By Eleanor H. Gustafson

ts name, the , Art Collections, and Botanical , pretty well covers what this I singular institution in San Marino, California, is all about. But it hardly begins to tell the story. The creation of Henry E. Huntington, a man with forward-looking business sense and retrospective tastes in art and literature, the Huntington today is moving ahead in a number of adventurous ways that honor and illuminate the past. Last fall, for example, Harold B. “Hal” Nelson, curator of American decorative arts, in collaboration with The Magazine Antiques, invited seven notable California artists to explore the ways in which their work carries on and expands Huntington’s legacy. Before we get to these artists and their discoveries, it is useful to understand that legacy and how it came about. Having made his fortune as a railroad executive under the aegis of his uncle Collis P. Huntington—one of the “big four” who brought the railroad across the conti- nent—Henry Huntington moved to Los Angeles in 1902, recognizing its promise as one of the country’s most

important cultural, agricultural, and commercial centers. He established transportation and electric power systems, bought up huge tracts of land for development, and acquired a work- The grand loggia along the east side ing ranch for himself, with acres of the Huntington Art Gallery re- of citrus groves, nut and fruit or- mains much as it was when built, to chards, and glorious views of the the designs of and El- mer Grey, as the residence of Henry San Gabriel Mountains. E. Huntington (1850–1927) and his About 1910, while building a second wife, Arabella (1850–1924). commodious Beaux-Arts house The museum opened in 1928. that took in the glorious views, In 1934 a large gallery (now known Past, Present, and Huntington turned from business as the Thornton Portrait Gallery) was to his life-long passion for books. added to the Huntington Art Gallery Future at the Huntington Focusing on American and British for the display of Huntington’s col- Seven contemporary artists explore the treasures of the museum, library, and gardens history and literature, he swept up lection of grand manner portraits. deaccessioned by the University of California, Berkeley—is a notable case in point; the first ma- jor piece by an African-American artist to enter the collection, it is the work of one of the finest sculptors of the Harlem Renaissance. It is impossible to capture in a few paragraphs the breadth of the Huntington’s holdings, and the air of inspiration and vitality found throughout its 207-acre campus. Perhaps another way to get a sense of it is to glance at the exhibition schedule—though this, too, is inadequate to the task: last year exhibi- tions ranged from the work of and his circle to Francisco de Goya, from British Regency manuscripts and prints to aerospace in Southern California, and from ancient Chinese bronzes to the role of water in the early Spanish San Gabriel Mission. Just recently a major exhibition, Visions of Empire: The Quest for a Railroad Across America, 1840–1880, comprising letters, diaries, prints, and other rare documents, largely from the Library’s of Pasadena,* the collection now numbers nearly holdings, opened in the MaryLou and George Boone twelve thousand and includes notable decorative Gallery. Its theme brings us back to Collis and arts and sculpture as well as paintings. Virtually Henry Huntington. the entire collection can be on display, thanks to Indeed, it is the links across the collections and the expansion of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries the creative thinking these links inspire that make in 2009 and plans to expand them further in the Huntington such a vibrant place. They are one 2014. “Since we’re a comparatively young collec- reason Hal Nelson and Antiques invited the art- Designed by Paul Gray, the The Huntington Art Gallery, whole libraries of rare volumes and manuscripts, creating lily ponds, habitats for palms, desert , Virginia Steele Scott Galler- tion there are still many gaps to fill,” says Jessica ists introduced in the following pages to explore the ies of American Art opened which recently underwent a often at enormous prices, including a copy of the and roses, as well as a Japanese , the formal Todd Smith, the Virginia Steele Scott Chief Cura- Huntington together. “I think Henry Huntington major renovation, now to the public in 1984, inau- Gutenberg Bible bought for fifty thousand dollars North Vista, and the landscaping around the house. tor of American Art, “but that