It has been nine weeks since The Blue Boy left The Huntington Art Museum’s Thornton Portrait Gallery for a journey back to its birth home. On January 25, 2022, one hundred years to the day the painting left England forever, The National Gallery in London opened an exhibition of the works of celebrated English painter Thomas Gainsborough called ‘Gainsborough’s Blue Boy: The Return of a British Icon.’
For the gallery, it was a much-anticipated event that was years in the making. In the catalog of the exhibition, The National Gallery Director Gabriele Finaldi, writes that initial negotiations about the possible loan of the painting held between Lord Rothschild and representatives of The Huntington began in 2015 – three years before either Karen Lawrence (The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens president) and Christina Nielson (The Huntington’s Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum) assumed their current posts.
‘Gainsborough’s Blue Boy’ exhibition catalogue | Photo by May S. Ruiz / Hey SoCal
The Huntington hired its first conservator, Christina O’Connell, in 2013 and one of her initial projects was a survey of the art collections. In 2017 she planned and undertook ‘Project Blue Boy,’ the first technical examination and conservation work that was done in public view. A special satellite conservation studio was set up in the west end of the Thornton Portrait Gallery for the year-long exhibition, from September 22, 2018 to September 30, 2019. More than 217,000 people – many of whom traveled several miles – came to see it. Several habitués to The Huntington speculated that the possible loan was the impetus for the conservation work.
That The Blue Boy has reached an iconic stature is demonstrated by how much attention and scrutiny it invites … and how people react to any news about it. In 1921, when British citizens learned that the second Duke of Westminster sold The Blue Boy to an American industrialist, protests broke out in the streets. When it was on view at the National Gallery for three weeks in January 1922, approximately 90,000 people – some of whom wept – queued to see it for the last time.
Visitors view Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy at The Huntington in the 1930s | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
The National Gallery’s then director, Sir Charles Holmes, nostalgically inscribed ‘Au Revoi, C.H.’ at the back of the painting. O’Connell, when she worked on ‘Project Blue Boy,’ very thoughtfully made sure it was also preserved. While that wish was granted a century later, Nielsen assures that it didn’t influence The Huntington’s magnanimous loan. “Strictly speaking, we agreed to lend only after lengthy consideration of a number of factors. But it makes part of a great story!”
In a reversal of events, when The Huntington announced in July last year that The Blue Boy was traveling to England for an exhibition, a wave of comments and views erupted. Art enthusiasts and museum-goers – some of whom didn’t have professional art experience – had as strong an opinion on the matter as art critics and experts. L.A. Times art critic Christopher Knight expressed incredulity that The Huntington went against the advice of the very experts the institution consulted. He said conservation experts believed the painting was too fragile to make that arduous journey. The Huntington, just as quickly, issued a response that refuted Knight’s claims. In the letter, Lawrence and Gregory A. Pieschala, The Huntington’s Chair of Board Trustees, mentioned that the institution convened a second panel of conservators and curators in 2019 when most of the conservation work was complete and it advised that the painting could be lent safely.
On both sides of the Atlantic, news that The Blue Boy will be back in its home country for a 16- week exhibition – from January 25 through May 15, 2022 – garnered extensive publicity. Articles were written about The Blue Boy’s storied history and how its image has been used and appropriated.
A Cadbury Company chocolate tin depicting Blue Boy, ca. 1920 | Photo by Aric Allen / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
The exhibition is expected to draw large crowds as well. While the National Gallery will not release visitation data until the exhibition has closed, Christine Riding, curator of the ‘Gainsborough’s Blue Boy,’ provided an anecdotal report. “The Blue Boy is proving incredibly popular with National Gallery visitors. From the very first day the exhibition opened, with a long queue of people keen to be the very first to say hello to him on his return, we’ve experienced large amounts of people each day eagerly making their way through the Gallery to see this exceptional loan.”
However, much like many renowned works of art, The Blue Boy’s popularity came long after the painter’s death. Riding writes in the exhibition’s catalogue, “One of the ironies of art history is that Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy attracted little public attention (as far as contemporary sources relay) when it was first shown at the Royal Academy in 1770. Yet 150 years later, when it was sold to the American tycoon Henry E. Huntington, it was one of the most famous paintings in the world.”
Indeed, images of the Blue Boy has appeared on everything from chocolate tins to folding screens, as fashion historian and curator Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell chronicles in a blog titled ‘Blue Boy Mania: How Gainsborough’s Masterpiece Colored Pop Culture.’ In it, she records the painting’s history and its appeal to advertisers, entertainers, and interior decorators.
The New Renaissance Society, ‘Baroque n’ Stones’, Hanna Barbera Records, 1966. Blue Boy, wearing shades, graces the cover of this album of Baroque-style musical treatments of such Rolling Stones classics as ‘Get Off of My Cloud’ and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ | Photo by Aric Allen / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Anyone who has seen The Blue Boy identifies with it in some ways. And just like beauty being in the eye of the beholder, the painting stirs a different feeling or emotion in each of us. Leading up to the exhibition opening at The National Gallery, articles published in the U.K. demonstrated this. Matthew Wilson wrote in BBC Culture about its appropriation (or misappropriation) as a symbol for gay pride. Meanwhile, art historian Dan Ho paid a tribute to it in February for LGBTQ+ History Month. Jonathan Jones shared his jaded view in The Guardian that ‘it’s as a hokey vision of English art as a Disney cartoon of a fox hunt.’
Asked by email if the disparate sentiments expressed in the articles make people curious to see The Blue Boy, or if they take away from its mystique, Nielsen replies, “The painting has captivated audiences since it first went on display in 1770. It means something different to everyone who sees it, and that is part of its magic.”
Stories about The Blue Boy will be written in the decades and centuries yet to come. This gorgeous boy, who has inspired countless interpretations and conjured just as many images, could very well signify something else altogether to the generations after us. Some of the ways people relate to him and the painting may not be what Gainsborough originally intended. In Wilson’s BBC Culture article, he cites an art history professor saying “artists cede control of their creations once they are absorbed into the public arena.”
And, in essence, that’s the greatest gift artists could leave behind – for people to make of their artwork what they will. At the same time, it’s an assurance that their artwork will continue to be relevant.
Originally published on 25 February 2022 on Hey SoCal
An air pump | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
It isn’t often that an art exhibition satisfies the artistic and intellectual predilections at once. Visitors to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens will enjoy that rare occasion in an installation called “Science and the Sublime: A Masterpiece by Joseph Wright of Derby.” It is on view from February 12 through May 23, 2022 at the Huntington Gallery’s North Passage.
The centerpiece of this exhibition is the imposing 6-by-8 foot painting called “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.” Reputedly one of the great masterpieces from the Age of Enlightenment, it is on loan from the National Gallery in London – a reciprocal exchange for the Huntington’s ‘Blue Boy.’
As anyone who frequents The Huntington’s galleries can tell you, a scientific painting isn’t something we expect to see among its magnificent collections. It is quite a surprise, then, that this artwork is what the institution has selected in exchange for Gainsborough’s strikingly beautiful and iconic masterpiece.
Books and manuals for scientific experiments | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
During a press event one day before the exhibition’s opening, Christina Nielsen, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum, declares about the choice, “This is the poster painting for scientific pursuits and the Enlightenment and we’re thrilled to have it complement our fantastic collection. This small but impactful installation is really something that only The Huntington can do. Not many institutions in the United States can claim to have experts in British Art and in the History of Medicine in the same place. We have one borrowed painting and 15 objects drawn from both the art museum’s and the world-renowned library’s collection. It is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate within The Huntington’s own collecting areas to forge deeper connections between its two holdings.”
Melinda McCurdy, The Huntington’s Curator of British Art, alongside Joel Klein, Molina Curator for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, led this installation. She echoes Nielsen’s assertion. “This is the first time we created an exhibition where we consciously combine science and art. This painting lends itself to this kind of display and that’s incredibly rare. We were able to really tap into our expertise and our collection to bring these materials together and use them to explain context of an iconic piece.”
‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’ | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
Joseph Wright of Derby’s “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump,” as The Huntington’s press release describes, is a powerful scene that depicts a small group of people gathered around a candlelit table where someone is conducting an experiment. Following 17th-century chemist Robert Boyle’s example, the man slowly removes air from a glass jar as his audience awaits the fate of the cockatiel inside. The observer’s reactions range from fascination to dismay. This tableau is an exercise in the sublime – a moment of extreme tension that can be perceived as a dramatic meditation on the fragility of life. Simultaneously, the experiment being performed demonstrates advances in the fields of science and medicine, making the scene a celebration of human achievement.
“We call the exhibition ‘Science and the Sublime,’” explains McCurdy. “The Sublime is an aesthetic category that was coined in the 18th century by philosopher Edmund Burke as producing the strongest emotions the mind is capable of, such as awe or terror, but in a way that causes pleasure. The thrill of the sublime can be found in nature: in things of immense size – like huge mountains – or that are dangerous or unknown – like deep chasms or dark caves. And Joseph Wright of Derby was working in that aesthetic.”
‘Vesuvius from Portici’ | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
Two Wright of Derby paintings in The Huntington’s permanent collection are also part of the exhibition – “Vesuvius from Portici” and “Two Boys by Candlelight, Blowing a Bladder.” Both pieces show light and dark to dramatic effect: the abrupt burst of light in the explosion of Mount Vesuvius painting can be shocking to the senses, much like going into a darkened room and then someone suddenly turning on the light.
The second painting is more experimental says, McCurdy. “This one shows two boys holding what looks like a balloon, but is actually a bladder. His intention was to create incredible luminosity around the bladder – the candle illuminated it and made it shine and glow very strongly. In fact, he experimented with his method and put a layer of silver leaf beneath the paint to make it reflect back and create a much more prominent glow.”
‘Two Boys by Candlelight, Blowing a Bladder’ | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
“When museums speak to each other about lending out absolute iconic masterpieces, the conversations go on for years,” Nielsen clarifies. “We’re really lucky at the Huntington that we have these two paintings and the incredible collection that we have between different parts of the institution so that we can bring this together. The decision for us to lend the ‘Blue Boy’ was not an easy one. And neither was it an easy decision for the National Gallery to lend this – it is requested all the time. In fact, when we started our conversation, it was on loan to Uffizi in Florence for an exhibition there. But when they heard what we wanted to do with it and how we could pair it with our incredible collections, they said ‘Yeah, you have to do it.’ They were very excited. The National Gallery has been an amazing partner.”
