitors to 16,000 square feet of thoughtfully grouped, chronologically organized displays representing the history of American painting, sculpture, and decorative art from the late 17th to the middle of the 20th century. The redesign is intended to offer visitors a more engaging and coherent experience of the collection, with a natural flow from the classical, skylit rooms of the original Scott galleries, which will display works from the 17th through early 19th centuries, to the more modernist Frederick Fisher–designed Erburu wing, whose versatility and clean elegance will help spotlight works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Masterpieces from the collection, such as John Singleton Copley’s The Western Brothers (1783), Mary Cassatt’s Breakfast in Bed (1897), John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Pauline Astor (ca. 1898), and Edward Hopper’s The Long Leg (ca. 1930), will be complemented by key works on longterm loan as well as new acquisitions.

For a complete listing of all upcoming events and exhibitions, visit our online calendar.

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