A Day at The Huntington Art Museum & Botanical Gardens
EVENTS > SPECIAL PROGRAMS
Decorative Arts Trust Special Program
December 4, 2021, 10:00 am
Join us at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens for a day of exclusive tours. The Huntington is a research and cultural center surrounded by 12 specialized gardens spread across 120 acres. Originally the private estate of railroad magnate Henry Huntington, the museum is one of Southern California’s must-see cultural destinations with magnificent collections of American art and famous European works including Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy.
Our day of tours will begin with Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art. Recently appointed, Dennis will share his fresh perspective on The Huntington’s famed American art collection. On our tour, we will take in important 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century works including paintings by John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, Raphaelle Peale, Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, George Bellows, John Sloan, and Edward Hopper. We will also enjoy one of the foremost collections of American decorative arts which includes an incredible range of important objects including pieces made in early New England, Herter Brothers furniture, silver from Tiffany & Company, and turn of the 19th-century objects including works by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Roycrofters. We will even visit the Beaux-Arts style mansion and see Kehinde Wiley’s Portrait of a Young Gentleman, which is a direct response to Gainsborough’s famous work.
After our morning of gallery tours, we will enjoy lunch at the Jade Court Cafe before heading for an afternoon of garden tours beginning with the Chinese Garden and Gallery led by Phillip Bloom, Curator of the Chinese Garden and Director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies. The Huntington’s Chinese Garden, known as the Garden of Flowing Fragrance or Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園, was inspired by the 16th-century scholars’ gardens of Suzhou, China. It is one of the largest classical-style Chinese gardens outside of China.
Our afternoon continues with a tour of the Japanese Heritage House from Robert Hori, Gardens Cultural Curator and Program Director. This 320-year-old Magistrate’s House from Marugame in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture was acquired by the museum in 2019 and only recently opened to visitors after being fully restored and reassembled at the Huntington.
We will finish with a tour of the Desert Garden, one of the largest and oldest assemblages of cacti and other succulents in the world. Today over two dozen families of succulents and other arid-adapted plants have developed into a ten-acre garden display, the Huntington’s most important conservation collection.
Register today for what is sure to be a very popular program!
Registration Fee: $125
You must be a member to register for this event. Members at the Dual level and above may register both household members. Members at the Benefactor level and above may bring a non-member guest.
All cancellations received prior to Saturday, November 27 are subject to a full refund less a $25 administrative fee per person. Refunds will not be made for participants cancelling after November 27.
Proof of COVID-19 vaccination will be required after registration.
A negative COVID-19 test result will be required within a few days before the program.
REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED