Center for East Asian Garden Studies
The Huntington’s Center for East Asian Garden Studies (CEAGS) promotes innovative scholarship on the traditions of garden-making in China, Japan, and Korea. The center seeks to make these traditions accessible to diverse audiences through publications, lectures, workshops, symposia, and exhibitions.
Research Fellowship
The June and Simon K.C. Li Fellowship in East Asian Garden and Landscape Studies supports research in East Asian garden and landscape studies by scholars at any stage of career. Visit Available Fellowships to learn more.
Resources
The Center for East Asian Garden Studies was founded to fulfill the educational potential of The Huntington’s Chinese and Japanese Gardens. The gardens themselves offer significant botanical and historical resources to researchers and to the public. The Chinese Garden, for example, preserves a collection of nearly 200 medicinal plants, many of which are rare outside of China; the Japanese Garden, meanwhile, is home to landscapes that document 100 years of American responses to Japanese aesthetics.
CEAGS maintains a scholarly reference library of approximately 8000 volumes, drawn primarily from the collections of Wan-go H.C. Weng and Ju-hsi Chou. It has particular strengths in Chinese garden, painting, and literary history, as well as Japanese garden history. CEAGS also oversees a small collection of Japanese rare books on stone appreciation, bonsai, and the sencha tea ceremony established by the American Viewing Stone Resource Center (AVSRC). The collections are housed in the Brody Botanical Center.
CEAGS staff work with the Huntington Art Museum to exhibit and expand the institution’s collection of East Asian garden-related artworks. Highlights include a remarkable hanging scroll by Qiu Ying (ca. 1494–ca. 1552) and a rare early printing of the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting (ca. 1633–1703).
Contact us to learn more.
Exhibitions
Each year the Center for East Asian Garden Studies mounts one or more exhibitions to further appreciation of the East Asian garden arts.
Wang Mansheng: Without Us
May 17, 2025–Aug. 4, 2025
This immersive installation explores the interconnectedness of all living beings. Combining contemporary art and classical Chinese conceptions of nature, its 22 hand-painted silk panels invite visitors into a luminous landscape.
Past Exhibitions
奪天工 Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China
Sep. 14, 2024–Jan. 6, 2025
Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China asks: What is a garden, and what can you do with one? Focusing on the gardens of China’s literati during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912), Growing and Knowing illuminates gardens as transformative spaces—spaces for growing and contemplating plants in order to better understand the world around us as well as our place in it.
Paintings in Print: Studying Art in China
Oct. 7, 2023–May 27, 2024
Paintings in Print examined how painting manuals published in the 17th and 18th centuries used innovative printing methods to introduce the techniques, history, and appreciation of painting to widening audiences in early modern China.
Crafting a Garden: Inside the Creation of Liu Fang Yuan
Oct. 22, 2022–May 29, 2023
Crafting a Garden shed light on the intricacies of The Huntington’s Chinese Garden through models, photographs, tools, and videos that told the story of its design and construction.
A Garden of Words: The Calligraphy of Liu Fang Yuan
Aug. 28, 2021–May 16, 2022
Celebrating the recent opening of the final phase of its Chinese Garden, The Huntington presented an exhibition of contemporary Chinese calligraphy designed to illuminate this art form’s expressive qualities. The work of 21 contemporary ink artists was featured, including Bai Qianshen, Michael Cherney, Grace Chu, Fu Shen, Lo Ch’ing, Tang Qingnian, Wang Mansheng, Wan-go Weng, Zhu Chengjun, and Terry Yuan.
Events
Throughout the academic year, the Center for East Asian Garden Studies presents both in-person and virtual programs.
Chinese Medicinal Garden Open House
Wed., July 9, 2025, 10 a.m.–12 p.m.–Wed., Aug. 13, 2025, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.–Wed., Sept. 10, 2025, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.–Wed., Oct. 8, 2025, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.–Wed., Nov. 12, 2025, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.–Wed., Dec. 10, 2025, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.