Klein states, “I first saw ‘An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump’ 12 years ago when I was a graduate student in Europe and working on my dissertation. Why is the air pump so important? It’s hard to find a modern equivalent, but it’s something like the particle accelerator of the 17th and 18th centuries. This was big science.”
“Many earlier scientists and philosophers were followers of the teachings of Aristotle who believed that a vacuum in nature was an impossibility,” expounds Klein. “When Robert Boyle and other fellows of the newly formed Royal Society of London used the recently invented air pump to show that vacuums can exist and that air pressure is inversely related to its volume, it was transformative. Boyle and his collaborators also used the air pump to study the nature of air, showing its effects on animal respiration, as well as combustion. I’d like to point out that this painting isn’t so much about an experiment – the bird was safe and wasn’t going to die – as it is a demonstration.”
Prints on animal cruelty and violence | Photo by Brianna Chu / Hey SoCal
Another important aspect that this painting evoked is the practice of using animals in scientific research and experiments, bringing into focus animal rights and cruelty to animals. And Wright was actively engaged in the moral debate about animal cruelty that was active in the 18th century.
The “Science and the Sublime” exhibition incorporates pictures related to the treatment of animals; a selection from the 47,000 volumes and approximately 1,000 scientific objects from the Burndy Library that’s housed in The Huntington Library; two Joseph Wright of Derby paintings – anchored by his monumental “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.”
While some of us might be disappointed that what we’ll see in exchange for our beloved “Blue Boy” isn’t a beautiful portrait of a resplendently attired 18th-century British aristocrat, we can appreciate the curators’ choice. This exceptional opportunity to showcase The Huntington’s strength – a formidable collection of British art masterpieces coupled with a vast repository of materials related to the history of medicine and science – should be enthusiastically embraced.
Originally published on 6 December 2021 on Hey SoCal
Installation view with There-Bound by Enrique Martinez Celaya | Photo courtesy of Joshua White / JW Pictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
It has been a banner year for American Art acquisitions at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Many of these new pieces will join other existing artwork at the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries in an ongoing permanent collection display called “Borderlands,” which opened on November 20.
Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russell Kully Director at the Huntington, declares during the exhibition’s press preview, “Borderlands celebrates the importance of the beautiful and historic collection we have in a way that opens up the story and allows for new voices, new interpretations, and new ways of looking. What you see across the galleries is sometimes a trans-national conversation and sometimes a trans-historic conversation.”
“The Huntington has a responsibility to convey the relevance of historical collections to contemporary audiences and to consider our shared past from multiple perspectives, as we begin to create a vision for the future,” Nielsen said. “Borderlands addresses these goals by presenting a more expansive history of American art in a beautiful and thought-provoking installation – from the re-imagined entrance area through a freshly conceived group of galleries, where objects interact with one another in new ways, drawing connections across media, time, and cultures.”
The Huntington’s Thea Page and Christina Nielsen at the “Borderlands” press preview | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News
Two contemporary artists, Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2020-2022 Huntington Fellow in Visual Arts, and Sandy Rodriguez, 2020-2021 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow, along with strategic loans helped re-imagine the historical collection from multiple perspectives. Together they assembled the various pieces into four themed rooms – “Homelands,” “Crossing Borders,” “Americans Abroad,” and “Breaking Barriers.”
Spread out over about 5,000 square feet of gallery space, the exhibition is a reinstallation of portions of The Huntington’s American Art collection works of renowned artists Mary Cassatt, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer dating from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. New acquisitions include photographs by modern-day artists Mercedes Dorame and Cara Romero and a notable painting by Thomas Cole.
Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art, explains, “We have organized these galleries under the theme of Borderlands, which looks at places where cultures came together historically, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To envision the arts in America in terms of the ‘borderlands’ metaphor, we looked at how artworks have registered the crossing of geographic, political, social, linguistic, and personal boundaries. The history of the United States has been shaped by innumerable borders, whose endurance or dissolution continues to impact us today.”
Martínez Celaya’s “There-bound” — depicting a variety of migratory birds flying across the building’s front windows — is painted inside the expansive glass façade of the Scott Galleries’ north entrance. It creates a stunning dialogue between the artworks inside the gallery with the famous landscapes and living collections at The Huntington. The glassed-in lobby and loggia radiate a chapel-like effect when the work is illuminated by sunlight. Custom-made seating he designed for the space encourages visitors to linger and take in the view of the garden and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond.
“YOU ARE HERE,” a watercolor by Sandy Rodriguez is the thematic anchor in the exhibition | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News
An 8-by-8-foot watercolor called “YOU ARE HERE” is the thematic anchor in the exhibition. Painted by Los Angeles-based artist Sandy Rodriguez, it is a multi-lingual map of the greater Los Angeles area, representing the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time and illustrating the movement and histories of peoples who have called, and still call, the area home.
The first room in the installation, called “Homelands,” centers on Rodriguez’s work. Raised on the California-Mexico border, she investigates the methods and materials of painting across cultures, with particular focus on indigenous histories and knowledge. In addition to YOU ARE HERE, the room features her drawings of botanical species that yield pigments and medicinal treatments for respiratory illnesses or susto (trauma), reminders of the devastating effects of the pandemic.
A single accordion-fold book (a traditional Mexican book form) contains records of Rodriguez’s meticulous study of botanical specimens at The Huntington. Also debuting in this room is a newly acquired 1824 painting of Ioway Chief Moanahonga (Great Walker) by the artist Charles Bird King and photographs by Native American artists Mercedes Dorame and Cara Romero.
Thomas Cole’s majestic “Portage Falls on the Genesee” | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadean.Hollow.com / Beacon Media News
“Crossing Borders,” the second gallery in the exhibition, examines the relationship between landscape and American expansion and exploration in the 19th century with paintings by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Martin Johnson Heade, and Thomas Moran. Many of the featured artists crossed borders, depicting the farthest reaches of the American continent.
Additionally, this room looks at how artists often erased Indigenous presence, picturing a landscape devoid of human occupation and ready for economic exploitation.
“This colonialist view embodied a land-centered conception of nationhood, at a time when landscapes were becoming profoundly altered by rising development and industrialization,” Carr describes. Here, the recently acquired, Thomas Cole’s “Portage Falls on the Genesee” (ca. 1839) makes its first appearance at the Huntington. This majestic 7-by-5-foot painting captures the epic scale and Romanticism that define the Hudson River School, an artistic movement that Cole presumably founded.
As the name suggests, “Americans Abroad,” the next room in the exhibition, features American artists working abroad. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unprecedented numbers of American artists traveled abroad to connect with Europe’s history and its flourishing modern art scene. Some found greater freedom from the strictures of race, sexuality, gender, and class than they did at home. Artists were especially inspired by Impressionism, the Aesthetic Movement, and Art Nouveau, represented in this gallery by the works of Cecilia Beaux, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Lockwood de Forest, and Louis Comfort Tiffany, among others. Many artists also adopted non-Western, Asian and Middle Eastern forms and motifs. The newly acquired painting “Bank of the Nile Opposite Cairo, Egypt” (1879–86) by Lockwood de Forest is on view here.
‘Xenobia in Chains,’ a marble sculpture by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer and ‘Hermosa,’ a pigment print by Cara Romero | Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
In “Breaking Barriers,” “Zenobia in Chains,” Harriet Goodhue Hosmer’s monumental marble sculpture, shares the space with Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” which is on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “These works each speak to the idea of breaking down barriers,” says Carr.
Hosmer’s life, like that of the ancient queen she sculpted, was defined by rebellion. In her 20s, Hosmer moved to Rome to become a professional sculptor, finding support from a circle of creative expatriate women who broke 19th century social expectations by living alone, pursuing artistic careers, and, as was the case for Hosmer, being open about their queer identity. Hosmer became one of the most successful American sculptors — male or female — of her era. Nevertheless, when Zenobia was exhibited in the 1862 Great London Exposition, some male critics wrote that a woman could not possess the skill nor strength to execute such a significant work.
Tanner’s painting in this section highlights the work of artists of color in the 19th century. An African American artist born in Pittsburgh, he gained international acclaim for his paintings, including those with religious themes like Daniel in the Lions’ Den. That he chose to depict Daniel — a biblical character unjustly condemned to death — can also symbolize the systemic persecution of Black Americans, both in his time and ours.
Installation view of Decorative Arts | Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
At the end of the exhibition, visitors reach a loggia where Martinez Celaya’s handmade bench beckons. He speaks about his project for The Huntington and describes the painting on the glass façade. He also graciously agrees to a short interview for Beacon Media to talk about his background and his work.
Martinez Celaya discloses that he was originally from Cuba and was raised in Puerto Rico. He started out as an artist when he was younger, before becoming a physicist, only to go back to his first love — art. He came to the United States for college and graduate school.
“First, they acquired my sculpture outside — which was also the first time they acquired from a contemporary artist — and that’s how I got to know them,” he relates how his partnership with The Huntington came about. “They then asked me to be their first Visual Arts Fellow; this is almost the end of two years’ collaboration.”
Martinez Celaya’s painting for the “Borderlands” exhibition combines his interests in literature and philosophy. He expounds, “I’m particularly drawn to T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ because of their circularity; the idea that in every end is a new beginning and every beginning has an ending. This seems quite fitting to the concept of migration and movement – the moment you leave the place you come from, you’re beginning elsewhere. That circularity of time is the theme of this work.”
Enrique Martinez Celaya (on left) and The Huntington’s Dennis Carr is (on right) | Photo by M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News
“Birds are the metaphor for people’s migration, exile, shift – different cultures, languages, and histories moving through the landscape and time,” he continues. “I’m fascinated by what that means — the dislocation and reinvention that come with that. This theme is fitting in California, especially Los Angeles, a place that brings in people from all over the world who came here for many different reasons. L.A. is a city of immigrants, much more than maybe London is. I’m interested in how migration is representative of a certain condition of being in California. That’s why I used California freeways as part of the design, it’s not only the movement of people, but this state has always been the point of intersection for all this movement.”
