For famed portraits, a new Huntington spot to hang

Blue Boy and Pinkie, together again. Well, almost.

Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of the stylish 18th century teen memorialized as “The Blue Boy,” and Thomas Lawrence’s 1794 painting of the demure sprite dubbed “Pinkie,” will return to public view beginning Friday, when the new Lois and Robert F. Erburu Gallery opens at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.

Unrelated in life, but a favorite couple with visitors, the portraits of Blue Boy and Pinkie won’t occupy the same wall space, but “they will be looking at each other, down a long, long range of rooms,” said John Murdoch, director of art collections at the Huntington.

“It’s a bit different from how they’ve been hung before, opposite one another in the same gallery; here they are opposite one another within the same building.”

The two artworks are among many that have been moved to the Erburu with the temporary closing of the main gallery in what was once the mansion home of railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington.

While the mansion undergoes a two-year renovation, the Huntington’s signature collections of European paintings, sculptures and decorative arts will be displayed in the Erburu Gallery, named in honor of Huntington trustee emeritus and former Times Mirror Chairman Robert F. Erburu and his wife.

The $6-million building was designed by L.A.-based architect Frederick Fisher. It houses seven gallery rooms and is fronted by a glass loggia featuring sculpture and a garden view.

“It’s meant to relate to the great northerly views from the Huntington estate that underlie the development of Pasadena in the late 19th century,” Murdoch said. “One of the reasons why people came and settled in the San Gabriel Valley was the beauty of the mountains.”

Adding 8,000 square feet of exhibition space and 8,000 square feet of storage area to the adjoining Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art, the Erburu will contribute to “a new quadrangle” of activity, Murdoch said, along with the Boone temporary exhibition gallery; the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science, set to open in October; and a 12-acre classical Chinese garden, now under construction.

When the renovation of the mansion is complete, the European collection will return there and the Erburu will join the Scott as permanent display space for the Huntington’s rapidly growing collection of American art.

-- Lynne Heffley