Videos and Recorded Programs

Printmaker and book artist Richard Wagener discusses how the visually striking plants in The Huntington’s Desert Garden have inspired his recent work. A series of his wood engravings are reproduced in a new limited edition, fine-press publication titled Exoticum: Twenty-five Desert Plants from the Huntington Gardens.

Mary Terrall, professor of the history of science at UCLA, discusses French botanist Michel Adanson, who spent almost five years in Senegal in the 1750s. Terrall reconstructs Adanson’s sojourn in a French trading post, where he studied African natural history with the help of local residents.

The acclaimed dance company Diavolo brings its performance of Fluid Infinities to The Huntington. Set on an abstract dome structure to the music of Phillip Glass, the work explores metaphors of infinite space, continuous movement, and mankind’s voyage into the unknown.

The Huntington presents a fascinating conversation about the practice of medicine during the U.S. Civil War and its dramatization in the popular PBS series “Mercy Street.” The panel discussion is moderated by Melissa Lo, Dibner Assistant Curator or Science and Technology at The Huntington, and includes curator Olga Tsapina, who oversees The Huntington’s Civil War collections; series executive producers Lisa Wolfinger and David Zabel; and...

Abstract artist Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009) kept meticulous documentation of his painting process and materials. His Painting Books, compiled over the course of nearly 40 years, describe in detail the creation of hundreds of individual works. Scientist Alan Phenix of the Getty Conservation Institute will survey the technical content of the Painting Books, with particular focus on matters that have significance for the care and conservation...

Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History at Yale University, discusses the important ways in which patents have contributed to technological innovation over the course of U.S. history.

Christopher Brown, professor of history at Columbia University, explores the relationship between the Atlantic slave trade and the American Revolution, two themes that are usually treated separately.

The history of the aerospace industry in Southern California and its intersections with contemporary culture are the focus of this panel discussion, presented in conjunction with the exhibition of NASA’s Orbit Pavilion. Panelists are Peter Westwick, aerospace historian; William Deverell, director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West; and Daniel Lewis, senior curator of the history of science and technology at The Huntington.