As for his last project as a Visual Arts Fellow, Martinez Celaya reveals, “I’m thinking of doing the art of exile for the lecture because I’m an exile, and exploring that as an act of reinvention — of leaving something behind and creating something new. I came here to flee the political situation in Cuba. And while the border is now open, I can never go back. You really can never go back once you leave. I came here when I was 21 so I’ve been for a long time. I do exhibitions around the world but I’m now an American. I’m more Californian than anything else.”
Carr hinted during the press preview that Martinez Celaya’s “There-Bound” painting may become a permanent part of the gallery’s collection of American Art. The peripatetic birds he painted — much like him — may have found their home.
Originally published on 8 October 2021 on Hey SoCal
Kehinde Wiley’s ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
On Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens (The Huntington) unveiled Kehinde Wiley’s “A Portrait of a Gentleman,” a modern-day interpretation of Thomas Gainsborough’s magnificent 18th century masterpiece. It will be on display at the Thornton Portrait Gallery as part of an exhibition which includes other paintings hanging outside in the north passage. (Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie,” another renowned treasure, has been moved there but will be back in the portrait gallery next year.)
Commissioned by The Huntington to celebrate the 100th anniversary of “The Blue Boy’s” acquisition by Henry and Arabella Huntington, “A Portrait of a Young Gentleman” will be in the museum’s permanent collection and visitors can still view it after the show ends on Jan. 3, 2022.
Wiley has famously talked about The Huntington having a major role in his formative years. “I loved The Huntington’s galleries; the paintings by Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and John Constable were some of my favorites. I was taken by their imagery, their sheer spectacle, and, of course, their beauty. When I started painting, I started looking at their technical proficiency – the manipulation of paint, color, and composition. These portraits are hyperreal, with the detail on the face finely crafted, and the brushwork, the clothing, and the landscape fluid and playful. Since I felt somewhat removed from the imagery – personally and culturally – I took a scientific approach and had an aesthetic fascination with these paintings. That distance gave me a removed freedom. Later, I started thinking about issues of desire, objectification, and fantasy in portraiture and, of course, colonialism.”
Karen Lawrence, president of The Huntington, speaking to the press during a preview one hour before the public viewing remarks, “We’ve long admired Kehinde Wiley’s work and the idea of engaging him with us at The Huntington has been in the works and under development for a few years. It is impossible to communicate how thrilling this moment is for us. We often think about influence as a one-way street: the past affecting the present. But as these two portraits of a ‘young gentleman’ face each other across this gallery and across 250 years of history, we can recognize that the present affects the past – the present powerfully reconfigures the past.”
“Kehinde Wiley’s magnificent portrait does more than engage with Gainsborough’s 18th century masterpiece ‘The Blue Boy’ and the other works on display in this room,” continues Lawrence. “It really brings Wiley full circle to a place that he himself has said influences his art practice greatly. For it was to The Huntington that he came as a child with his mother and spent much time looking at these oversized portraits and their grand landscapes. He was impressed in two ways – by the sheer beauty of the brushstrokes and the grandeur of the composition – as much as by what was missing – the lack of representation of anyone who looked like himself.
“When we celebrated our centennial at The Huntington in 2019 we committed ourselves to re-examining the past and re-imagining the future. In this sense, our archives and collections are alive. Kehinde Wiley’s painting changes the Grand Manner portraits of the English nobility surrounding us.”
The themes of past and present are further explored when Christina Nielsen, director of The Huntington Art Museum, tells how Gainsborough – who preferred landscapes – became a portrait painter because it was the more lucrative career, how he broke into the London art market, and then gained national prominence.
Installation view of Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’ | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
“Gainsborough called upon the art of artists before him – van Dyck, in particular – and produced ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman,’ as he named it, and displayed it in 1770 at the Royal Academy Exhibition. It was a show stopper. He threw everything at it, including enormously expensive pigments: lapis, azurite, cobalt, indigo. He tweaked artistic conventions and went against reigning art theory of the day, which says blue should not provide a compositional methodology for a painting. It was a sensational success and artists of the time renamed Gainsborough’s painting ‘Blue Boy.’”
Nielsen expands, “The Huntington Art Museum has the enormous responsibility of being the steward of Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy.’ We are the keeper of this work for present visitors and future generations. It is one of the most influential and beloved master paintings in an American collection and we feel it very keenly on a daily basis. In the 250 years since its existence, it has influenced people like Whistler, Rauschenberg, now Wiley, among many others. It has absolutely sparked public imagination. It was on Cadbury tins in Great Britain before coming to the United States and it was in 11 exhibitions across the 19th century. It was reproduced and hanging on the walls of most British homes before it was purchased by Henry and Arabella Huntington in 1921.”
“And as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of its coming here, we also know how beloved it has become not only for British audiences,” Nielsen says further. “It is an American icon thanks to popular culture that emanates from California, specifically the movie industry. Stars from Marlena Dietrich to Jamie Foxx have dressed up and appeared in Hollywood movies as the ‘Blue Boy.’ It’s iconic on so many levels it’s hard not to sound hyperbolic. And if you have a painting like that in your collection, how do you respond for 21st century audiences?”
“There are few living artists today who could respond to the call like the one emanating from Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy.’ Kehinde Wiley answered the phone and responded magnificently. He is a painter who singlehandedly has changed the conversation about portraiture in the country, the power of representation, and the representation of power,” declares Nielsen.
And because everything today is global, ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ corresponds in its span. The model looks like someone every Angeleno can relate to – a surfer dude wearing a tie-dyed tee shirt, neon blue shorts, and Vans shoes, standing in a field of bright orange California poppies. Yet, he is anonymous. And there is universality in anonymity, according to Nielsen.
Christina Nielsen (left) and Karen Lawrence (right) | Photo by May S. Ruiz / Beacon Media News & Hey SoCal
Wiley began working on the portrait during lockdown in Senegal where his Black Rock Senegal multidisciplinary artist-in-residence program is based, so Nielsen thinks his model is a young man from Dakar. The painting moved to his Beijing studio and then to his New York atelier early this summer. It then came to Los Angeles where it was placed in a train with an exact replica of the 18th century frame that The Huntington purchased a decade or so ago for the ‘Blue Boy.’ The frame was hand-carved in Nicaragua.
Seeing Wiley’s “A Portrait of a Young Gentleman” occupying the space that has been “The Blue Boy’s” pride of place in the last hundred years might come as a surprise to some. It seems like a dissonance from all the paintings of properly-attired personalities in the gallery.
“Some of the Grand Manner sitters are in clothes of the day. Even in the 18th century, fashion was an incredibly important marker,” Nielsen explains. “Kehinde Wiley inserts black bodies into historical stories, and what these people would be wearing today. He’s also very aware of fashion and high fashion; these choices are all incredibly deliberate and conscious. The portraits right now face each other in the characteristic gesture. The details in the Wiley speak to the contemporary.
“All art was once contemporary and Gainsborough’s was revolutionary in his day and was the catalyst for his fellow artists and visitors to that original Royal Academy show. I imagine this will feel catalytic. I know how I felt when I walked into this room and saw it on the wall. I can also say that several days in, I have fully metabolized it and now it feels like it’s always been here. You can’t look at it without thinking of them, you can’t look at them without feeling its presence. It’s incredibly exciting the range of conversations that this will open up for our audiences and I imagine, as always, art will elicit responses across the whole spectrum. It will take time for some people and some will immediately just feel the joy and exuberance.”
Lawrence says, “Kehinde’s portrait of Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery transformed everyone’s thought about presidential portraiture – the Grand Manner genre of presidential portrait was stunningly interrupted. And with that of Barack Obama’s added with all the white faces, you could predict how this will enter into the canon. The significance will be great.
“We wanted The Huntington to make invitations to re-interpret cultural practice as well as our historical and literary archives and collections in the library. For contemporary practitioners to activate, motivate, respond to what we have because otherwise, what’s the point? We’ve made that invitation and I think that the audiences for the Huntington will come here and see the continuity of past, present, and future, and embrace that. What is unexpected? What are the different voices? These are opportunities that we want to take. I’m speaking for myself and Christina and we’re absolutely thrilled with what Wiley has chosen to do.”
Originally published on 10 September 2021 on Hey SoCal
Installation view of The Blue Boy | Courtesy Photo / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Last month we published an article about the announcement that The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has decided to loan our beloved “Blue Boy” to the National Gallery in London. Gainsborough’s magnificent work, which left England for the United States on Jan. 25, 1922, will be part of an exhibit that is set to open exactly 100 years since that day.
In its announcement, Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence, remarked, “This masterpiece has made an indelible mark on both art history and popular culture, capturing the imaginations of a wide range of audiences. Given ‘The Blue Boy’s’ iconic status at The Huntington, this is an unprecedented loan, one which we considered very carefully. We hope that this partnership with the National Gallery will spark new conversations, appreciation, and research on both sides of the Atlantic.”
We in the San Gabriel Valley are so fortunate to have world renowned museums and to have been exposed to stunning works by some of the greatest artists who ever lived. Most of us have never known a time when “The Blue Boy” wasn’t at The Huntington. So we asked our readers to tell us how they feel about it traveling to London and share with us their experience with this piece of art.
While we didn’t receive as many responses as we had hoped, we learned that our readers have informed opinions with information to impart. We also feel that what we did get are representative of people’s reactions and we’re printing them below:
“My informal response to your informal survey is that if the experts say it’s not safe for the painting to travel, then it shouldn’t. I’m also concerned that if the painting does go to London, what’s to keep their museum from saying that the painting is too fragile to send back?
“As you can see, I’m reluctant to let it go.”
Meg Gifford Pasadena
“Everybody likes to return home, even for a short visit … and I’m sure ‘Blue Boy’ is among them. So I wish him “calm seas and prosperous voyage.”
“The greatest gift master painters have given mankind is that it doesn’t take an advanced degree in art to appreciate their work.
