First Look: Huntington's Updated American Galleries

Installation view, "Contested Ground," with Chauncey Bradley Ives' Pandora, 1858

The Huntington's Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art has reconfigured six rooms of early American art. On view for the first time are recent acquisitions by Winslow Homer and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, plus the Trickey House Mural, a decorative room painting from 1830s Maine. 

Present day extrance to Fielding Wing of Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art

At its opening in 1984, the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries consisted of just five rooms, forming a plus-sign shape around a central square. The reinstallation covers those five galleries, plus two in the Fielding wing: one that formerly displayed Early American chairs, and another with selections from the Gail-Oxford collection. A space showing videos by youthful creators of the Ghetto Film School has also been reconfigured.

The new installation is billed as thematic, but don't let that put you off. For the most part, the rooms observe chronology and geography as well as the old installation did. The display expands the scope of American art to include a few Caribbean works and of course, the Carpeaux.

Installation View, "Global Objects"

"Global Objects." This room is loosely organized around Colonial luxury goods made possible by global trade. The space has been renamed for Long Beach collectors Thomas H. Oxford and Victor Gail, and it now shows many of their furniture pieces alongside silver and ceramics from other donors.

At center left above is the only known oil portrait of Puritan missionary John Eliot. He edited the first translation of the Bible into an indigenous language (Algonquian). Henry Huntington bought both the book and the portrait for his library.

The Holy Bible: containing the Old Testament and the New. Translated into the Indian language, and ordered to be printed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in New-England, 1663

Agostino Brunias, Free Women of Dominica Bathing in a Stream, Free Women of Dominica, and Flower Girls of Dominica, 1770s

Debuting are three small genre paintings of Dominican (British West Indies) women by the Italian-born painter Agostino Brunias (about 1730–1796). In spirit they fall somewhere between Mexican castas and Gauguin. Bruinias often portrayed his American beauties in shocking dishabille. The center picture, Free Women of Dominica, is grounded in Old Master versions of Diana and Her Nymphs.

"A New Nation"

"A New Nation." This room, spanning the early Republic, has been opened up to allow a view into the central gallery. 

Thomas Doughty was one of the first artists to paint the American landscape. His River Rapids imagines America without actual Americans—the tiny figures wear Roman togas. Made at nearly the same time is Charles Bird King's portrait of Ioway Chief Moanahonga.

Thomas Doughty, River Rapids, 1825, and Charles Bird King's Moanahonga (Great Walker), an Iowa Chief, about 1824

"Zebulon Trickey House Mural"

"Zebulon Trickey House Mural." The mural is by Jonathan Poor, apprentice and nephew to the better-known muralist Rufus Porter. Such works were advertised to "those gentlemen who are desirous of spending gloomy winter months amidst pleasant groves and verdant fields." The mural consists of seven panels, of which three are currently displayed. It's the first such Eastern mural in a West Coast museum. The rest of the room displays seating and hand-painted furniture, including the Pennsylvania German schrank (wardrobe). 

Jonathan Poor, Zebulon Trickey House Mural (detail), mid 1830s

Dressing Table, Boston or Salem, about 1820. The Huntington, gift of Jonathan and Karin Fielding

Newly on view are two of the latest Fielding gifts. Above is a painted dressing table with marbleized top and silhouette portrait. In an adjacent room is a suitably large Jumbo-themed trade sign for a boot and shoe store in Peekskill, New York. Jumbo, an African elephant captured in 1882, spent 16 years at the London Zoo before P.T. Barnum purchased the creature for $10,000. Jumbo became an international sensation and a brand for anything big.