is very exciting would have applauded this project,” Nelson says. gurating American art as a houses the institution’s Eu- in 1911, then the highest price ever paid for a book. Before his death in 1927 Huntington developed ropean art collections. because every gap presents us with an opportu- “In creating this institution, he invited the public to significant part of the Hun- By the time he began to collect art, in 1907, Hun- a plan to preserve his library, art collection, and nity.” The perspicacious purchase earlier this year share his passion for art, literature, history, science, tington’s collections. The 19-foot tall bronze tington was spending his time with his uncle’s gardens, envisioning the whole as a center for research of a large carved organ screen by Sargent Johnson and the beauty of the natural world. I believe he Sounding Sculpture made in widow, Arabella, one of the most important collec- and scholarly endeavor but allowing it to grow and The expanding collection of * would have given a hearty thumbs-up to the artists American fine and decora- the 1970s by Harry Bertoia tors of the day and the person who undoubtedly change over time. And so it has: the library holdings See Susan Danly Walther, “The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery at the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California,” we have chosen, and he would have been moved by tive arts is displayed in the (1915–1978) emanates mys- helped to sharpen his eye. The collection of eighteenth- now range from the eleventh century to the present terious, harmonic tones that The Magazine Antiques, vol. 130, no. 2 (August 1986), pp. 270–279. the ways his legacy intertwines with theirs.” Scott Galleries. combine softly with the nat- century grand manner British portraits that Hun- and include photographs, prints, and ephemera as ural sounds of birdsong and tington assembled, as a complement to his interests well as books and manuscripts, while the gardens rustling leaves. in British literature, remains unequalled outside of constitute more than fifteen thousand varieties of England. In 1913 he and Arabella married and they plants in more than a dozen principal habitats, in- Created in 1911–1912, the continued to collect—broadening the collection to cluding an Australian Garden, Subtropical Garden, has recent- ly reopened after a yearlong include her avid interest in French decorative arts. , and, the most recent, Liu Fang restoration. untington’s third great passion was for Yuan, or the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, inspired plants, derived in part from his desire to by the centuries-old Chinese tradition of private H find ones that would grow well in South- gardens designed for scholarly pursuits—a concept ern California and so help fulfill the region’s agri- that would surely appeal to Henry Huntington. cultural potential. The avocado seeds he brought While Huntington himself did not focus on home from lunch at his gentlemen’s club eventu- American art, it is in this area that the collection ally led to what is generally credited with being has taken some of its most dynamic steps forward the first commercial avocado growth in California. in recent years—a logical expansion given his in- Huntington and his landscape William terests in American history and literature. Spurred Hertrich stalked local nurseries and imported plants by the 1979 gift of fifty important American paint- from around the world to mold the ranch into a ings and funds for a gallery to house them, from of rare and exotic specimens, a foundation established by Virginia Steele Scott

158 Antiques MAY/JUNE 2012 159 ohn Cederquist has been called a another visually challenging, almost cubist, master of deception with good piece that likewise conceals, breaks down, and J reason. His furniture at once delights “contains” a high chest. Cederquist enjoys and “trompes” the eye, balancing reality pointing out the links between these pieces and and illusion so well that you have to step the plates in Thomas Chippendale’s Gentleman back to comprehend what you are look- and Cabinet-maker’s Director, which offer al- ing at and then move up close to see how ternative leg, chair-back, or cabinet-front designs Cederquist has done it. It hasn’t always for a given pattern—and achieve similarly been that way. When he started working disconcerting effects. His delight in perusing in the 1970s Cederquist made “regular” the 1754 copy of the Director in the Hunting- pieces in the style of studio furniture ton’s Library was