“Even as a rustic with no refinement, I have stood at length in reverence before Gainsborough’s masterpiece. And in so doing, I convinced myself that if I touched that canvas, I wouldn’t feel a flat surface, but instead Blue Boy’s silken garment and his flesh underneath it.”
David Quintero Monrovia
‘The Blue Boy’ post conservation | Photo by Christina Milton O’Connell / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
“I believe it is a wonderful opportunity to return it to the land from whence it came so that a ‘new generation’ can admire its beauty. The concerns cited can be mitigated if those involved will check history regarding other great works of art that traveled outside their respective country.
“The Mona Lisa was painted in 1503, 276 years BEFORE Blue Boy. Thanks to the efforts of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, France’s national treasure, a very fragile piece of art, was shipped to America. On January 8, 1963, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa made its first appearance when it was put on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. It was transported by the S.S. France ocean liner in a temperature-controlled box in its own stateroom, accompanied by armed guards. The temperature, which was alarm-monitored, would not be allowed to fluctuate by more than one degree throughout the entire journey. Eleven years later, in 1974, the Mona Lisa once again left France to travel to Russia and Japan. It can be done without endangering the masterpiece.
“Françoise Nyssen, France’s former Minister of Culture, once said that she didn’t believe works of tremendous cultural significance should be confined to a single institution. I thoroughly agree. Whenever possible, great works of art should be shared with the world.
“Thank you.”
Charlotte Farmer Arcadia
“My first memories of seeing the ‘Blue Boy’ was in the 1970s when my parents took me to The Huntington as a young kid. It was my mom who introduced me to it, saying it’s a great piece of art. But my appreciation of it at the time was due to the fact that the painting was of a child, like me. I remember it also being next to “Pinkie,” and I don’t know if they were meant to be deliberately displayed next to each other. While these were paintings from a long time ago, I felt a connection and kinship with them.
“That impression stayed with me to this day so when we have visitors, I take them to The Huntington and show them the ‘Blue Boy.’ When my cousins from Japan came in 2018 for my dad’s 88th birthday celebration, I took them to the mansion along with a niece and nephew who aren’t from this area. I told them about The Huntington’s conservation project and what the x-rays showed beneath the painting. I was able to share a part of my local culture to two generations. There was a language barrier between my Japanese cousins and my American relatives and they had to use Google translate to communicate, but it was a fun family experience tied to the ‘Blue Boy.’
“It’s a nice gesture to share the artwork and I hope it’s safe for it to travel that far. However, its absence will sadden many of us who have grown up knowing it’s always been there. I imagine ‘Pinkie’ will also be sad not to have him by her side. What’s going in that space while ‘Blue Boy’ is away?
“I’m a member of The Huntington and I take strolls at the gardens. And every time I go to the mansion, I make it a point to see the ‘Blue Boy.’ It’s a magnificent piece of art and embodies what I think The Huntington is about. There are so many rotating exhibits – even at the promenade area – but seeing the ‘Blue Boy’ always makes me happy. It evokes emotions and memories of my childhood. I’ll be looking forward to its safe return.”
Stephanie Yamasaki Altadena
The board of The Huntington will be glad to know that their decision has more proponents than opponents and art experts can be assured that “The Blue Boy” can safely travel, as one reader asserted. And we can be gratified in the thought that art enthusiasts across the Atlantic will have the rare chance to see and experience the treasure we hold precious.
Originally published on 19 August 2021 on Hey SoCal
‘The Blue Boy’ | Photo by Christina O’Connell / Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens
Among the many treasures housed in The Huntington’s art galleries, none has a more storied history than Thomas Gainsborough’s “The Blue Boy.” It had been a beloved artwork in its homeland – images of the boy in the striking blue attire appeared on various souvenir items. Its purchase in 1921 by an American collector caused quite a stir among the British people and they took to the streets when they found out that it was leaving for America.
“The Blue Boy” has occupied an important place at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens since it opened in 1928. Along with the breathtaking and expansive gardens, the many valuable collections in the library – William Shakespeare’s quarto and folio editions, a rare Gutenberg bible on vellum, the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” and Benjamin Franklin’s handwritten autobiography, among them, – the impressive works of art in the various galleries, the “Blue Boy” attracts more than 800,000 visitors every year.
In 2018, The Huntington embarked on “Project Blue Boy,” a nearly three-year conservation project to analyze, stabilize, clean, and restore the painting. To provide visitors a peek into the art and science of the process in real time, much of the conservation work was performed in public. Senior paintings conservator Christina O’Connell, who led the project, gave approximately 170 gallery talks and answered questions posed by the more than 200,000 visitors who came to watch the progress between 2018 and 2019.
The restored “Blue Boy” was scheduled to be back at the Thornton Portrait Gallery on March 26, 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic delayed that much anticipated unveiling (read related article here). While it was back at its usual spot in September last year, it was only on April 17 this year – when The Huntington’s art galleries were again open to the public – that visitors got to see Gainsborough’s masterpiece.
And then last month, The Huntington announced that “The Blue Boy” will be returning to England 100 years after it left. From Jan. 25 through May 3, 2022, it will be on display at the National Gallery in London – a reversal of events when it was last viewed by 90,000 people during its last three weeks there before it departed for its new home in California.
This time, the news stunned art experts. In a Los Angeles Times article published on July 6, art critic Christopher Knight wrote that he asked Mark Leonard, a retired conservator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum, for a comment. Leonard replied that the panel of nine American and European art conservators – experts the museum convened in December 2018 to evaluate the “Blue Boy’s” condition – expressed shock about the decision made by The Huntington’s board of trustees.
Knight further wrote that “sending the picture was unanimously opposed by the expert team, who believed travel puts the prized work at grave risk. They warned of potential structural damage to the 250-year-old canvas from the arduous trip.”
While it’s magnanimous of The Huntington board to lend “The Blue Boy” to the National Gallery so that others across the Atlantic are afforded the opportunity to once more see it, we in the San Gabriel Valley are also very protective of it. We have wonderful memories of going to the Thornton Gallery to gaze in awe at Gainsborough’s genius, and we want to make sure the painting celebrates its next centennial.
How do you feel about “The Blue Boy” traveling 5,429 miles and being gone for four months? We invite you to send us an email and tell us, in 100 words or fewer, your thoughts about it and share your experience looking at this magnificent work of art. Send your email to: MayRChu56@gmail com. Unless you request otherwise, we will include your name when we publish our informal poll.
Originally published on 5 April 2021 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly
Nicole Cavender | Photo courtesy of Morton Arboretum
When The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced last week the appointment of Dr. Nicole Cavender as the Telleen/Jorgensen director of the botanical gardens, she became its first female director — a momentous event in the beloved institution’s remarkable history.
And it is only fitting that Cavender has been chosen to hold that distinction. She has a B.S. in environmental and plant biology from Ohio University and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in horticulture and crop science. She will officially join the Huntington on May 17, 2021 after serving nine years as vice-president of science and conservation at Morton Arboretum, a 1,700-acre area of plants and trees which also boasts a hiking trail. Previous to that, she was chief programmatic officer at The Wilds, a 10,000-acre safari park and wildlife conservation center in southeastern Ohio which offers adventures like zip lining, horseback riding, and fishing.
The Huntington’s Rose Garden | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Her new post at The Huntington, which has a mere 207 acres of gardens, might seem a departure from what Cavender has done before. But at the core, she will be continuing to apply what she knows and carry out what she wishes to accomplish. As The Huntington’s announcement outlines, she “will oversee a staff of 85 and several hundred volunteers in caring for more than a dozen gardens, including the renowned Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden, Desert Garden, and Rose Garden (read about it here). In addition, she will be actively involved in developing and expanding botanical education, outreach, and research programs. Along with the gardens, the botanical division at The Huntington also includes a seed bank, tissue culture lab, and a cryopreservation lab focused on developing protocols for freezing plant tissue at extremely low temperatures and then bringing them back to life at a later date — an arm of research crucial to conservation and sustainability of rare species.”
The Huntington has taken a lead role in recent years in the cutting-edge field of cryopreservation | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Cavender states via email interview, “I’ve been fortunate to have the professional experience of working to advance science, conservation, and human connections at wonderful and unique places such as the Wilds and the Morton Arboretum. Looking forward, The Huntington has one of the largest, most diverse collections of plants in the world with over 15,000 different types of plant taxa — absolutely incredible! It offers the opportunity to work among amazing colleagues and with an incredibly vast and diverse collection, where I can bring to bear my love of plants, my devotion to the study of biodiversity, and my desire to continue improving the human connection to and appreciation of nature.”
“My focus will be on working with the amazing Huntington botanical gardens’ staff while collaborating with the library and museum team members,” adds Cavender. “The Huntington provides an exceptionally unique opportunity for synergy to maximize our collective impact and provide a remarkable visitor experience. I want to be able to help promote the important role gardens play in conserving the world’s plant diversity, promoting good stewardship of our planet, while also providing creative spaces for cultural expression and the human spirit connection.”
Cavender’s personal upbringing, academic background, and work experience inform her career path. “My interest in plants is rooted in my childhood as my father was a mycologist (fungi) and botany professor at Ohio University for over 30 years. He inspired my passion for conservation and plant biology at an early age which led to my earning a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in horticulture and crop science. A common thread throughout my entire life is a love of plants and animals from my formal education throughout my professional career. I’m very motivated to build, encourage and bring together teams of people around common goals that promote the protection and restoration of nature while enlightening the human spirit.”
Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, is one of the largest and finest classical-style Chinese gardens outside of China. It’s also the focal point for a variety of programs promoting cross-cultural exchange | Photo by Lisa Blackburn / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
That The Huntington has one of the largest authentic Chinese Gardens in the country, the realization of a long-held dream of James Folsom (read related article here), is fortuitous. Cavender explains, “Jim left a remarkable legacy. His attention to detail and authenticity when creating the Chinese Garden and the botanical gardens as a whole is amazing. In my role as VP of science & conservation at The Morton Arboretum, I was fortunate to take numerous trips to China for projects that focused on tree conservation and urban forest management. I plan to build upon Jim’s successes and am excited to continue to advance the plant, human and cultural connection within this garden and the many other excellent gardens at The Huntington.”