"Elephant Walking" Trade Sign, about 1882-85. The Huntington, gift of Jonathan and Karin Fielding

"Contested Ground." L-R: Eastman Johnson's Sugaring Off, c. 1865; Winslow Homer's The Sutler's Tent, 1863; Edward Mitchell Bannister, Untitled (Walking Through a Field), 1870s

"Contested Ground." The center square of the old VSSG is now devoted to art made circa the Civil War. Only the new Homer actually shows soldiers during wartime. It's hung on a raised platform, after the fashion of Important Small Paintings You Might Otherwise Miss, and is flanked by postbellum paintings by Eastman Johnson and (African-American artist) Edward Mitchell Bannister. I learned from the label that Johnson's maple syrup-themed "Sugaring Off" would have been understood as a middle finger to the South's plantation economy of sugar cane. The Bannister glows and might be the first of the three you'd notice from across the room. 

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Why Born Enslaved!, modeled 1868 and cast 1872

Does a French sculpture belong in an American wing? Houdon portraits of the nation's founders are often shown with American art of the period. Unlike Houdon, Carpeaux never set foot in the U.S., though he must score some American credentials for the fact that his studio assistant, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, created the Statue of Liberty. The Huntington is using Why Born Enslaved! as a symbol of America's original sin. Slavery is not otherwise addressed in the collection's mid-century artworks, though the display does include a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation owned by William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State. Steward also owned the room's centerpiece painting, Thomas Cole's Portage Falls on the Genesee. 

Lily Martin Spencer, Strawberries, 1859

Lily Martin Spencer is best known for her gently humorous takes on 19th-century gender roles. She was also a skilled practitioner of still life. Strawberries, purchased in 2023 and shown for the first time, holds its own against three heavy hitters of American still life: Raphaelle Peale, William Michael Harnett, and John Frederick Peto.

"Imagined Pasts"

"Imagined Pasts." On view are turn-of-the-20th-century adaptations of Western myths (Paul Manship) as well as those of Egypt (John Singer Sargent, Jo Davidson) and Japan (Toshio Aoki). An unusual Japanese-inspired redwood panel designed for a Pasadena home provides a segue to the adjacent Greene & Greene gallery.

Gaston Lachaise, The Peacocks, modeled 1918 and cast 1924

Toshio Aoki, Untitled (Butterfly Goddess), about 1900. The Huntington, gift of Robert Hori

Possibly by Ernest H. Grassby. Designed by Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. Overmantel Panel for the Den of the James H. Culbertson House, Pasadena, 1907. Theodore William Wells Trust

"By and By: Telling Stories Through Silhouettes." This is the most distinctive theme, the one that mixes up the chronology. It juxtaposes early American silhouette portraits alongside contemporary African American art using literal silhouettes (Kara Walker) or nearly black depictions of black bodies. It's interesting, informative, and not at all dumbed-down. 

"By and Buy: Telling Stories with Silhouettes" with works from the Jay Last collection

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jay Last, who donated a huge collection of vintage commercial lithographs to the Huntington (and African art to the Fowler) also collected American silhouettes. Now in the Huntington collection, these include works by many of the best documented artists. The Last silhouettes form one wall of the display. 

Mustafa Ali Clayton, Ms. Lanise, 2025. Courtesy of the artist

The rest of the display (spilling out into an adjacent hall) includes a pop-up book by Walker, two tapestries by Diedrick Brackens, a photo piece by Todd Gray, and a 1960s triptych by Charles White. It's an idea that could stand to be realized on a larger scale (with, say, Lari Pittman and Kerry James Marshall, both absent here).

Diedrick Brackens, In the valley and The flame goes, both 2017. V. Joy Simmons, MD, and Courtesy of Lyndon and Janine Barrois

The new hang does little to clarify the galleries' confusing floorplan. The problem isn't the themes so much as the architecture. The galleries have accreted in a series of expansion campaigns, and the installation is constrained by donors' desires/demands to keep their collections together. Several movements—early portraits, the Hudson River School, Neoclassical sculpture—are rent in two, with works you'd expect to see together instead being separated by multiple rooms. Some striking, multi-room sightlines help navigation but reveal how quirky the layout is.

View from the Fielding Wing's folk art to "A New Nation" to Thomas Cole's Portage on the Genesee

Portico with Anna Hyatt Huntington's Diana the Huntress, 1922. On loan from Harvard Art Museums