palpable. The volume is among introduced by . But the many important imprints of period pattern assignment to teach a two-dimensional books the Library holds, including those of drawing class motivated him to rethink George Hepplewhite, William Morris and his direction. Challenged by questions Company, and others. of perspective in reconciling two- and Cederquist constructs his pieces fairly simply three-dimensional forms—“why does a out of plywood, but there is nothing simple You can use John Cederquist’s chests of rectangular tabletop not look like a rect- about the way he gives them “form.” Every drawers and sit on his chairs, but his angle when you see it from a few feet molding, every shadow, every empty space, every surrealistic imagery constantly challenges away?”— he started to experiment with protruding or receding surface, every “three- the viewer. Central to his work is cardboard, combining 2-D imagery and dimensional” detail, is actually completely flat, the tension between two and three 3-D form, and from there progressed to created with veneer and inlay, with outlines and dimensions, disorientation and delight, objects in which perception and reality only the smallest details drawn with a wood- and confusion and surprise—with collide and coalesce. burning tool. He chooses his woods carefully, the result that his furniture is both intellectually and aesthetically engaging. In 1989 he was invited by the Mu- and often stains them to produce different effects: seum of Fine Arts, Boston, to take for example some of his chests of drawers have Edward S. Cooke Jr., part in a project where artists were “waves” crashing through them made of stained- asked to create a piece inspired by an blue Pacific Northwest maple, which has a object in the museum’s collection. The natural chatoyance, or shimmer, that mimics result: Le Fleuron Manquant, which water. plays with “crating” a John Townsend high chest If the idea of waves sounds odd, they are but of drawers. Its success led to a commission from one of the conceits Cederquist brings to bear in the Smithsonian American Art Museum for his furniture. He draws from cartoon imagery, Japanese wood-block prints (Hokusai’s Great Wave at Kanagawa, for example), European marquetry, and textiles and costume. In a recent group of chairs he is working with “fabrics,” creating folds of drapery out of stripes of maple and mahogany, as in the chair shown here, wryly titled Indecision of Upholstery in tribute John Cederquist with Anthony van Dyck’s por- “to decorator friends who have to deal with trait of Anne (Killigrew) Kirke (c. 1607–1641) of clients trying to choose fabrics.” c. 1637. Photograph by Laurie Steiner-Halperin. Cederquist asked to be photographed in Gothick Chairs, Pl. XXII in Thomas Chippendale, front of Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of Anne The Gentleman and Cabinet- (Killigrew) Kirke, one of the grand manner Maker’s Director (London, 1754). portraits acquired by Henry Huntington, Indecision of Upholstery by Cederquist, 2010– including five by Thomas Gainsborough, that 2011. Birch plywood, pecan, maple, and Hon- constitute some of the richest holdings of such duras mahogany; height 67, width 26, depth 27 portraits in the world. The rendering of sump- inches. Photograph by Gary C. Zuercher. tuous fabrics, a hallmark of these works, makes Le Fleuron Manquant (The Missing Finial) by them particularly relevant to Cederquist’s work Cederquist, 1989. Birch plywood, Sitka spruce, with drapery. “It is amazing how abstract the Honduras mahogany, and koa; height 88, width brushwork is when you get up close to 44, depth 15 inches. Photograph by Michael Sasso. it,” he says with a grin.

160 Antiques MAY/JUNE 2012 161 axidermist, bird artist, falconer, ican Museum of Natural History and they’d let naturalist, climber, mountain me use animals in formaldehyde to make molds T biker…fine jeweler? David that I turned into jewelry.” Freda’s many interests start with the In Freda attended an exhibition of taxidermy, which he began in Milwau- René Lalique’s jewelry at the Cooper-Hewitt, kee when he was about eleven. “I’d been National Design Museum, and here is where it collecting butterflies and bugs and my all starts to come together for readers of Antiques. father said, ‘no,’ I could not do taxi- “I was blown away by the enameling (on my dermy. But I got a book and taught early works all the decoration was painted); I myself after school—a few small animals, taught myself how to enamel, moved to Califor- birds mostly.” In high school he found nia, and created a line of orchids in silver and a job in a taxidermy shop and then with enamels.” Walking past Tiffany and Company a friend “got hooked on bird illustra- one day sparked a recollection of Paulding Farn- tions, which went hand in hand with ham’s orchids, so Freda decided to walk in and the taxidermy.” From there he pro- show them his. “The next thingI knew they asked ceeded to watercolors, which, still in me if I could make the orchids in gold and enam- David Freda high school, he sold profitably at Ducks els. ‘Sure, no problem,’ I said, but then it took Unlimited meetings and elsewhere. That me two years to figure it out. Enameling on gold Some 115 years after Paulding Farnham designed astonishing jeweled orchids led to falconry, and pretty soon into is tricky—modern glass doesn’t work—you have for Tiffany and Company’s exhibit at the banding the birds for tracking. to use old glass, from the 1940s and 1950s to 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, It should probably not be a surprise, make it stick.” David Freda has created enameled gold then, that when Freda saw the double “I like to think my orchids pick up where and gemstone orchids for Tiffany’s that elephant folio edition of John James Farnham left off—a contemporary very clean are so lifelike one wonders if they Audubon’s Birds of America on display should be pinned to the shoulder or in the Main Exhibition Hall of the placed in a vase. Library at the Huntington, Janet Zapata, he exclaimed, “that’s my jewelry scholar choice—I’ve never actually seen it, even though it has David C. Freda with an orchid display in the Rose Hills always been a touchstone of my Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science. Stein- er-Halperin photograph. work—wow!” Henry Huntington acquired the four volumes in 1917 from the Lily lamp designed by Mrs. Curtis Freschl for Louis Saint Louis industrialist and philanthropist Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933), made by Tiffany Stu- William K. Bixby (1857–1931), whose own dios, after 1902. Patinated bronze and Favrile glass; collection of rare books and manuscripts height 20 ¾ inches. Freda was understandably drawn to this sculptural study of two types of lilies (field lilies was one of the most important of its for the shades and water lilies for the patinated bronze day; Huntington acquired addi- base) that demonstrates the importance of natural tional literary manuscripts from forms as a starting point for Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Bixby the following year. designs. Tiffany was awarded a gold medal for the pro- When Freda entered the Uni- totype of the lamp at the 1902 Prima Exposizione versity of Wisconsin–Whitewater, looking twist. I take molds of real orchids first, d’Arte Decorativa Moderna, in Turin, Italy. Purchased he intended to major in painting, then do the enameling and add elements like with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council. until he took a class in jewelry making— diamonds and gold granulation. Each is one-of- Freckles (Brassolaelia Richard Mueller) orchid brooch “to learn to make bells to put around a-kind and made of my own 20 karat gold alloy.” by Freda for Tiffany and Company, 2010. Enameled birds’ legs for tracking. I took a class with Orchids abound in the Rose Hills Foundation gold and diamonds, height 4 ½ inches. Photograph by Marcia Lewis, who was kind of a wild met- Conservatory, erected at the Huntington in 2005 Carlton Davis. alsmith in her own right, and was totally as a cornerstone of the institution’s botanical Roseate Spoonbill/Platalea Ajaja engraved by Robert mesmerized.” Hiking in the Shawangunk Moun- education programs. Its design inspired in part Havell after John James Audubon (1785–1851), Pl. tains as a graduate student at SUNY New Paltz, by a Victorian-style lath house that once stood CCCXXI in John James Audubon, The Birds of Ameri- he found some snake eggs, which, through on the property to house palms, ferns, rhododen- ca (1827–1838). Hand-colored engraving and etching, hollow-core casting, he transformed into drons, and cyclamens, the sixteen-thousand- 25 ⅝ by 35 ¼ inches. beads for necklaces. “I started taking molds square-foot conservatory brings a twenty-first- Zygo Pink and Esmeralda Tiger orchids brooch by Fre- of baby snakes from nature shops and century commitment to Henry Huntington’s da for Tiffany and Company, 2007–2008. Enameled then started working at the Amer- passion for the world. gold and diamonds, height 4 inches. Davis photograph.