Cavender will be working within a predominantly Asian American community at a time when there’s national focus on correcting people’s misconceptions about Asian culture and eliminating anti-Asian sentiments. Her appointment as the first female botanical garden director comes at an opportune period as The Huntington tries to rectify its past practices of inequity and as it embraces inclusion, as Carolina A. Miranda wrote on April 1, in an L.A. Times exclusive.
“My beliefs very much align with The Huntington’s principles on diversity, equity, and inclusion,” comments Cavender. “As a plant lover, I’m obviously thrilled by the diversity of species in the garden. But I’m even more excited by the diversity of the extended Huntington community and its historical role in the region. It’s been an honor to visit China numerous times over the years as I’ve developed a special appreciation of the culture which I treasure. I very much look forward to working with the local and national Asian community to build a better, more accurate understanding of Asian and Asian American history and culture.”
One of the many projects that Cavender will oversee is the addition in the Japanese Garden of a 350-year-old magistrate’s house from Marugame, Japan donated to The Huntington. When the fully dismantled house — currently being reconstructed with the help of a team of Japanese artisans — is completed, visitors can come in and learn about traditional Japanese residence and garden.
The distinction of being first in a given post isn’t new for Cavender. She discloses, “Each of my last two posts at the Wilds and The Morton Arboretum were newly developed roles so I was the first person to hold those positions. I’m honored to be the first woman director of the Huntington botanical gardens. More women are taking leadership roles in botanical gardens in the U.S. and even throughout the world than ever before, and I’m excited to be one of them.”
Best practices in sustainable agriculture for our regional climate are explored in The Huntington’s James P. Folsom Ranch Garden. Volunteer Emma Ho’o mulches rows of vegetable crops | Photo by Deborah Miller / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Asked if there was something she discovered about The Huntington that was surprising, Cavender replies, “I was delighted to learn about the potager (kitchen garden) and experimental ranch garden created and now dedicated to Jim Folsom. These are opportunities to teach students and people about the very important connection between plants, horticulture, and food sustainability.
“It’s been an absolute joy learning about the Huntington. It’s such a unique, complex place with a rich, diverse history. The plant collection is AMAZING and truly exceptional, and is one of the most diverse in the world, while the library and museum collections are outstanding. The combination of everything in one place is incredible. I look forward to being continually surprised as I learn more over time.
“I’m eager to be working with the team in all three areas — the botanical gardens, library, and art museum. I want to understand our unique strengths and opportunities so we can build upon them synergistically and move the institution forward in the most relevant way possible.”
An earlier photo of the Cavender family | Photo courtesy of Dr. Cavender
This relocation to the West Coast will be a novel experience for the Cavenders as they move halfway across the country and settle in their new home. Cavender reveals about her family “I’ve been married to my husband Gary for 24 years. We have two children — Laurel (a sophomore at Marquette University) and Andrew (a seventh grader). While both are sad to leave their hometown friends, they’re excited about potential adventures in Southern California. We all appreciate that this position with The Huntington is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
In spite of the notorious L.A. traffic, Southern California has much to offer, and Cavender acquiesces, “The weather is certainly a draw as cold Chicago winters can be challenging. As an avid gardener, I can’t wait to have year-round growing opportunities. I will absolutely have my own garden and look forward to growing vegetables, California wildflowers, citrus plants, succulents, cacti, orchids, etc. that simply can’t survive harsh winters in the Midwest. It’ll be a very fun learning experience for a plant geek such as myself. I know I will need to learn more about water conservation, especially knowing that we have a vast collection of plants to care for and plants need water!”
It will come as no surprise for us to discover that the Cavenders like to spend their leisure time in the great outdoors. And since the San Gabriel Valley is about a two-hour drive from either the mountains or the beaches, they’ll find many places to go to.
States Cavender, “We’re a very outdoor-oriented family. The recreation opportunities available in Southern California are incredible. We’ll definitely be hiking in the mountains during the hot weather months and along the beaches during the ‘cold’ months. But there are no ‘cold’ months in L.A. to someone from Chicago!”
Originally published on 8 October 2020 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly
The Stargazing Tower, one of the new pavilions in the expanded section of the Chinese Garden. The Stargazing Tower offers sweeping views of the lake and garden below and of the ‘borrowed landscape’ beyond, including the San Gabriel Mountains and Mount Wilson Observatory, which inspired the pavilion’s name. | Photo by Beth Coller / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
To say that it took a village and a few decades to create the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden’s Liu Fang Yuan (the Garden of Flowing Fragrance) wouldn’t be an exaggeration. And we’ll have the opportunity to see the completed project and revel in all the pleasures within when the expanded Chinese Garden opens on Oct. 9, 2020. And what a treat it will be!
Enjoy the arrival of fall meandering along lush landscapes, magnificent pavilions, and new attractions. Spread on 15 acres of land, 12 acres of which comprise a central garden, it features a bamboo grove on its western edge and a conifer forest to the north, making it one of the largest classical-style Chinese gardens in the world.
The Stargazing Tower is the perfect vantage point from which to view the gorgeous landscape below and the beautiful San Gabriel Mountains in the distance. This 527-square-foot pavilion is situated on the highest point in the garden at the southern end of the lake and evokes the Mount Wilson Observatory, which is visible from the tower, and the work of astronomer Edwin Hubble, whose papers are part of the Library’s holdings in the history of science.
Visit The Verdant Microcosm, the 17,900-square-foot area on the western slope of the garden designed for the study, creation, and display of penjing (miniature potted landscapes, similar to Japanese bonsai).
Take a breather at the aptly called Reflections in the Stream and Fragrance of Orchids Pavilion, which is shaded by mature California oaks near a gently flowing stream. The name of this 308-square-foot pavilion brings to mind the legendary gathering of poets at the Orchid Pavilion in Shaoxing in 353, immortalized by the great calligrapher Wang Xizhi, who wrote the preface to the collected poems.
Wander into the Courtyard of Assembled Worthies, a large patio paved with intricate pebble mosaics which links the existing Clear and Transcendent pavilion on the north side of the lake – the frequent site of concerts and performances – with the new exhibition complex.
Mature oaks frame a view of the Courtyard of Assembled Worthies and the Flowery Brush Library, two of the new features in the expanded Chinese Garden. | Photo by Aric Allen / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
As you would correctly surmise, all these wonders are the culmination of the yearslong work of countless experts and contributions from numerous individuals. In a pretaped interview, Phillip E. Bloom, June and Simon K.C. Li curator of the Chinese Garden and director of the Center for East Asian Studies, expands on what went into the garden’s creation.
Bloom reveals, “The idea for the Chinese Garden came about more than 20 years ago when Jim Folsom, the Telleen/Jorgensen director of the Botanical Gardens, began conceiving of a garden where he would showcase common American garden plants that are actually Chinese in origin. But as he learned about what a Chinese garden is and how it typically incorporates architecture, calligraphy, poetry, sometimes even painting, he began to understand that having plants alone would never be sufficient.
“It was a cross-cultural effort which began with The Huntington collaborating with Chinese American designers in the San Gabriel Valley in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, we began working with a design firm in China. Since 2004 we also worked with a construction company based in Suzhou, China to build the actual garden which was done in three phases – from 2004-2008; 2012-2014; 2018-2020. The completion of the project took over two decades, involved more than 2,200 donors, probably over 150 artisans from China, innumerable subcontractors and laborers from the U.S., as well as 150 docents, and two or three different curators.
“On the construction aspect, at any one time, there typically were three or more languages being spoken – English, Mexican Spanish, Mandarin, and the Suzhou dialect. The workers had to learn to collaborate with each other despite their linguistic differences so there tended to be a lot of sign language being used on site.”
Bloom discloses further, “The Chinese American community played a major role in its creation. Before there was even a design for the Liu Fang Yuan, Jim initially consulted with the Chinese American community to understand, first of all, what a Chinese garden is and, more importantly, how it can serve the area around it. In the 1980s, the population of San Marino changed quite dramatically; today 70 percent of its population is of Chinese American descent. So it became imperative for The Huntington to create a garden that would be meaningful to the people who live in the area.
“Subsequently, these residents have become supporters either as donors, docents, or members of The Huntington. Many of them come to the garden every single day for their morning walk. It has also become a vital educational space. Students from various school districts in the San Gabriel Valley frequently come to the garden to learn about Chinese culture and how it is being adapted in an American context, to see examples of Chinese art which we feature periodically in the garden.”
World in a Wine Pot, one of the architectural features within the Verdant Microcosm, the garden’s new penjing complex.The Chinese art of penjing is similar to Japanese bonsai. | Photo by Beth Coller / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
As to what sets the Liu Fang Yuan apart and makes it noteworthy, Bloom explains, “Physically, the garden is unique because of its site. Southern California has a relatively dry climate so they had to plant it quite differently from what is typically done in Suzhou. It has also been adapted to local building and audience requirements. The garden itself, although it looks traditional, was designed to be able respond to its environment – the buildings are earthquake-resistant – and the needs of an American public – they are wheelchair- and stroller-accessible.
“Additionally, we have chosen to include an art gallery and a reproduction of a Ming Dynasty scholar’s studio. Through these spaces, we’ll be able to engage in exciting cultural activities and public educational programs. Eventually, students can come in to the studio and pick up a calligraphy brush and experience pre-modern scholar lifestyle.
“Most importantly, through the Center for East Asian Garden Studies, we’re able to offer a monthly lecture series on East Asian garden history, mount exhibitions periodically that bring art into dialogue with the garden, stawge performances directly from China as well as other places in the United States occasionally to perform traditional music as well as modern adaptions of such. There is no garden – to my knowledge – anywhere in China that is supported with scholarly and public programming.”
Liu Fang Yuan plays a significant role in promoting understanding and appreciation of East Asian garden culture, according to Bloom. He elucidates, “Our programming allows Americans to better understand East Asian garden culture and Chinese Americans to have a different perspective to learn about their own culture from scholars. Every month we have a lecture on East Asian garden history. Periodically we hold concerts, we bring artists, through an artist residency program, we actually create artwork in the gardens.
