The Huntington Acquires Landmark Collection of Works by Enrique Martínez Celaya

Key Takeaways

• The Huntington acquires eight major works by Enrique Martínez Celaya, making it the most significant collection of the Cuban-born American artist’s work.
• The gift, from Huntington Trustee Mei-Lee Ney, spans 25 years of the artist’s career and includes paintings, sculpture, mixed media, drawing, and photography.
• Martínez Celaya, The Huntington’s first visual arts fellow, is internationally recognized for exploring memory, exile, and identity through multidisciplinary art. 

The Huntington has acquired eight major works by artist Enrique Martínez Celaya, deepening its long-standing relationship with the Cuban-born American artist and establishing the institution as having the most significant collection of his work. 

The acquisition—a gift from Huntington Trustee Mei-Lee Ney—spans 25 years of Martínez Celaya’s practice, from 1998 to 2023, and includes large-scale paintings, mixed-media works, sculpture, drawing, and photography. Combined with earlier holdings, the gift brings The Huntington’s collection to 14 seminal works by the artist. 

“Martínez Celaya’s work explores memory, exile, and identity in ways that are both deeply personal and universally resonant,” said Christina Nielsen, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “This extraordinary gift allows us to present his vision more fully and invites visitors to engage with powerful, often poetic reflections on what it means to belong, to remember, and to hope.” 

Martínez Celaya has been a significant presence at The Huntington for more than a decade. In 2019, he was appointed as the institution’s first visual arts fellow. The following year, The Huntington commissioned There-bound, a large-scale installation including sculptural benches, a painting, and migratory birds in flight across the glass facade of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. The work became a central element of “Borderlands,” a 2021 permanent collection installation that expanded the narrative of American art. 

The newly acquired works reflect the breadth of Martínez Celaya’s materials and themes. Among them, El regalo (para Juanito) (2023) was featured in his solo exhibition at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana—the museum’s first exhibition by a Cuban exile artist. Other key works include The Harvest (2023), exhibited in “The Grief of Almost” at the Hood Museum of Art; The Virtue (2019), a major recent painting; The Short Journey (2013), a tar-and-feather sculpture from his exhibition “The Pearl” at SITE SANTA FE; Two Figures (2002), from his Black Paintings series; Unbroken Poetry (1999), a large mixed-media painting included in his 2001 exhibition at the Orange County Museum of Art; Berlin (1998), a set of photographs from the artist’s time in Germany; and a Conté crayon study for House and Sky Suite (2010), which led to an installation at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 

Several works by Martínez Celaya remain on view at The Huntington, including The Landmark (2016), a large outdoor sculpture installed in the gardens outside the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. The collection also includes two key sculptures, The Gambler (2010)—The Huntington’s first contemporary sculpture acquisition—and The Traveler (2016), as well as paintings such as The Boundless Field (2008) and The Crown (2015). 

Martínez Celaya’s practice blends painting, sculpture, literature, and philosophy, often exploring displacement, memory, and the nature of experience. His work is held in more than 60 public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has exhibited internationally, including at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.