162 Antiques MAY/JUNE 2012 163 erne Jacobs’s father wanted her to that I have to solve,” Jacobs says. “I become like sits by the edge of the karesansui in be a secretary, though in retrospect an old Indian basketmaker, sitting with my work the Japanese Garden. Also known as a dry land- few people seem less suited to in my lap.” She might start with an idea or a scape or waterless stream garden, the karesansui is F a Buddhist place of contemplation, where the typing and shorthand. Even in high color, but “the minute I see the actual line in front viewer uses his or her imagination to interpret the school, “I would do anything not to of me, the idea just fades away; it disappears and scene. Steiner-Halperin photograph. write a paper,” she has recalled, noting I’m left with that line in that moment.” that a “lot of the teachers would let you Jacobs’s appreciation of the mysterious—as Cabinet by Walter Crane (1845–1915), English. do these art projects” instead.* well as of the unknown and of the ambiguities c. 1875. Ebonized wood with silk-on-linen em- A sprite broidered panels; height 32 ½, width 22, depth of a woman, with a nimbus of gray hair of the psyche (she reads Carl Jung)—no doubt 12 ¼ inches. Crane was probably encouraged to and a faraway, if impish, look in her eye, explains her affinity for William Blake’s Night take an interest in embroidery by his friend Wil- Jacobs is a fiber artist who likes to say of Enitharmon’s Joy at the Huntington. A par- liam Morris, whose literary manuscripts were col- that her “life has been led by a thread”— ticular interest of Henry Huntington’s, the lected by Huntington. Gift of the Art Collectors by which she means that while it has multifaceted Blake is one of the writers best Council. evolved and transformed in sometimes represented in the extraordinary holdings of The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy by William Blake mysterious ways, it is all connected. The eighteenth- to twentieth-century English (1757–1827), 1795. Planographic color print same can be said of her art. manuscripts and first editions in the Huntington with hand-tinting, 16 ¾ by 22 inches (sheet). Ferne Jacobs The non-academic (who earned an Library. The Rare Book Collection holds a num- Medusa’s Collar by Jacobs, 2009–2010. Coiled MFA even though she never graduated ber of his illuminated volumes; the hand-colored waxed linen thread; height 18 inches. Photograph To me, Ferne Jacobs’s basket-like from college) gained her education by print is one of nearly one hundred separate Blake sculptures call for repeated view- by Susan Einstein. ings, in the same way that one cannot connecting with one leader in her field works of art housed in the art collections. compre­­hend a lovely symphonic tone after another. She started as a painter, “Blake was an explorer of images and ideas,” poem from one listening. Her coiled fiber studying briefly with Ron Jacobs says. “He was moved to create a per- objects are three-dimensional drawings Blumberg and Gabriel sonal philosophy and images that made it in space. And that is their magic. Laderman, and found her visible to him. The colors and energy of the way to weaving after walk- print remind me of my Medusa’s Collar. 26 Kenneth R. Trapp ing into a studio on a Los The figure of the woman [recently Formerly, Renwick Gallery of the identified as Enitharmon, a repressive Smithsonian American Art Museum Angeles street. “I don’t even remember his name, nature goddess in Blake’s mythology] but he had a loom and I also reminds me a little of Medusa was enthralled by the in that she appears strong. There threads—the color and texture, and are all these odd or dreamlike figures, the smell of the threads.” After that too, and the different curls that move she bought her own loom, and her around my work remind me of these relationships started to build, and dream figures.” entwine: , Mary Jane As one thought seems to thread Leland, Dominic de Mare, Olga de its way to another in Jacobs’s mind Amaral, Peter Colling­wood, Jack it is easy to understand why many Lenor Larsen, Joan Austin, Lenore disparate aspects of the Huntington’s Tawney, and the list goes on. collection appealed to her. In addition Jacobs moved from flat weaving to the Blake, and perhaps for obvious to basket shapes and then to reasons, she is enchanted by Walter larger three-dimensional sculptures. Crane’s aesthetic movement cabi- Today she primarily uses the bas- net with its embroidered figures ketmaking techniques of coiling representing Sight and Smell. and twining, practiced since ancient Outdoors she delights in the bam- times and used throughout the boo forest and karesansui, or dry world. Because of the size and landscape garden (where she is pho- intricacy of her pieces, the process tographed) in the Japanese Garden— is laborious and exhausting. A work “threads, they are so like threads.” But the takes about six months. “Each piece most astonishing object to her is an eighty- I make takes me into a mystery volume scrapbook in the photography de- partment created over a lifetime by Frederick * Oral history interview with Ferne Jacobs, Au- W. Nelson—“an absolute treasure.” I gust 30–31, 2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. think everyone who saw it would agree.

