Borderlands

Sat., Nov. 20, 2021–Thu., Nov. 20, 2036
Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art
Themed Galleries | Featured Projects | Events & Resources
Borders—whether geographic, political, social, linguistic, or personal—shape lives and landscapes, often in complex and transformative ways. Through paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects, these galleries explore American art through the lens of “borderlands,” examining how artists and objects reflect the impact of shifting and contested boundaries across the United States and the broader Americas. Focusing on the relationship between art and land, they consider materials, movement, and representations of landscape as powerful expressions of how we relate to place—and to one another.
Spanning the 19th century to today, works from The Huntington’s collections are thematically organized to spark conversations across time and place. Rotating installations and special projects by contemporary artists, particularly those from underrepresented communities with strong connections to California and The Huntington, bring fresh perspectives and create meaningful dialogue between the past and the present.






Dominique Fung, Sans Les Mains, 2022. Oil on canvas. Purchased with funds from Dominic and Ellen Ng. © Dominique Fung, 2022, courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery and Nicodim Gallery. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Helen Lundeberg, Irises, (The Sentinels), 1936. Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council. © The Feitelson / Lundeberg Art Foundation. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Martin Johnson Heade, Haystacks, ca. 1876–82. Oil on canvas, 28 x 54 in. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
John James Audubon, The Birds of America, 1827–38. Photo by Ibarionex Perello. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Mary Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed, 1897. Gift of the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Arthur Garfield Dove, Lattice and Awning, 1941. Oil on canvas, 22 x 36 in. © Arthur Garfield Dove Estate. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Themed Galleries
This gallery explores trans-Pacific conversations in modern and contemporary American art through works by Asian American artists who each uniquely engage Asian diasporic identity and culture. See also works by modernists Robert Rauschenberg and Sam Francis—not artists of Asian descent, but artists who were greatly impacted by their travels across the Pacific Ocean from the U.S. to Asia and back again.
See artworks inspired by the built and natural environment, including the landscapes of the American West. On display are works by mid‑century artists such as Donald Judd, Helen Lundeberg, and Frederick Hammersley, including Judd’s tall blue Plexiglas stacks. Space is the medium for these artists, who can be found roaming the color fields and spaces between.
This gallery explores the works of such American landscape painters as Frederick Edwin Church, Martin Johnson Heade, and William Bradford who captured the vast landscapes in the farthest reaches of the Americas—North, Central, and South America. The gallery also features a special display of John James Audubon’s Birds of America from The Huntington Library’s collection, showing life-size, hand-colored prints of birds from North America.
This section highlights 19th-century American artists who sought inspiration, and often greater creative freedom, outside the United States. Many were drawn to influential movements in Europe, such as Impressionism, the Aesthetic Movement, and Art Nouveau, adapting these international styles within an American context. Featured works include paintings by such artists as John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, and Lockwood de Forest, as well as decorative arts by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Herter Brothers.
Drawing from the work of contemporary artist Sandy Rodriguez, this education space focuses on the links between art and the natural world. Interpretive displays and video installations explore the botanical, mineral, and animal sources of pigments and the movement of certain pigments around the globe. Names in Tongva, Nahua, Spanish, and English recognize artistic practices across cultures and time.
Featured Projects
“Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight”
Nov. 11, 2023–Nov. 30, 2027Commissioned by The Huntington, this site-specific installation features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and found objects, including birdcages, antlers, and natural materials harvested by Saar from The Huntington’s grounds. An accompanying film weaves together interviews with the artist and archival footage to tell the story of the making of the work and the artist’s long engagement with The Huntington and Los Angeles.
Opening Soon

“Laura Aguilar: Body and Landscape”
March 22–Sept. 7, 2026The first in a two-part series of exhibitions of the pioneering Los Angeles photographer Laura Aguilar, “Body and Landscape” traces Aguilar’s groundbreaking use of self-portraiture within the natural environments of Southern California and the Southwest, reframing the Western landscape as a site of personal power, resilience, and reclamation. A second rotation of Aguilar’s work, “Laura Aguilar: Day of the Dead,” will be on view Sept. 20, 2026–March 1, 2027.

“Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13”
March 22, 2026–April 26, 2027Featuring Sandy Rodriguez’s largest work to date, this installation is the culmination of a multiyear project with The Huntington. It includes a 20-foot-wide map of the United States, plant portraits, a book, and a landscape painting, all created on hand-processed amate-fiber paper. Drawing on a range of colonial Mexican sources in dialogue with 19th-century maps and boundary surveys from The Huntington’s collections, the installation brings together research on place, ecology, and the histories of borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico.

“Mercedes Dorame—Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation”
March 22, 2026–March 2029Tongva artist Mercedes Dorame’s large-scale installation brings together archival photography—including historical images of regional freshwater springs—with her contemporary photographs of the Southern California landscape, sculptural and painted elements, and a soundscape of Tongva poetry. The installation reflects Dorame’s ongoing interest in place, memory, and the survival of ancestral histories.
Related Events
- March 25–April 29, 2026 | Huntington U: Laura Aguilar’s Lens. Explore photographer Laura Aguilar’s work in this unique six-week course that combines a college seminar with a creative workshop. Details to come.
- April 15–16, 2026 | Evenings for Educators featuring Sandy Rodriguez. Details to come.
- May 3, 2026 | Public Program on Laura Aguilar with the American LGBTQ+ Museum. Details to come.
Event dates or times are subject to change.
Related Stories
YOU ARE HERE: A Work in Progress from Sandy Rodriguez
Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight
Related Exhibitions
The THIS LAND IS … Initiative
The exhibition is part of The Huntington’s sweeping, multiyear THIS LAND IS … initiative, which invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land. Anchored by the phrase “Reflections for America at 250,” the initiative draws on The Huntington’s library, art, and botanical collections to reveal layered, multidisciplinary narratives about the relationship between people, place, and nation.
Sponsors
Support for this project is provided by an anonymous foundation, Carl and Sue Robertson, the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, City National Bank, and the Decorative Arts Trust.

