the eight directions of the wind: Edmund de Waal at The Huntington

Inside the Huntington Art Gallery’s Small Library, de Waal has curated a library of poetry, bringing together stories of exile, often the poets’ own. Many are in translation, framing language itself as a form of migration. The books are held within a table topped with porcelain slip and gold, into which de Waal has written a text on sanctuary, referencing the words of Chinese poet Bei Dao (b. 1949), who has spent much of his life in exile. The room once housed a portion of Henry E. and Arabella Huntington’s book collection.

Nearby, in the gallery’s white marble hall, de Waal’s benches, which are made of Kilkenny stone, invite visitors to sit and engage in quiet contemplation.

In the dining room, de Waal presents restored 18th-century Meissen plates, which were looted by the Nazis and subsequently damaged during the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. The plates have been repaired using the traditional Japanese art of kintsugi, in which fractured pieces are mended with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Instead of hiding imperfections, kintsugi honors the history of fragile objects and celebrates their endurance.

On the second floor of the gallery, de Waal’s newly created vitrine with Wedgwood shards is in dialogue with The Huntington’s renowned collection of Sèvres porcelain, emphasizing the migration of materials and ideas across continents and centuries.

De Waal is the author of The White Road: Journey into an Obsession (2015), an intimate portrait of his 40-plus years working with porcelain. The book describes his journeys around the world to places that tell the story of porcelain’s creation.

In this installation, de Waal traces the thousand-year evolution of porcelain, pairing shards and full vessels from China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Russia, Germany, Austria, Britain, and America with his own contemporary vessels. Selections from his personal library—including texts on porcelain and of Chinese poetry—create a quiet space for contemplation.

For this installation, de Waal constructed a pavilion from charred oak as an invitation and appeal to pause, look deeply, and gather one’s thoughts. The pavilion—meant to serve as a poem in praise of shadow and light—recalls de Waal’s early apprenticeship in Japan, where he encountered sadō, or tea ceremony.

In this installation, a Kilkenny stone bench invites visitors to sit and look through the white shoji doors of the Marsh Tea House, where two installations of de Waal’s black porcelain vessels can be observed amid the shadows.