“Our initial exhibition, called ‘A Garden of Words,’ displays the original works of calligraphy we used to create the name placards on the buildings and scenic features and poetic couplets throughout the garden. Before any of these Chinese inscriptions were written on wood, stone, or tile, they existed as works on paper created by about 35 different contemporary artists from around the world, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the U.S., and the U.K.
“At the same time, the garden itself functions remarkably well as a place of cross-cultural understanding with the scholar’s studio – where people can sit and try to do calligraphy or play the guqin – and art gallery and where we’ll have exhibitions that will provide an artistic perspective on Chinese garden culture. In the western expansion we created a massive, new penjing court where people would be able to compare Chinese penjing and Japanese bonsai.
View of the Lake of Reflected Fragrance, showing some of the original features that opened in 2008 (l–r): the Pavilion of the Three Friends, the Jade Ribbon Bridge, and the Hall of the Jade Camellia. In the foreground is the Bridge of the Joy of Fish. | Photo by Martha Benedict / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
A press release issued by The Huntington’s Communications Office describes the indoor spaces, which Bloom mentions, to open later: The art gallery, Studio for Lodging the Mind, a 1,720-square-foot climate- and light-controlled building at the northern end of the garden that will showcase changing exhibitions of Chinese artworks, both contemporary and historical. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition will feature ‘A Garden of Words: The Calligraphy of Liu Fang Yuan,’ will open in May 2021.
There’s the Flowery Brush Library adjacent to the gallery, a hall designed in the style of a scholar’s studio –a garden retreat traditionally used to create paintings and calligraphy. Also in this north section is a new casual restaurant with outdoor seating, known as the Pavilion Encircled by Jade. And a large open space overlooking the lake, the Terrace of Shared Delights, will be used for banquets, festivals, and other gatherings.
Cultural programming slated to coincide with the opening will include a virtual screening of the video ‘Fragrant Rhythms: The Seasons of Liu Fan Yuan’ by artist Tang Qingnian, on Sunday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m. The video was produced during Tang’s residency as the Cheng Family Visiting Artist in 2019. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the artist and soundtrack musicians Wu Man (who composed the score) on the pipa (lute) and Kojiro Umezaki on the shakuhachi (bamboo flute). Presented on the Zoom videoconferencing platform, the screening is free with reservations, available at huntington.org/calendar.
Online lectures related to the opening will include: ‘The Pleasures of Chinese Gardens’ by curator Phillip E. Bloom on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 4 p.m., and ‘The Past and Future of The Huntington’s Asian Gardens’ by James Folsom, on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 4 p.m.
In addition, a special display of orchids throughout the Chinese Garden will celebrate the debut of the expanded features. Many of the flowers will be drawn from The Huntington’s own extensive orchid collections, supplemented by blooms from local orchid societies and commercial exhibitors. The display is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 16–18.
After being confined indoors for seven months remote learning and working from home, we’re longing to finally see what’s out there. An outing to Liu Fang Yuan fits the bill perfectly!
Originally published on 18 September 2020 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly
‘The Blue Boy’ by Thomas Gainsborough post conservation photo | Photo by Christina Milton O’Connell / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Created by English landscape and portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough around 1770, ‘The Blue Boy’ occupies a place of honor at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden’s Thornton Portrait Gallery and is seen by about 800,000 people annually. After an 18-month restoration project, it has been rehung and will be available for viewing when it’s safe for the museum to reopen. And when we do get the chance to visit again, we’ll fully appreciate why the painting gained the moniker.
‘Project Blue Boy’ began in 2017 when conservators carried out a preliminary analysis of the painting. It was examined and documented using a range of imaging techniques that allowed Christina O’Connell, senior paintings conservator, and Dr. Melinda McCurdy, associate curator of British art, to see beyond the surface with wavelengths the human eye can’t see. Infrared reflectography rendered some paints transparent, making it possible to see preparatory lines or changes the artist made. Through ultraviolet illumination, they were able to examine and document the previous layers of varnish and old overpaints.
Their findings determined what needed to be done and how it was going to be accomplished – ‘The Blue Boy’ required conservation to address both structural and visual concerns. “Earlier conservation treatments mainly have involved adding new layers of varnish as temporary solutions to keep it on view as much as possible,” O’Connell declared at the start of the project. “The original colors now appear hazy and dull, and many of the details are obscured.”
According to O’Connell, there were also several areas where the paint was beginning to lift and flake, making the work vulnerable to paint loss and permanent damage; and the adhesion between the painting and its lining was separating, meaning it did not have adequate support for long-term display.
New images of the back of the painting were taken to document what appeared to be an original stretcher (the wooden support to which the canvas is fastened) as well as old labels and inscriptions that told more of the painting’s story. Furthermore, minute samples from the technical study and from previous analysis by experts were studied at high magnification (200-400x) with techniques including scanning electron microscopy with which conservators could scrutinize specific layers and pigments within the paint.
The undertaking uncovered new information of interest to art historians as well. During preliminary analysis, conservators found an L-shaped tear more than 11 inches in length which, data suggest, was made early in the painting’s history. The damage may have occurred during the 19th century when the painting was in the collection of the Duke of Westminster and exhibited frequently.
Side-by-side comparison of Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘The Blue Boy,’ Pre-conservation (left), post conservation (right) | Photo by Christina Milton O’Connell / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
It was decided early on that this conservation project was going to be different from what they had undertaken before – it would have an educational component and involve the community. The Huntington partnered with Bank of America’s Art Conservation Program to finance the massive undertaking.
For the first time in its history, The Huntington held a year-long exhibition from September 2018 to September 2019 showcasing the project in progress – the capstone of its centennial celebration. During the first three months, ‘The Blue Boy’ was on public view in a special satellite conservation studio set up in the west end of the Thornton Portrait Gallery, where O’Connell worked on the painting to continue examination and analysis, and began paint stabilization, surface cleaning, and removal of non-original varnish and overpaint.
It went off view from February through June when O’Connell performed structural work on the canvas and applied varnish with equipment that couldn’t be moved to the gallery space. ‘The Blue Boy’ then returned to the gallery where visitors witnessed the in-painting process until the close of the exhibition.
The final phase – held off view from October 2019 to March 2020 – involved in-painting, varnishing, supportive backing, and adjusting the framing.
A stabilized and restored painting was scheduled to be back at the Thornton Portrait Gallery in the spring, but the pandemic delayed the public unveiling until Thursday, Sept. 10. To help get the word out, The Huntington held a virtual press briefing. In conjunction with the event, Dr. McCurdy and O’Connell agree to be interviewed by email.
Christina Milton O’Connell, Mary Ann and John Sturgeon Senior Paintings Conservator, removed discolored varnish with small swabs | Courtesy Photo / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
I ask if they were able to find the answers to questions they had when they embarked on the project: What technical means did Gainsborough use to achieve his spectacular visual effects? Did he develop special pigments, create new materials, pioneer new techniques?
O’Connell replies, “We’re still waiting on some data from our samples and we hope to have more information soon. What we do know is that Gainsborough used a complex mixture of many different pigments together to make his colors. He also used many layers of opaque and transparent paint to create different visual effects. Now that the painting has been cleaned, we can see nuances of his brushstrokes that were obscured under the discolored/cloudy varnish. We can appreciate his technique from the fluid and fast strokes he applied to the sky and landscape to the more complex network of paint strokes that comprise the figure of the boy.
What might new technologies tell us about this earlier abandoned portrait? Where does this lost painting fit into his career? How does it compare with other earlier portraits by Gainsborough? Will there be other evidence that may become visible beneath the surface paint, and what it might indicate about Gainsborough’s painting practice?
“The digital x-ray gave us a clearer picture of the abandoned painting than we had previously,” answers Dr. McCurdy. “We were able to capture more of figure’s face, including his eyes, which we had never seen before. That was an exciting discovery. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough information for us to identify the sitter or to suggest a specific date range for the portrait.”
Adds O’Connell, “As Melinda indicated, we learned a lot from the x-rays. We also used infrared reflectography (IRR) to see through some of the layers of paint (X-rays go through all the layers). With IRR, we could confirm that Gainsborough didn’t take that previous portrait very far – he only captured the likeness of the sitter and painted very preliminary outlines for the figure’s shoulders. I’d like to point out that there isn’t one analytical technique that provides all the answers, we have to study the painting with many different forms of technology to get different pieces of information.
Did you discover other evidence beneath the surface paint and what did it indicate about the artist’s painting process?
“We used some techniques of analysis that hadn’t previously been used to study the painting,” says O’Connell. “One of those techniques is infrared reflectography (IRR). With this analysis, we can see what is beneath some of the paint layers and it’s a useful technique for examining the preparatory layers or sketches an artist applied under the paint. For Blue Boy, we can see preparatory lines that establish the bold pose of the figure from the very beginning stages.
Christina Milton O’Connell uses tiny brushes to reconnect Gainsborough’s brushstrokes across the voids of past damages | Courtesy Photo / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
I ask if there were other revelations they hadn’t expected to unearth and Dr. McCurdy responds, “We hadn’t expected to find that the painting had suffered a major damage in the past. The canvas had been torn, but it had been repaired so well that it hadn’t shown up in previous x-rays.”
Continues O’Connell, “Discovering the tear helped us understand the reason why the painting was lined. There was a large damage that needed repair.”
“How does this restoration project compare with others you have done before?” I inquire.
“The condition issues for Blue Boy were not surprising for a painting from the 18th century,” O’Connell discloses. “Each treatment is slightly unique and a conservator has to take into account the original materials and how they’ve aged over time, but also the past treatments and restorations. Each project is a unique case study and that’s one of the things I love about the field.”
Painting restoration doesn’t sound like a thrilling project for the average person who isn’t knowledgeable about art, so I ask what we should find exciting to know. I tell them I was shocked to learn that Gainsborough had painted over something – it seems sacrilegious – but I imagine it was a common practice among artists.
Dr. McCurdy explains, “It is not that uncommon to find another painting beneath the surface composition. There are many reasons an artist might decide to paint over something else – maybe the composition didn’t work out the way s/he wanted? Maybe a client did not pay? Materials are expensive, so it could also happen for cost-saving reasons. In this case, we know that Gainsborough didn’t paint Blue Boy as a commissioned work, so he wasn’t being paid for it. It made financial sense to re-use a canvas he already had.”
