Ten Milestones from 2025

In 2025, The Huntington undertook a year of institution-wide work spanning collections, programs, and infrastructure. Changes to the institution’s visual identity, new acquisitions, capital projects, and conservation partnerships shaped how its library, art, and botanical collections were presented, supported, and sustained. 

“2025 was a challenging year for many, particularly within our surrounding community affected by the Eaton Fire,” said Huntington President, Karen R. Lawrence. “At The Huntington, our work—increasing access through programs and capital projects, stewarding the growth of our collections, advancing leadership in conservation, and convening exhibitions and public conversations—reflected our responsibility to the public and our mission, while also creating space to engage with the issues that shaped the year.” 

1. A New Visual Identity for a New Era 

2025 marked the debut of The Huntington’s first comprehensive branding initiative in its 100-year history. The project introduced a new visual system and a streamlined name, shortening “The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens” to simply “The Huntington.”  

Developed from the textures and colors found across the gardens and galleries, the new typography and palette underscore the connections among the library, art, and botanical collections. The updated monogram—a gem flanked by stylized pillars with one pointed backward and the other pointed forward—signals a place rooted in the past yet oriented toward the future. 

A central aim of the brand is to invite the “community of the curious” to rediscover The Huntington. Only at The Huntington can one find an independent research library of more than 12 million items, a museum with a collection of some 50,000 works of art, and 130 acres of developed botanical gardens—a living collection used for ongoing research and conservation. The brand articulates The Huntington as both a site of preservation and a place where new knowledge and creativity are produced. 

The visual system was also developed for consistency across digital and onsite platforms, providing coherent wayfinding and a unified presentation of the institution’s programs, exhibitions, and collections. 

As part of the brand launch, The Huntington also introduced the “Huntington How-To” series, a set of short instructional videos designed to bring the institution’s expertise to digital audiences. The series highlights curatorial, conservation, and horticultural knowledge through topics such as growing roses, identifying decorative arts, reading Middle English, and repairing books. In its first year, the series drew more than half a million views across platforms, expanding access to the collections and the work of staff specialists. Additional installments are planned for 2026. 

2. Broadening Access Through Museums for All 

In 2025, The Huntington joined Museums for All, a national program that offers reduced admission to visitors who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The initiative aligns with the institution’s strategic priority to deepen its commitment to cultural equity and reduce barriers to access. 

It joins existing access programs, including Free Day, the College Card, and discounted admission for students and educators. During its first year, the program brought thousands of new visitors to The Huntington. 

The Huntington also provides free guided tours for all schools—covering students, educators, and chaperones—and offers free self-guided visits for Title I schools. Through partnerships with community organizations, the institution distributes complimentary passes to support access for local audiences. 

3. Advancing Scholarship Across the Collections 

In 2025, more than 150 research fellows—along with over 2,000 additional readers—conducted work in The Huntington’s collections. Their projects ranged from environmental and plant humanities to migration histories, American art, literary studies, and the history of science and technology, drawing on materials that span centuries and formats. Many fellows worked across the three collecting areas, combining archival sources, printed works, visual materials, and living collections. 

The Huntington’s fellowship program, one of the largest and longest-running in the humanities, supports scholars at multiple career stages through short-term, variable-term, and long-term awards. In recent years, it has expanded to include artists, independent researchers, and others working outside traditional academic structures. Since 1995, fellows have produced more than 200 books grounded in research at The Huntington, reflecting the long-term impact of sustained access to the collections. 

4. Dialogue, Storytelling, and Shared Learning 

In 2025—amid recovery from the Eaton Fire—The Huntington continued to serve as a forum for public programs and civic dialogue, bringing scholars, creative professionals, and community partners into conversation around contemporary questions across its galleries and program spaces.  

Founders’ Day focused on the legacy of Octavia E. Butler, whose papers are among the Library’s most frequently consulted collections. Speakers, including Nikki High, owner of a local Pasadena bookstore inspired by Butler; John Williams, executive director of the Center for Restorative Justice; and theologian Tamisha A. Tyler discussed Butler’s Parable novels—Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents—and their focus on community building amid social, political, and environmental upheaval, themes that resonated in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire. The panel also featured a surprise appearance by actor and author LeVar Burton, who wrote the foreword to the 2023 reissue of Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Looking out at the standing-room-only audience, he remarked, “Octavia is smiling, y’all.” 

The program was followed by a community reception featuring local partners, “Seeds of Conversation” prompts, and offerings from High’s store, Octavia’s Bookshelf. 

Later in the year, filmmaker Ava DuVernay joined Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence for Why It Matters. DuVernay spoke about the relationship between official archives and everyday records—family photographs, personal artifacts, and oral histories—and how both contribute to understanding American life. 