164 Antiques MAY/JUNE 2012 165 Cecilia Miguez Cecilia Miguez gathers images from everyday life to create sculptures that evoke memories of childhood dreams, tribal icons, and even narrative fantasies, illiam—Bill—Hunter’s rowing up in Uruguay Cecilia all the while maintaining a light­- California of the late Miguez’s favorite possession was hearted view of the real world. 1960s and early 1970s an art book her mother bought W G Stuart A. Ashman, was a place of bell-bottoms, long for her in an antiques store, and her hair, and creativity—and it fitted Museum of Latin American Art, favorite painting reproduced in it was Los Angeles him to a tee. Inheriting a strong Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie.” So en- work ethic from his father and the chanted was she that, at about age capacity to dream from his mother, eleven, she copied the image in oils onto he balanced the two in many pursuits, a glass lamp base that still stands on her from baseball to sport fishing while mother’s bedside table. On her first growing up in Long Beach. He found visit to the Huntington, after moving to his way to his art as a philosophy Los Angeles in 1985, Miguez describes student at California State Univer- walking into the Thornton Portrait Gal- sity Dominguez Hills, where he and lery: “I could not believe my eyes. I did two like-minded friends started a not know that the painting was there. It woodworking team in a garage. brought me so many memories and emo- William Hunter Soon they were taking part in tions. It was amazing to see the details, the craft fair explosion that the real colors.” For nearly four decades, Bill Hunter started in Los Angeles about 1970. By that time Miguez, who was trained has been in the forefront of art created In 1973 Hunter and several others as a painter, had begun to work more by wood turning. Not only are his pursuing ideals of self-sufficiency seriously as a sculptor. “It was very hard works indicative of his virtuosic and a contemplative life, moved to get the three-dimensionality I was talents, they are elegant marriages of to the Yosemite area of Northern his inventive forms and the natural looking for in a painting,” she recalls, beauty of grained wood. California, where they established a co- method of preparing and shaping wood, but…new science in the studio to help inform my technique “so one day I started working with my operative wood-turning business called craftsmen [such as Hunter] have taken the technol- and refine my craftsmanship.” This balance of hands, making volumes with clay. It was David Revere McFadden Sierra Wood Design and lived, equally ogy to new heights.” The idea of craft as art had feeling and science are expressed in the two objects so exciting because I was no longer try- Museum of Arts and Design, cooperatively, without plumbing or come to stay. Today Hunter’s work is in numerous at the Huntington that resonated with Hunter— ing to create illusions of 3-D. The piece New York electricity (although they wired an aban- museum collections: the Yale University Art Gallery, a sixteenth-century Italian armillary sphere on would develop its own light and shadows. doned building nearby to power their the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia display in the Main Exhibition Hall of the Library It was such a natural process for me, lathes). Living close to nature helped Museum of Art, to name a few. and Paul Manship’s sculpture Evening. “I chose the and such a liberation to go from two Hunter focus on his craft. Surrounded “I’ve always been in- Bill Hunter stands beside one of four armillary sphere because it reminded me so much dimensions to three.” by mountains and rivers, flora and fauna, and in- quisitive about the mate- venerable Podocarpus totara trees (native of my piece Free Vessel, only from the scientific side. Her favorite medium is bronze, which she vigorated by sunshine and snowfall, he studied rials I use,” Hunter says, to New Zealand) planted in Henry Hun- When I saw it I immediately thought of planetary observes, “is very stable and very flexible, which nature to understand its energy and forces. Com- and understanding the tington’s day along the edge of the Rose arcs and galaxy spirals that have influenced my allows me to make changes and to make multi- bining scientific observation with inspiration from properties of countless Garden. Steiner-Halperin photograph. work.” The sphere is believed to have come to the myriad artistic sources, from the Bauhaus and the different woods allows Library with Henry Huntington’s small collection Sarah Goodin Barrett Moul­ Evening by Paul Manship (1885–1966), ton: “Pinkie” by Thomas arts and crafts movement to Brancusi and Kandin- him to use each one to its c. 1938. Bronze; height 13 ½, length 21 of early terrestrial and celestial globes by well-known Lawrence (1769–1830), 1794. sky, he experimented endlessly, fascinated with best advantage, from inches. This small version of Evening, cartographers and publishers such as