Recorded Programs
2024–25
April 24, 2025
Vivienne Lo, professor emeritus of history at University College London
The Ancient Domestic Medico-Culinary Traditions of China (and Beyond)
April 10, 2025
Lorraine Wilcox, professor at Emperor’s College
Three Women Doctors of Late Imperial China
October 10, 2024
Robert Newman, dean emeritus, Emperor’s College
“Chinese Medicinal Plants: A Conversation with Robert Newman”
September 26, 2024
Peg Schafer, Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm, Petaluma, CA
“The Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm”
April 18, 2024
David L. Howell, Harvard University
“How Green Was My Night Soil: The Excremental Economy in Edo Japan”
March 28, 2024
Yukio Lippit, Harvard University
“The Japanese Shōya House: An Encyclopedia of Japanese Architecture”
February 8, 2024
Phillip E. Bloom, The Huntington
“Qiu Ying’s Zhou Dunyi Admiring Lotuses”
January 18, 2023
Bruce Sosei Hamana, Urasenke Tankokai Federation
“The Chanoyu Environment: The Role of the Japanese Tea Hut in Understanding the Way of Tea”
November 16, 2023
Azby Brown, independent scholar
“Symbiotic Beauty: The Sustainable Wisdom of Samurai Residences”
April 20, 2023
Aurelia Campbell, Boston College
“Landscapes in Stone: Placing Dali Marble in Ming and Qing China”
February 23, 2023
Lei Xue, Oregon State University
“Inscribing Chinese Gardens: The Origins of Shutiaoshi 書條石 (Calligraphy Stone Slabs)”
January 19, 2023
Morgan Pitelka, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Tea and Politics in Japan’s Age of Unification”
November 17, 2022
Azby Brown, independent scholar
“Learning from Edo: How Traditional Japan’s Approach to Sustainability Can Help Show us the Way Forward”
March 31, 2022
Sonya Lee, USC
“Temples in the Cliffside: Buddhist Art in Sichuan”
February 17, 2022
Nicholas K. Menzies, research fellow, The Huntington
“Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China”
January 20, 2022
Edward Kamens, Yale University
“Reading Fragmentary Traces of the Writer’s Hand: Tekagami”
November 18, 2021
Peter Sturman, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Drinking and Scribbling in the Garden: Xu Wei’s Wild Cursive Calligraphy”
October 21, 2021
Amy McNair, University of Kansas
“Calligraphy in the Lingering Garden, Suzhou”
September 30, 2021
Huiwen Lu, National Taiwan University
“Wild Cursive Calligraphy, Poetry, and Buddhist Monks in the Eighth Century and Beyond”
September 9, 2021
Qianshen Bai, Zhejiang University
“Some Thoughts on the Art of Chinese Calligraphy”
June 10, 2021
Yurika Wakamatsu, Occidental College
“Crafting a Literati Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The Plum Blossom Valley at Tsukigase”
May 20, 2021
Roslyn Lee Hammers, University of Hong Kong
“The Labor of Good Governance: Cultivation Real and Imagined in the Imperial Garden of Clear Ripples in 18th-Century China”
April 16, 2021
Bruce A. Coats, Scripps College
“The Tale of Genji: Imaged and Reimagined”
March 18, 2021
Edward R. Bosley, The Gamble House
“Two Sides of the Pacific: Japan and the Architecture of Greene & Greene”
February 18, 2021
Wai-yee Li, Harvard University
“The Garden as Feminine Lettered Space in The Story of the Stone and Beyond”
January 21, 2021
Einor Cervone, LACMA
“Unmoored Gardens: Shifting Cultural Spaces in Late Imperial China”
November 19, 2020
Amy Stanley, Professor of History, Northwestern University,
“Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World”
October 29, 2020
Jim Folsom, The Huntington
“The Past and Future of The Huntington’s Asian Gardens”
October 11, 2020
Tang Qingnian, visual artist, with Wu Man (pipa) and Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi)
“Fragrant Rhythms: The Seasons of Liu Fang Yuan”
October 8, 2020
Phillip E. Bloom, The Huntington
“The Pleasures of Chinese Gardens”
April 23, 2019
Sean Bradley, University of Washington
“The Making of a Chinese Medicine Text: Emergency Medicines to Keep on Hand”
March 26, 2019
Pierce Salguero, Penn State Abington
“Sino-Buddhist Medicine: A Missing Link in the Global History of Medicine”
February 19, 2019
Shigehisa Kuriyama, Harvard University
“A Whimsical Picture with a Grim Message: The Inshoku yōjō kagami and the Imagination of the Body in Early Modern Japan”
February 16, 2019
Symposium
“From the Mountains to the Garden: The Domestication of Garden Plants in China”
January 22, 2019
Susan Burns, University of Chicago
“Border-Crossing Botanicals: The Curious History of Saffron in Japan”
November 13, 2018
Rebecca Corbett, USC Libraries
“New Explorations in Tea History: Putting Women and Children First”
September 18, 2018
Glenn Webb, Pepperdine University
“Peace through a Bowl of Tea”
May 20, 2018
Susan Whitfield and Peter Sellars
“Silk, Slaves and Stupas: Culture in Motion on the Silk Road”
May 8, 2018
Katharina I-Bon Suh, Seoul National University
“Reconstructing the Mindscape of a 17th-Century Korean Literati Garden”
April 17, 2018
Carol Brash, College of Saint Benedict, Saint John’s University
“Representations of the Garden of Solitary Delight (Du Le Yuan)”
February 20, 2018
Peter Del Tredici, Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University
“The Introduction of Japanese Plants into North America”
January 23, 2018
Sadafumi Uchiyama, Portland Japanese Garden
“Portland Japanese Garden: The Journey Continues”
November 21, 2017