“Sharing the treatment process with our visitors created another avenue for them to learn about and see Blue Boy in a new way,” O’Connell expounds. “Visitors were extremely fascinated to learn about all the layers that comprise the painting (there are 8-9 and you wouldn’t know that just from looking at the surface). Some visitors are drawn to learning more about Gainsborough’s technique and others were drawn to the process of conservation. Some were interested to see the forensic side of the technical investigation. The focus on research and education (part of The Huntington’s mission) really meant that this project had something for everyone.
Christina Milton O’Connell in-painting in the conservation lab | Courtesy Photo / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
“I have many memories from visitors coming to the gallery, but one that stands out was a day when I had a detailed discussion with an artist and a polymer chemist from JPL about varnishes. They both had a different reason for asking their questions and a different experience and understanding of varnish, but everyone was engaged.”
Please share your thoughts about what you, personally, learned as you did this project, I ask.
Dr. McCurdy states, “In watching Christina uncover Gainsborough’s original palette from beneath layers of dirt and discolored varnish and overpaint, it was remarkable to see this painting that everyone knows through cheap reproductions be revealed as a truly compelling work of art. Now, we get a better sense of the relationship between the figure and the landscape, we are better able to see the complexity of Gainsborough’s brushwork, and the true colors of the figure’s blue costume. Due to the discoloration, it had appeared slightly green-ish. That effect is now gone, and it is brilliant blue again. It must have been striking to audiences who first saw it in 1770.”
“Conservation is very much a process of discovery,” concurs O’Connell. “I spent a lot of time looking at the surface of Blue Boy while setting tiny flakes of paint back into place and during the cleaning process where, inch by inch, I saw the original surface emerge from underneath many layers of degraded and cloudy varnish. Each treatment has unique problems to solve and decision-making as part of the process, so there’s an opportunity for learning with each treatment.”
Lastly, I inquire if there’s something that they would like to add. And Dr. McCurdy divulges, “For me, the fact that The Huntington decided to do this conservation work on public view was important. Of course, this is a beloved painting to many of our visitors, and we knew we needed to keep it on display as much as possible, but the most exciting thing was the way the project engaged visitors with the role museums play in preserving cultural heritage. There were times when the crowd of visitors around the satellite conservation lab in the Thornton Portrait Gallery was several deep. People were excited to learn more about this painting and to see the conservation work unfold in front of them.”
Installation view of ‘The Blue Boy’ in the Huntington Art Gallery | Photo by John Sullivan / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
‘The Blue Boy’ has a storied provenance. Thomas Gainsborough was among the most prominent artists of his day. Though he preferred to paint landscapes, he built a flourishing career as portraitist to the British aristocracy whom he depicted at their leisure. However, ‘The Blue Boy’ wasn’t a commissioned work but was done to show off his skill at the Royal Academy. Later circulated accounts that Gainsborough did it to disprove another painter’s belief about the use of the color blue were dispelled by The Huntington’s curators as apocryphal and were made after his death. The model was believed to be Jonathan Buttall (1752–1805), the son of a wealthy merchant and who was also the first owner of the painting, but his identity remains unconfirmed.
Anthony van Dyck, the 17th century Flemish painter, was a major influence in British art and Gainsborough’s Blue Boy’ appears to be an homage to him. Instead of dressing the figure in the elegant finery worn by most sitters at the time, Gainsborough chose knee breeches and a slashed doublet with a lace collar – inspired by van Dyck’s ‘Portrait of Charles, Lord Strange.’ It made its debut at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1770 as ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman,’ where it received high acclaim. By 1798 it was being called ‘The Blue Boy.’
When Henry and Arabella Huntington purchased ‘The Blue Boy’ in 1921, it was already being hailed as Gainsborough’s greatest work and a national treasure. His image was on print reproductions, even on chocolate tin containers. It was no surprise then that the sale of the painting to an American caused an enormous protest in its homeland. The National Gallery displayed it one last time before it left for California and reportedly drew 90,000 people.
But they needn’t have lamented – ‘The Blue Boy’ is as beloved and treasured at his home of 99 years. As Christina Nielsen, The Huntington’s Hannah and Russell Kully Director of the Art Collections, pronounced during the press briefing, “We hold him in trust not only for this generation but for future generations.”
The boy wearing a dazzling blue outfit and defiant demeanor once more stands confident at The Huntington’s Thornton Portrait Gallery where he will continue to beguile hundreds of thousands of admirers into the next century.
Originally published on 15 October 2019 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, and Monrovia Weekly
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens | Courtesy photo
The year 1919 was significant for so many reasons but none would affect the art scene and cultural life of the San Gabriel Valley more than the founding of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. And we have Henry and Arabella Huntington to thank for bestowing on us their incomparable legacy.
An exhibition called ‘Nineteen Nineteen,’ which opened September 21 and will be on view through January 20, 2020, at the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery showcases 275 items from Henry and Arabella Huntington’s vast collections, some of which have never been displayed.
Co-curators James Glisson, interim chief curator of American art, and Jennifer Watts, curator of photography and visual culture, led a team from the three divisions and went through the institutions massive storehouse of 11 million items. The objects in the exhibition range from posters from the German Revolution, abstract art, suffragist magazines, children’s books, aeronautic manuals, self-help guides for soldiers returning home from World War I, and a book hand-printed by Virginia Woolf at her kitchen table. The thread that ties them all together is that they were all acquired in 1919.
During a preview of ‘Nineteen Nineteen,’ Glisson and Watts walk members of the press around the Boone Gallery to show the items, explain their significance, share their experience, and add their personal insights.
“This project took about two and half years from the very beginning to the end,” begins Glisson. “I went through, probably, 3,000 items, but it could have been more. And a lot of time was spent finding things from 1919 that were interesting, because there were a lot of stuff that weren’t,” he adds with a laugh.
“Or visually compelling,” inserts Watts. “Gathering these things was incredibly labor intensive but fun at the same time. I have to point out, though, that we had research assistants, interns, and grant assistants who did a lot of work – it was a collective endeavor. It involved every curatorial staff across all divisions – the library, the art museum, and the botanical gardens. We knew some things to look for and others were hunches. We asked our colleagues for assistance and they came to bat. They helped us find things we never would have unearthed on our own.”
The ‘1919’ Exhibition at The Huntington | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
Glisson expounds, “Often, it was ‘There’s this great thing, I think it’s from 1919;’ ‘Oh yes, it is.’ This is where the process was different. We knew where we wanted to take it but until we gathered the material together, we couldn’t tell a story. We didn’t know what the story was before we had the material. The verbs came when this checklist was two-thirds through – and we knew what the themes would be and gave it some shape. As Jennifer said before, we had to just be incredibly open to where the material was taking us. It’s like, we see a piece and we say ‘What does this mean?’ Or, sometimes, it’s ‘This is interesting, what is it?’”
“I like to take the analogy of when you look at a centennial and think of the founders, and you put them at the top of your pyramid,” explains Watts. “We decided to invert the pyramid, and put the context and the year at the top. Most of the time, when you’re doing an exhibition, people come up with an idea and they look for the material to support it. We flipped it and said ‘Let’s look at the material and figure out what the bigger ideas and themes are.’”
The exhibition that Glisson and Watts created from that starting point, which Glisson describes as ‘From the global to the local’ is organized around five broad themes – Fight, Return, Map, Move, and Build.
William Allison Sweeney, History of the American Negro in the Great World War, 1919, Cuneo-Henneberry, Chicago | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
Glisson elucidates, “We wanted to harness the large number of 1919-related items here into something provocative, allowing the visitor to interpret the period in a fluid way. Rather than telling a neat, resolved story, we tried to capture the jarring experience of life during a year that everyone understood was an inflection point for world history. Empires had fallen in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Millions had died fighting and in a flu pandemic. Delegates at the Paris Peace Conference tried to sew a tattered world back together. Like today, people felt that irrevocable change was underway. The issues of 2019 – immigrant detention, women’s rights, and the fight for a living – were equally pressing in 1919.”
As detailed in a news release from The Huntington’s Communications Office, the ‘Fight’ section of the exhibit shows that, while the war might have officially ended in 1918, other battles raged on in Los Angeles, the rest of the nation, and Europe. A global influenza pandemic killed millions of people, claiming three percent of the world’s population. Laborers agitated for better pay and safe conditions. Rumors about a Bolshevik plot to upend the U.S. government led to a Red Scare. Violence erupted in a season described as ‘Red Summer’ for its deadly riots and lynchings of African Americans. In 1919, the bill that would clinch American women’s right to vote passed in the Senate, and temperance advocates won their fight for prohibition. Modern artists and writers responded to the tremors of the age, including the carnage of world war, by breaking with convention and tradition.
Items in this section include: German posters related to social and political upheaval; original photographs and materials documenting the flu pandemic here in Pasadena; national strikes and labor unrest; U.S. Marshal records (including mug shots and probation letters from German citizens jailed in Los Angeles during the war); and objects that tell the story of the fight to ratify the 19th amendment.
Victory Loan Flyers, ‘The Spirit of America’ Lithograph, and ‘Americans All’ lithograph | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
The ‘Return’ portion focuses on the immediate aftermath of the Great War, when millions of men and women – including 200,000 African America soldiers – headed for home. Survivors sought to understand and memorialize the war’s events through personal reminiscence and published accounts. Artists, some of whom served overseas, interpreted what they had seen, while others found inspiration in canonical tradition and myth. Popular music and illustrated books also offered safe harbor in tumultuous times.
Materials from this segment comprise: Liberty Loan posters; soldiers’ recollections; a rare Edward Weston portrait of dancer Ruth St. Denis; Cyrus Baldridge’s illustration ‘Study of a Soldier;’ and John Singer Sargent’s ‘Sphinx and Chimaera,’ which depicts a mythological scene.
John Singer Sargent’s ‘Sphinx and Chimaera’ oil on canvas | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
In January 1919, President Woodrow Wilson and Allied heads of state gathered at the Paris Peace Conference to make new maps of a changed world. The carving up of ancient empires created new nations in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa, while regional promoters published maps to highlight Southern California’s capacity for growth. High above Los Angeles – at the Mount Wilson Observatory – the world’s largest telescope was on a nightly quest to chart the universe. In a world turned upside down, maps offered a welcome measure of predictability.
