Huntington’s Hundredth

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has announced plans to mark its centennial with a year-long series of exhibitions and programs, beginning in fall of 2019, celebrating the impact of the research and educational institution’s incomparable collections while exploring the interdisciplinary ideas that will shape the next 100 years. Read on to see how groups can join in on the celebration.

A new commemorative rose variety, Huntington's Hundredth, will mark The Huntington's centennial.The pastel yellow and orchid pink floribunda was hybridized in 2009 by Tom Carruth, curator of the Rose Collections at The Huntington, and will become available for sale for the first time in January 2019.

The Huntington's Centennial year opens in September 2019 with Nineteen Nineteen, a major exhibition in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery that draws from the library, art, and botanical collections to examine that historic year across the globe and the founding of The Huntington in the context of international events.

Groups can enjoy What Now: Collecting for the Library, which opens in October 2019 in the Library's West Hall—the first exhibition of a two-part series highlighting a wide variety of recent acquisitions of rare books and manuscripts. Also opening in fall 2019 is the fourth installment of The Huntington's /five initiative, a collaboration in which contemporary artists respond to a theme drawn from The Huntington's collections, culminating in an exhibition.

"We are seizing this moment not only to reflect on the legacy of our past, but also to explore unexpected synergies across the library, art, and botanical collections; to steward and grow those collections; and to welcome new audiences of scholars, artists and the public whom they will inspire," said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence. "We want to encourage creative exploration of the relationship among the humanities, the arts and nature."

Throughout the celebration year, The Huntington will offer visitors a special series of programs that look at the collections in new ways and explore their potential impact into the future. Hunington audiences will have the opportunity to experience Centennial-oriented content through a dedicated website inviting visitors to share their memories and impressions of The Huntington through text and images. New displays in the Mapel Orientation Gallery are planned as well.

"During our Centennial celebration, we want to engage people in The Huntington as an unparalleled repository of our history and, at the same time, as a site of increasing relevance to the way we think, create, and live our lives today," said Lawrence.

"It may seem that our botanical gardens are the only organic parts of our collections, but in fact, our library and art collections are organic as well, growing and changing their physical and interpretive shape."

Additional details about all of The Huntington's Centennial celebration exhibitions and programming will be made available over the coming year.

Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Photo courtesy of Weeks Roses.