It Wasn’t Just a Construction Project

All things all-American suddenly seem more important in these days of national angst and soul-searching. Even at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

Two years in the works, a major reinstallation of the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art was scheduled for completion and a public opening on Sept. 14--three days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was no time for a celebration, so the Huntington canceled its party and quietly opened the doors of the gallery.

The Scott’s new look was largely unnoticed as world events took over and attendance at the Huntington took a tumble. But now the visitors are back, doing the usual things--strolling through the gardens, playing with their toddlers on the grounds, admiring “Pinkie” and “Blue Boy” in the British painting galleries and imagining the life of Henry Edwards Huntington, who founded the institution in 1919.

Many of them are also making their way to the Scott Gallery, where they are discovering a bonanza of American art that seems very timely. On a recent weekday afternoon, a steady flow of couples, families and clusters of friends perused the paintings, circled the sculptures, scrutinized details of the furniture, and squinted at the silver and glass objects.

American art isn’t exactly news at the San Marino institution. While still best known in art circles for its collection of British paintings, the Huntington received a core collection of 50 American paintings and funds to construct a gallery from the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation in 1978. The Scott gallery opened in 1984, but it has always been a work in progress. As the American art collection has mushroomed to about 4,500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs and decorative objects, displays have been rearranged to accommodate special acquisitions. (This collection is under the purview of the Huntington’s art division; an additional holding of American materials, including art, is maintained by the Huntington Library.)

Still, the latest reinstallation is not a routine matter. Funded by a $130,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Collections Enhancement Initiative, the two-year project has expanded the exhibition space considerably without changing the building’s footprint. Now that the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery, which opened last year, provides space for temporary shows, a gallery at the Scott formerly used for that purpose is devoted to the permanent collection. Glass-covered cases built into walls of the Scott’s lobby hold new displays of silver. In addition, a small utility room has been converted into a gallery for works on paper.

“Much is familiar here,” said Amy Meyers, the Huntington’s curator of American art. “But the new installation has given us an opportunity to reinterpret the entire collection, rethink relationships between the works and incorporate new additions.”

The central gallery still offers 19th century old favorites, such as a life-size marble statue of Pandora by Chauncey Bradley Ives and a full-length portrait of Pauline Astor by John Singer Sargent, the latter work on long-term loan from Houston collector William Morris. But they share space with notable newcomers, including “Fisher Boy,” a marble bust by Hiram Powers from around 1856. Surrounding rooms house other recent acquisitions: “Near Midnight, Labrador,” a circa-1880 rose-toned view of an iceberg by William Bradford; an 1869 portrait of Gen. Charles Fox by George Healy; and a circa-1878 secretary cabinet with cloisonne panels built by the Herter Brothers firm.

“We are trying to layer the collection in a much richer way in what is still a very small space,” Meyers said. One of her goals was to display paintings and sculptures with related furniture and decorative objects; another was to present vignettes comparing different aspects of an artist’s work. Eighteenth and early 19th century artist John Singleton Copley’s study of “General Eliott on a Grey Charger,” a recent acquisition created as a preparatory work for his history painting “The Siege of Gibraltar,” now hangs beside his fully realized family portrait “The Western Brothers.”

Meyers also has put considerable effort into an old-fashioned component of exhibition design: wall labels. “I wanted to prove that we can present didactic material in the traditional way,” she said. “The notion that people read labels and don’t look at the art is truly bogus. The information should be there when people want it, so they don’t have to go to another room and use a computer.”

The labels are unobtrusive, so that they don’t “compromise the aesthetics of the gallery,” Meyers said. Indeed, some Huntington regulars may think the longer, more informative labels have always been there, but they aren’t likely to overlook the conversion of the former temporary exhibition space into a gallery for 20th century American art.

Walking into the gallery, visitors are confronted with a splash of color, a carnival-like atmosphere and a crush of human activity in John Steuart Curry’s “State Fair” painting. Immediately to the right is Walt Kuhn’s life-size portrait of a muscular male trapeze artist in pale pink tights. These audacious American paintings may not fit the Huntington’s graciously restrained, Old World image, but they make the point that American art is an increasingly important part of the institution’s collections.

In this setting, everything tends to look new, but it’s actually a mix of Scott Foundation gifts, works that have languished in storage and recent acquisitions. The new pieces include “Capricio,” a red and black painting by Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell; silver by Allan Adler and Porter Blanchard; Steuben glass and an 18-light lamp in the shape of a lily by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The eclectic cast of artistic characters is unusual; so is the mix of fine and decorative arts. But it’s no accident. “These kinds of things are rarely shown together, but they are all part of the story of Modernism,” Meyers said. With the new installation, they have become part of the Huntington’s story of American art as well.

Meanwhile, through Dec. 16, Huntington visitors can get a different view of American art in “Lure of the West: Treasures From the Smithsonian American Art Museum,” at the Boone Gallery. The national touring exhibition--which is making its only West Coast appearance at the Huntington--features 64 Western-themed paintings and sculptures created from the 1820s through the 1940s.

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VIRGINIA STEELE SCOTT GALLERY, Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Hours: Tuesday-Friday, noon-4:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving Day. Prices: Adults, $10; seniors, $8.50; students, $7; children younger than 12, free. Phone: (626) 405-2100.