Good Chemistry
Scripps College junior Dinah Parker developed a love for art while restoring antiques at her family’s business. But her best grades were in science, so when it came to choosing a major, she was considering chemistry or pre-med. There was one problem. Science alone didn’t satisfy her artistic passions.
From The Editor
In 2004, The Huntington’s book and paper conservators moved into a new work space on the second floor of the Munger Research Center. Much bigger, brighter, and better equipped than the old one, the Conservation Lab heralded a new era for staff members charged with preserving the 8 million plus books, manuscripts, and ephemera from the Library collection.
Crafting a Community
California ceramist Harrison McIntosh is internationally recognized for the elegant stoneware he began creating in the 1950s and has continued to refine and develop over the course of his long and distinguished career. The simple lines of his forms and their softly curving silhouettes reference the human body or elements of nature, including gourds, eggs, and other natural forms.
A River Runs Through It
Constable’s six-foot painting View on the Stour near Dedham (1822), one of six celebrated large-scale paintings of his childhood landscape, came to The Huntington in 1925. It hangs in the southwest corner room upstairs in the Huntington Art Gallery, walls painted deep red to best accentuate the work, and I visit this painting—sometimes with my daughters, sometimes alone—many times each year.
A Convenient Truth
When John Trager talks about the plants available through The Huntington’s International Succulents Introductions (ISI) program, it’s almost like he’s trying to find homes for beloved pets. “This one will end up with big prominent teeth,” he says of the beauty called Agave guiengola ‘Moto Sierra,’ referring to the serrated edges of the long leaves.
At the Base of It
In the past year, Huntington staff and conservators have been busy examining and restoring outdoor sculpture on the grounds. While visitors may have spotted the scaffolding surrounding a pair of bronzes in front of one of the entrances of the Library Exhibition Hall, few are likely aware of the rich histories behind those works.
Changing the Subject
The War of 1812 “looms small in American memory,” writes Alan Taylor in his new book The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). “At best,” the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian from the University of California, Davis, continues, “Americans barely recall…a handful of patriotic episodes.”