Across the grounds and galleries, hundreds of public programs—bilingual exhibition tours, Second Sundays, Summer Movie Nights, and community celebrations such as Strange Science and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival—drew both longtime visitors and first-time guests. 

5. Exhibitions Connecting Collections and Communities 

Throughout 2025, The Huntington organized exhibitions that highlighted the connections among its library, art, and botanical collections, reflecting the institution’s strategic priorities to grow collections thoughtfully, broaden access, and provide multidisciplinary contexts for contemporary issues. 

“Don Bachardy: A Life in Portraits,” exhibited from April to August, presented more than 100 works on paper—drawn from The Huntington’s collections and other sources—many of which had never been exhibited. Shown alongside letters and photographs from the Isherwood and Bachardy archives held at The Huntington, the retrospective traced Bachardy’s seven-decade career and underscored his long relationship with the institution, which began when he placed Christopher Isherwood’s archive at The Huntington in 1999. Los Angeles Times arts critic Christopher Knight identified the exhibition as one of the notable shows of the year. 

Stories from the Library, a multiyear exhibition series launched during preparations for the renovation of the Library Exhibition Hall, continued with rotating installations in the Huntington Art Gallery. The first rotations explored The Canterbury Tales, key figures in Los Angeles history, the lives and work of women writers, and historical educational and instructional materials. The series draws on the library’s deep holdings to present rare archival and printed materials through new and unexpected lenses while the permanent space undergoes restoration. 

In the galleries and gardens, several installations examined the relationship between artistic practice and the natural world. Wang Mansheng’s “Without Us” brought together works rooted in traditional ink techniques and environmental themes. “

In 2025, The Huntington advanced its role as a research library through acquisitions that deepen its rare book and manuscript holdings and support new lines of scholarly inquiry. The year’s additions align with the institutional priority to grow collections purposefully and to magnify their impact for researchers and the public. 

A highlight of the year was the Library’s acquisition of Christ on the Mount of Olives, an exceptionally rare 15th-century metal-cut devotional print that originally resided inside The Huntington’s Gutenberg Bible. Separated at auction in 1825, the print resurfaced in a private collection and has now been reunited with the Bible for the first time in 200 years. Its return restores an early reader’s customized, hybrid manuscript–print volume and offers scholars new insight into the uses, meanings, and early reception of one of the most influential printed books in Western history. Together, the Bible and the print form a rare, materially complete witness to the transitional moment in which hand-illumination, devotional imagery, and movable-type printing converged. 

The Library also acquired the archive and working library of celebrated novelist Kim Stanley Robinson—one of the most influential voices in contemporary speculative literature and climate fiction. Drafts, notebooks, research files, correspondence, and the author’s extensive scholarly library document Robinson’s creative process and intellectual world-building. The archive significantly strengthens The Huntington’s holdings in contemporary literature and science-based speculative writing, providing researchers with a rich new resource at the intersection of environmental humanities, political imagination, and narrative form. 

Two major archives with deep ties to Southern California also entered the collections this year. The Gusmano Cesaretti Archive

In 2025, The Huntington expanded its Art Museum collections with acquisitions that deepen historical context and extend the range of artistic narratives represented on site. Together, these works strengthen the collections as resources for research and interpretation and support a more expansive understanding of art history. 

Through its partnership with The Ahmanson Foundation, The Huntington acquired Winslow Homer’s The Sutler’s Tent (1863)—the fifth acquisition made through this program. The rare Civil War painting anchors the reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art as part of the THIS LAND IS… initiative, deepening the institution’s holdings of American art. 

Support from the Art Collectors’ Council enabled several significant additions across American, European, and Asian art. Highlights include Judy Chicago’s Pasadena Lifesavers (1970), the first work by the artist to enter the collection; Raqib Shaw’s The Perseverant Prophet (2024), the Museum’s first work by a contemporary South Asian artist; a rare handscroll by Zhao Yuan (ca. 1804); Thomas Wijck’s 17th-century View of the Thames at Westminster on The Lord Mayor’s Day (1673-1674); Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved! (1872); and important works by African American landscape painter Grafton Tyler Brown, including a major painting and a suite of lithographs documenting the American West. 

A significant gift from Huntington Trustee Mei-Lee Ney brought eight major works by

Scholars Grove is a new residential community funded by a $40 million gift from the late philanthropist Charles T. Munger. Designed to address long‐standing housing barriers for visiting research fellows, the project will offer 33 residential units across seven one- and two-story buildings clustered around a shared green space and anchored by a commons building named for Wendy Munger, Huntington trustee emerita. Seamlessly integrated into the campus landscape, it preserves 150 mature trees—including a rare Magnolia pacifica tarahumara and historic oaks—while creating a purpose-built environment for cross-disciplinary dialogue. 