Phillip E. Bloom, The Huntington
“The Ecology of Eternity in a Song-Dynasty Buddhist Monastery”
October 10, 2017
Nicholas K. Menzies, The Huntington
“Representations of the Camellia in China and during its Early Career in the West”
September 5, 2017
Richard Pegg, MacLean Collection
“Cartographic Traditions in East Asian Maps”
May 23, 2017
Yasufumi Nakamori, Minneapolis Institute of Art
“Katsura, Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Photographs by Yasuhiro Ishimoto”
April 25, 2017
Jun Hu, Northwestern University
“The Lives of a Memorial Building: From Nara and Beyond”
March 28, 2017
Hannah Sigur, Santa Clara University
“Framing a New Elegance: The World of George T. Marsh and His Japanese House”
February 28, 2017
Bruce Coats, Scripps College
“From Castles to Tearooms: An Overview of Japanese Architecture and Carpentry Traditions”
November 22, 2016
David Barker, China Academy of Art and Muban Educational Trust
“The Huang Family of Block Cutters: The Thread that Binds Late Ming Pictorial Woodblock Printmaking”
November 12, 2016
Symposium
“Word and Image: Chinese Woodblock Prints”
October 25, 2016
Suzanne Wright, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“‘How Can I Disdain…this Carving of Insects?’: Painters, Carvers and Style in Chinese Woodblock Printed Images”
October 3, 2016
June Li, The Huntington
“Is a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words? Chinese Woodblock Prints of the Late Ming and Qing Periods”
August 11, 2016
Robert Campbell, University of Tokyo
“Popcorn on the Ginza: Literature, Art, and Photography from Tokyo’s ‘City within a City’”
June 28, 2016
Hyonjeong Kim Han, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
“Gardens and Nature in Korean Landscape Paintings”
June 9, 2016
WANG Guoliang, Jiangsu Academy of Forestry
“Explorations in the History of the Rose in China”
May 24, 2016
Jeffery Burton, Manzanar National Historic Site
“Japanese Gardens of Manzanar: Past, Present, and Future”
April 26, 2016
Peter Flueckiger, Pomona College
“A Commoner Garden in Edo Japan: The Mukojima Hyakkaen”
March 22, 2016
Yu LIU, Niagara County Community College
“Surprise, Intrigue, and Significance: The Chinese Influence on the English Garden”
February 23, 2016
WU Xin, College of William and Mary
“Eight Views: From Landscape to Garden”
November 24, 2015
Michael Nylan, University of California at Berkeley
“The Early Chinese Garden: Warring States Through the Tang Dynasty”
October 27, 2015
Andong LU, Nanjing University
“The Metamorphosis of the Lingering Garden”
September 26, 2015
Symposium
“Utopian Visions: Tao Qian and the Peach Blossom Spring”
September 8, 2015
Yang Ye, University of California Riverside
“Peach Blossom Spring: Genesis, Offspring, and Universality”
Download a list of CEAGS Past Programs 2005-2015
Visit Videos and Recorded Programs to watch previously recorded lectures, conferences, podcasts, and videos.
Publications
Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China (2024)
edited by Phillip E. Bloom, Nicholas K. Menzies, and Michelle BaileyThe Huntington’s Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China exhibition asks: What is a garden, and what can you do with one? This exhibition catalog focuses on the gardens of China’s literati during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912), exploring gardens as spaces for growing and contemplating plants to better understand the world and humans’ place in it. 212 pages; 112 color illustrations.
Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints (2016)
edited by T. June Li and Suzanne E. WrightThis exhibition catalogue explores the art, craft, and cultural significance of Chinese woodblock prints made during their golden age, from the late 16th through the 19th century. Bringing together 48 of the best examples gathered from the National Library of China, Beijing; the Nanjing Library; the Shanghai Museum; and institutional and private collections in the United States, it features delicate works with painterly textures and subtle colors depicting plants, birds, and other garden elements alongside monumental accounts of sprawling, architecturally elaborate scholar’s gardens.
One Hundred Years in The Huntington's Japanese Garden: Harmony with Nature (2012)
edited by T. June LiFor more than one hundred years, the Japanese Garden at The Huntington has served as a bellwether for the West’s engagement with Asian culture. This lavishly illustrated volume explores the garden’s history, from its development for the Huntington estate as a display of fashionable, cultivated taste, to its quiet deterioration and neglect during World War II, to its resurgence in the 1950s as a showcase for Japanese culture and garden arts, and ultimately to its renovation and expansion during its centennial in 2012.
Another World Lies Beyond: Creating Liu Fang Yuan, The Huntington's Chinese Garden (2008)
edited by T. June LiThis beautifully produced book tells the story and pictorially reveals one of the largest formal Chinese gardens in the world outside of China. The contributors to Another World Lies Beyond discuss the challenges of constructing the garden in Southern California, as well as the cultural traditions and aesthetics of Chinese garden design, especially the ways in which the plants and structures engage the imagination of visitors.