Verso

There are more than 70 daguerreotypes in The Huntington’s collection, each with stories as unique as the daguerreotype process itself. These miniature portals into 19th-century life preserve vital histories and allow viewers to engage in their own contact with the past.

The academic conference “Maritime History from Below: Rethinking Societies and the Sea” (Nov. 3–4) offers new stories of humankind’s relationship to the sea, including the experiences of sailors, transported prisoners, enslaved people, and Indigenous Americans.

Hilton Als joined Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence in a conversation about his career as a critic and curator, the relationship between visual and textual forms, and the endless inspiration found in The Huntington’s collections.

Vincent Lugo, whose family papers are at The Huntington, helped build the beloved La Laguna de San Gabriel playground, also known as “Monster Park.” The so-called monsters are play sculptures of an octopus called Ozzie, a whale known as Minnie, and a starfish named Stella, among other smiling sea creatures.

Art exhibitions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries created rich immersive environments of fine art working in tandem with other media, which today can seem like a bewildering jumble. The Huntington’s “Paintings, Peepshows, and Porcupines” conference will begin to make sense of this apparent chaos.

With the aim of engaging a more diverse cross section of people, The Huntington created the Meet Me in the Garden program as a way of welcoming visitors with different sensory needs. The program is geared toward families with members who identify as disabled, but all guests can participate.

The Huntington’s Botanical staff members routinely collaborate with other institutions to tackle conservation challenges. Most of the time, these are carefully planned projects: propagating rare and endangered species, making gardens more resilient to the changing climate, and teaching cryopreservation or culturing plant tissue. But sometimes, the unexpected happens.

The Desert Garden is one of the world’s premier collections of succulent plants, covering more than 10 acres and comprising more than 5,000 arid-adapted plants. The Desert Garden Entrance Project, nearing completion, will make it possible to showcase more of this collection and spotlight the significance of these plants.