Alongside this effort, The Huntington unveiled plans for the Library/Art Building Project (LAB), which will revitalize the historic public-facing facade of the 1919 Library Exhibition Hall and modernize outdated back-of-house facilities serving both the Library and Art Museum. The multiyear project will replace legacy book stacks with state-of-the-art storage for some nine linear miles of Library collections and 38,000 works on paper from the Art Museum, while adding approximately 8,000 square feet of new conservation studio space. 

The renovated facility will feature new light-filled areas for research, collaboration, and public engagement, including a gallery dedicated to the Library’s history of science collections. During construction, the research library will remain open, and significant works from the Library will be on view in the exhibition series Stories from the Library as well as in major exhibitions and the reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. 

Together, Scholars Grove and the LAB strengthen the infrastructure that supports The Huntington’s collections, scholarship, and public mission—ensuring that the institution remains a vital resource for generations to come. 

9. National Leadership in Plant Conservation 

In 2025, The Huntington strengthened its international leadership in plant conservation through its role in launching the Illegal Plant Trade Coalition—a global initiative led by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to confront the rapidly growing black market of rare and endangered plants. 

As a keystone partner in the coalition, The Huntington helped introduce the effort at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, bringing worldwide attention to the urgent need to curb plant poaching and protect vulnerable species threatened by commercial demand. 

Illegal wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar global industry, with illegal logging and the poaching of rare plants accounting for a significant share of that revenue. The combined value of illicit timber and collector plants now exceeds that of rhino horn, ivory, and pangolin scales. As a designated federal Plant Rescue Center—where seized plants are stabilized, rehabilitated, and studied—The Huntington draws on its horticultural expertise to help develop public guidance on ethical sourcing and responsible collecting, ensuring that plant enthusiasts can pursue their interests without inadvertently supporting poaching. 

Through this work, The Huntington is expanding conservation awareness and helping connect everyday gardening decisions to the global effort to safeguard endangered plants. 

10. Conservation Breakthroughs in the Gardens 

In 2025, rare and endangered plants at The Huntington drew widespread attention—transforming moments of botanical spectacle into compelling stories about conservation. The summer bloom of Green Boy, one of the institution’s famed corpse flowers, captivated onsite visitors and global audiences alike. With fewer than 1,000 plants remaining in the wild, each bloom is both a scientific event and a conservation call to action. Green Boy’s blossoming marked The Huntington’s 27th corpse flower bloom—more than any other garden in the western United States—and generated an estimated 1.5 billion media impressions across local, national, and international outlets. Botanical staff collected key data, hand-pollinated the inflorescence, and continued longstanding work to share seeds, pollen, and corms with partner institutions, reinforcing global efforts to protect this endangered species. 

Visitors also encountered new ways to experience one of the world’s largest and oldest desert plant collections. This summer, a newly opened half-acre of The Huntington’s iconic Desert Garden welcomed guests onto nearly 1,500 square feet of ADA-compliant pathways—part of the multiyear Desert Garden Improvement Project. The expanded paths brought visitors closer to more than 2,000 species of drought-adapted succulents and other arid-region flora. Among the garden’s most distinctive residents is a 100-year-old dragon tree (Dracaena draco), which has thrived on the grounds since the 1920s. 

The project culminated with the opening of the Mary Alice Huntington Desert Conservatory, where plants with special environmental needs are now showcased. 

The year also brought a significant conservation milestone for Mexipedium xerophyticum, a critically endangered orchid from Oaxaca threatened by habitat loss and illegal poaching. After years of effort, the botanical team successfully propagated more than 200 plants, a rare achievement for a species notoriously difficult to grow. These plants are now being distributed to botanic gardens worldwide to support reintroduction and strengthen international strategies to combat the illegal plant trade. 

Conservation took center stage in an artistic, experimental medium, too. During the annual Orchid Show, The Huntington premiered Orchidées, an ambitious collaboration in which composer Nick Roth translated orchid DNA into a concert-length cello composition performed live by acclaimed cellist Kate Ellis. With more than 10,000 orchids representing 1,600 species, The Huntington’s collection offered both scientific depth and artistic inspiration—providing the foundation for a multisensory experience that connected audiences to the urgency and beauty of plant conservation. 

Together, these stories—of bloom, breakthrough, and creative interpretation—underscored The Huntington’s growing role in advancing plant conservation and inspiring public understanding of the fragile species that depend on it. 

Looking Ahead 

Across exhibitions, programs, research initiatives, and conservation breakthroughs, 2025 highlighted The Huntington’s unique ability to connect art, history, and the natural world in ways that spark curiosity and deepen understanding. As the institution looks toward 2026—with new exhibitions, expanded research spaces, and continued community partnerships—it remains committed to making its collections accessible, relevant, and inspiring.