What the charting of territory that occurred that year meant and its resulting significance are explored in the ‘Maps’ section. On view is a first edition of ‘Traite de Paix,’ the Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles on June 29,1919, with a map showing new territorial configurations; an album of autograph signatures gathered at the Paris Peace Conference by T.E. Lawrence, otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia; rare maps depicting population, transportation, and demographic data in Los Angeles and the nation at the time; and original astronomical photographs of the moon and constellations.
Huntington was obsessed with maps | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
While working on this project, Glisson and Watts found out that Huntington was obsessed with maps. She says, “If you think about it, it’s not that surprising given that he was probably one of the most influential people in setting the course of how our sprawling city came to be. We discovered the spectacular 39-foot long Pacific Electric linen map that shows the real estate holdings contiguous to the line which is part of Huntington’s development scheme. People may not realize that while the Pacific Electric was a component of the world’s largest transportation network at the time, it really was a loss leader for Huntington. He was most interested in getting people to the communities that he’d developed – Huntington Beach, San Marino, Glendale.
“This is a one-of-a-kind map and has never before been exhibited. It is an incredible document – you could see the level of detail on it. Every redaction, every addition is recorded by him. It would have been something that the engineers – and Huntington with them, because he was very detail-oriented – would be poring over. I like to call this the papyri of transportation. It basically shows the Pasadena short line, which was one of the first lines that Huntington put in to the Pacific Electric system and it goes from Old Town Pasadena all the way to the edge of downtown Los Angeles.”
This Pacific Electric map display also falls under the ‘Move’ portion of this exhibition, which examines the ways 20th century technologies – planes, trains, and automobiles – propelled a society on the go. Henry Huntington’s network of streetcar lines brought Angelenos from ‘the mountains to the sea’ and to far-flung deserts and farms. A burgeoning national road system made automobile travel possible and pleasurable as never before.
Also taking the spotlight in this section is the interstate automobile adventure of five friends, including famed aviator Orville Wright, assembled in a rare photographically illustrated volume titled ‘Sage Brush and Sequoia;’ works by T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press.
The last portion of the exhibition, ‘Build,’ focuses on Henry E. Huntington and the institution he created. In 1919, Huntington announced what some, including his New York librarians, had begun to suspect. He planned to load boxcars with the ‘world’s greatest private library’ – some 120,000 volumes – and send it off to the country’s western shores. By then, the property’s palm, desert, rose, and Japanese gardens were planted under the guidance of William Hertrich, Huntington’s landscaper. The mansion, designed by Myron Hunt, was completed in 1910. With the construction of the library building, the keystone fell into place for what would become the beloved tripartite institution we know today.
The George Washington Wall installation | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
A George Washington Wall – an installation of paintings – is also part of the exhibition. “This little section is an homage to Huntington’s own collecting and what he was doing in 1919,” Watts elucidates. “In 1919, he purchased four stunning portraits of George Washington, including the most famous one by Gilbert Stuart. Why was be buying portraits of George Washington in 1919? Firstly, it was the trend. There were a lot of things coming on the market then and George Washington was the most iconic figure at that stage of America. And, perhaps, because Huntington did this audacious thing of locating this giant institution and collection on the West Coast, for which he took a lot of criticism that he was taking what was considered the cultural patrimony of America and Europe and exporting it to this cultural wasteland of Los Angeles. I think Huntington wanted to ensure this institution took its rightful place in the cultural landscape and who better to do that than George Washington, the first in the hearts of his countrymen? And, of course, it also demonstrates Huntington’s admiration for first founders.”
Beautiful Medieval books | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
In December of 1919, Huntington invited members of the prestigious New York Authors Club to his Fifth Avenue home. At that exclusive event, he shared with them 35 treasures in which he took special pride.
Watts declares, “This was significant for a couple of reasons – we had very little understanding of what he liked or favored. We know what his collecting interests were but we don’t know what his personal favorites were because he didn’t write or talk about them. This group of objects gives us a little insight as well as showcases his overarching collecting interest. Out of these 35 items, we chose some things that we thought were really outstanding and not generally on exhibition. They include: Benjamin Franklin’s handwritten autobiography; Maj. John Andre’s Revolutionary War-era maps; the first Bible printed in North America in a native language, which is also called the Eliot Indian Bible after the Englishman who translated it; and Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman’s four-part memoir never before examined by scholars. The pages open to the redaction pertaining to his mental illness which ran in his family.”
Rounding up the exhibition are displays related to the make-up of this institution. Says Watts, “One of the things I like to tell people is that in 1907, at the beginning of Huntington’s collecting career, there was a big article in the New York Times about the most important collectors in the country and Huntington appeared nowhere. In 1919, when this institution opened, he was called one of the world’s greatest collectors, having one of the world’s best private libraries. How did Huntington do that? He was a consolidator and amalgamator – he bought huge libraries all at once. He had purchased four of the libraries that were mentioned in the 1907 article. We included several book bills to show the range of people he was dealing with and also the kinds of things he was buying. A favorite of mine is the one from Rosenbach, who was one of his major dealers. He delivered $121,000 worth of Shakespeare’s works to the San Marino estate. That gives you a sense that he purchased aggressively.”
Myron Hunt presentation drawing, ink on linen | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
“Among the many surprising things we learned, we determined that in the early years he was planning on importing all sorts of seeds and plants not as a collector but to landscape his real estate holdings,” Glisson discloses. “He was trying to figure out what would work here and it evolved into a teaching collection, something akin to what Harvard was doing in his botanic garden. The other thing that was really fascinating was that in the beginning he thought he could finance this whole enterprise entirely on citrus. Through all sorts of formulation of various fertilizer and types of trees, Hertrich was able to tell Huntington which are the best varieties and how much they’re making. Unfortunately, citrus isn’t the most reliable revenue source and, on top of that, 1919 was a bad year for citrus. Huntington ultimately had to sell some properties to finance this place. In 1919, Huntington had 600 acres; today his estate has 207 acres.”
Watts leads us to a small section, explaining, “This is a kind of homage to Hertrich. Here we see some of the early photographs of the property that he took and his little notebook with a listing of birds which Arabella loved – there was an aviary here with 500 birds. Hertrich, in addition to overseeing the citrus and the grounds, also had to keep track of all the birds. A favorite of Arabella’s was the toucan and we have an original citrus crate label with a toucan, the only one we know that exists.
“We also found something interesting – the vast labor force that actually made this place come to be was not well represented. Although they didn’t necessarily go around taking pictures and keeping documents of their workers, we were able to find payroll records. We discovered that a third of the work force during the time were Mexicans from Mexico or Spanish, and they were paid significantly less than the European and American work force. It wasn’t surprising, but we’re starting to have scholars weed through and work with those documents that were heretofore unexamined.”
“And what would a show about Huntington be without talking about how much he was worth in 1919? He was worth $69 million that year and we have these preprinted ledgers and balance sheets, which he kept month by month, that showed his assets.”
“I will finish with a picture of Henry and Arabella – seen here as a young woman, not the woman we have come to think of as Arabella Huntington, the dowager wearing a widow’s veil,” pronounces Watts. “She was very much behind the scenes of this enterprise and was, in many ways, a huge force to be reckoned with. Her interests, as you may know, were in French decorative art and British portraiture, which he went on to collect later in time.
“When you exit the exhibition, you’ll see this great quote by Herman Hesse which we felt is emblematic of this project and of the year 1919: Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.”
Asked what he learned about Huntington that he didn’t know coming into this project, Glisson replies, “I haven’t been here that long so I didn’t know a great deal beforehand. In reading reminiscences about him and what people said, my takeaway is that he was someone who believed in trusting other people and he was very optimistic. He was always telling his staff to trust people to do the right thing. I thought that was very significant and interesting for a tremendously successful businessman and it suggests he must have found people he trusted and liked and then let them do their job. And that, to a large degree, is how you run a grand institution. In a sense, he clearly wasn’t that interested in being a book collector in 1905 or 1906 and then he got interested and focused on it. When it came to the grounds, his landscaper Hertrich suggested that they be systematic about it and create a scientific botanical garden like Harvard and he agreed right away. So there’s trust and this openness and a kind of capriciousness that, I think, shaped what we are today – an art museum, a botanical garden, and a library – which is a kind of unlikely combination.”
Displays in the ‘Return’ section | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
I inquire what they want people to get from the exhibition. Watt responds, “I always want people to leave with a sense of curiosity and wonder. For me, it was important that people understand the depth and wealth of our collection, that we’re an active research institution where scholars come in every day to study these materials, and that we have an active, vibrant collection which continues to grow.
Glisson says, “One, I hope that people, particularly those from L.A. and Southern California, come to the show and are surprised. Two, I hope they find something that they want to learn more about. And three, I hope they find something in the show that speaks to their own experience which, I think, is pretty likely because there’s all sorts of materials. Those are my hopes, and the biggest one is just for visitors to be very surprised.”
German Revolution Photos | Photo by Brianna Chu / Beacon Media News
As for his favorite display among all the objects, Glisson reveals, “I love this red poster. Visually, this just jumps off the wall. It’s an incredibly powerful thing. And then there’s the text – Achtung! Stehenbleiben verboten! Auf Zusammenrottungen wird rucksichtslos geschossen – which translates to ‘Warning! Stopping is prohibited! Crowds of rioters will be indiscriminately shot.’ My German isn’t so good and I kept reading it and wondered about it. It turns out that this poster would have been printed during the German Revolution in January 1919, and it was posted on a government building with armed soldiers watching around it. Talk about this poster being a snap shot of history and how improbable that it got all the way from Berlin, maybe from the Reichstag, to Los Angeles.”
That Henry E. Huntington had chosen to establish the institution that would bear his name in the San Gabriel Valley in 1919, when he could have done so anywhere in the United States, was quite improbable as well. It might have been seen by some as a foolhardy decision at the time, but we want to think it proved to be a stroke of genius!
A San Gabriel Valley Inquirer 