Revisiting 2023 at The Huntington

The Huntington is a place of wonder, beauty, and intellectual engagement. With the following selection of Verso posts, we invite you to revisit some of The Huntington’s 2023 highlights.

We began 2023 with a survey of winter-blooming plants at The Huntington. Hailing from around the world, these plants put on floral performances that add color and vibrancy to the landscape at a time of year when you least expect it.

Read “Winter Cheer”

Kevin Dawson, associate professor of history at the University of California, Merced, and the recipient of the 2022–23 Kemble Fellowship in Maritime History at The Huntington, discussed his research for his second book. He investigates how enslaved Africans in the Americas re-created and re-imagined African maritime traditions, including swimming, diving, surfing, boat-making, canoeing, and fishing.

Read “For Some Enslaved Africans, Water Was a Savior” 

As the 2020–21 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow, Los Angeles–based artist Sandy Rodriguez created new artworks, including a map and a series of works on paper, that appeared in “Borderlands,” a permanent collections installation that explores a more expansive view of American art history. Her research on native plants, colors, and paper recognizes and celebrates Indigenous knowledge and ways of representing the natural world.

Read “New Works by Sandy Rodriguez”

Founders’ Day is observed annually at The Huntington in honor of Henry E. and Arabella Huntington’s roles in envisioning and establishing the institution. This year’s event was a lively departure from previous programs. Rather than spotlighting a single narrative to celebrate, it featured a suite of stories from across The Huntington’s collections.

Read “Stories We Tell”

Water use at The Huntington is routinely monitored, and sustainability and water conservation remain among the highest priorities. So, each storm cycle has been an opportunity to gather data and observations for improving the institution’s own practices, which then can be shared with the public.

Read “The Dirt on Water Conservation”

In the spring, four exceptional collections joined The Huntington through the generosity of the Library Collectors’ Council, a group of supporters who help fund the purchase of new items for the institution’s archives. The recent acquisitions included a microscopic manuscript-cum-drawing created for a French princess in the 17th century, an 18th-century album illustrating the royal production of tobacco powder in Spain, an 1810 manuscript account of a United States naval officer’s voyage down the Mississippi River, and an illustrated 18th-century scientific volume on the butterflies and moths of Georgia.

Read “2023 Acquisitions of the Library Collectors’ Council”

As a site for the preservation of the wide-ranging histories, cultures, and perspectives that make up the Asian American experience, The Huntington’s Art Museum has been embarking on the active collection and display of Asian American art. These new acquisitions and installations expand the stories we tell about American art at The Huntington—taking us from Pasadena in the 19th century to Brooklyn in the 21st—and in media ranging from gunpowder to film to ceramics. 

Read “Asian American Art at The Huntington”

The Huntington’s plant collections include roughly 800 tree species that range from iconic California natives to representatives of habitats from around the world. Here are five must-see trees to appreciate during your next visit to The Huntington.

Read “Five Must-See Trees at The Huntington”

In 1906, Nekketsu Takei, who was one of the most prolific Japanese writers in Hawai‘i during his time, produced at least two maps of Hawaiʻi to attract Japanese immigrants as well as to help newcomers familiarize themselves with the islands. Today, researchers use these maps to reconstruct old Japanese districts.

Read “Nekketsu Takei’s Japanese Maps of Hawai‘i”

The Huntington’s “Gee’s Bend: Shared Legacy” exhibition celebrated the culture of quilts within Gee’s Bend and the quilters themselves as world-renowned artists. Collectively, these works represent not only the tradition of quilts but how quilts can be used to transform a community’s past, present, and future.

Read “The Many Dimensions of Quilt Culture”

In sitting down with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker for the first “Why It Matters” event of the year, Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence set the stage for a lively conversation. They addressed a range of issues for a packed auditorium—from the changing and challenging post-pandemic landscape of philanthropy to the role of the humanities and the arts, which Walker characterized as “the oxygen of democracy.”

Read “A Courageous Vision for Philanthropy”

The Huntington holds the diary of a merchant who wrote about his time in London from December 1768 to April 1769. It offers a rare first-hand account of an American colonist’s experiences in London, just as relations between Britain and North America were deteriorating. 

Read “An American in London on the Eve of Revolution”

The Huntington acquired David Hockney’s painting Tree on Woldgate, 6 March, along with 17 works on paper that include drawings, prints, and watercolors. Donated by Gregory Evans, who had a close romantic and business relationship with Hockney for many years, the works showcase an intimate side of the artist.

Read “How Hockney Came to The Huntington” 

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.

Read “Senses and Sensibility: Sensory Adventures in the Gardens”

For the fall installment of the “Why It Matters” series, Hilton Als, the inaugural recipient of the Hannah and Russel Kully Distinguished Fellowship in American Art, 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.

Read “Sharing the Love with Hilton Als” 

Photographer William Camargo has a talent for transporting the viewer to a precise moment in time, often delivering a jarring history lesson in the process. His series Origins & Displacements amplifies issues of gentrification and the invisible labor in his hometown of Anaheim, California.

Read “William Camargo’s Protest Pictures Give Voice to History”

Brooke Palmieri, the inaugural writer-in-residence at The Huntington, examines traces of queer history as a way of building a wider understanding about the relationship between what survives from the past and how that information is or is not incorporated into our sense of history.

Read “Queering the Collections: A Tale of Two Libraries”

We appreciate your interest in Verso and look forward to sharing more stories about The Huntington in 2024.

Kevin Durkin is the editor of Verso and the managing editor in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.