Willem Jan- Oil on canvas, 58 ¼ by 40 ¼ capturing what he has called “motionless move- under-grade shipments from the Moods of Time series that Man- szoon Blaeu and Jodocus Hondius; like his excep- inches. One of the most fa- ment” in bowl forms that ripple with the of Brazilian kingwood to ship made on a monumental scale for tional holdings of early maps and atlases, the globes mous of the English grand rhythms of the tides or the wind. ebony, cocobolo rosewood, the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, was reflect Huntington’s twin interests in the old and manner portraits acquired by Fast forward to 1985. At a fair in and satinwood. Over time given to the Huntington with Morning new worlds. Huntington, Pinkie occupies and Day from the series in 1997. Gift of the wall facing Thomas Gains- Springfield, Massachusetts, his aesthetic has evolved an anonymous donor. Hunter’s words about Manship’s sculpture, on Hunter’s work attracted the from bowl shapes to more display in a glass-walled loggia of the Virginia Steele borough’s iconic Jonathan eye of Jonathan L. Fairbanks, abstract forms, many Inner Space by Hunter, 2003. Cocobolo; Scott Galleries of American Art, might be applied Buttall: “The Blue Boy” of height 8, diameter 10 inches. Collection 1770 in the Thornton Portrait then curator of decorative exploring the deconstruc- to his own work: “Can a work of art be perfect? Gallery. arts at the Museum of tion of the vessel into of Stephen Weinroth; photograph by Alan Probably not, but Manship’s comes close….He is Fine Arts, Boston, who helixes and other expres- Shaffer. a master at accurately portraying muscular structure, Cecilia Miguez in the North soon commissioned a sions of mass and space. Detail of an armillary sphere attributed proportion, gesture, and expression, while captur- Vista. Steiner-Halperin photo- graph. piece for the museum’s “In all of my series, I to Antonio Santucci (active 1580–1619), ing spirit. He is able to express, in arrested moments, permanent collection. In use my experience and Italian, c. 1580. an exciting and dramatic motion that brings us proposing its acquisition, knowledge to convey my Free Vessel by Hunter, 2003. Cocobolo; into the abstract realm. To be able to convey and Fairbanks observed, “turn- feelings and interpreta- height 12 inches. Private collection; combine the real and the imagined worlds ing used to be a cost-effective tions of nature. I use Shaffer photograph. with this success is true genius.”

Antiques Madonna and Child by the faces,” says Miguez. “I adore the gold leaf back­ sychedelic,” “hallu- Rogier van der Weyden (c. ground, so abstract, suggesting unseen spaces where cinogenic,” “magi- 1400–1464), c. 1460. Oil on light becomes transformed into an enchanting air, cal,” “visionary”— masonite, transferred from P canvas, originally on panel, enriched by the vibratory effect of the thoughts these terms have all been 20 ½ by 13 ⅝ inches. Arabel- the Madonna is having, a world unreachable, but used to describe the paintings la D. Huntington Memorial beautifully suggested by the artist.” of Sharon Ellis. But in the Art Collection. At the moment Miguez is at work on a series of end she is a landscapist, and sculptures entitled “The Sound of the Thought,” while her works have also Detail of The Blue Glove by Cecilia Miguez, 2004. which will explore a perhaps equally unreachable been described as “expansive,” Bronze, wood, and gold leaf; world—the silence and introspection just prior to they are far from the sweep- height (overall) 60, width 17, “a thought…is it a vibration, an energy, a memo- ing views of an Albert depth 11 inches. Photograph ry?” We look forward to seeing how she Bierstadt or a Thomas Hill. courtesy of Louis Stern Fine suggests these ideas in her new work. Expansive in Ellis’s case Arts, Los Angeles. means that her images seem delic posters from the Fillmore and Technicolor The Lonely Tower by Samuel Palmer (1805– The Recipe by Miguez, 1911. to have an infinite depth, films from the sixties, with the mandarin aes- * 1881), 1880. Watercolor Bronze and found objects; and glow from within. theticism of Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery.” and gouache on paper, height 20 inches. Louis Stern Sharon Ellis Ellis moved to California In situating Ellis work in the context of 6 ⅝ by 9 ¼ inches. Fine Arts photograph. from her native Illinois as a California women painters, art historian Though acquired after Sharon Ellis is to be admired for young girl. By high school Nancy Moure writes: “Like certain artists of Huntington’s death, this her talent and her courage to she knew she wanted to be the 1920s and 1930s, including Adele Watson, watercolor reflects his in- speak in an unconventional a painter, but it wasn’t until Mabel Alvarez, and Agnes Pelton, Ellis uses terest in the work of Wil- ples”—which is not to say that she creates editions. language. Her works offer surface after she received her M.A. non-personal motifs to express her inner liam Blake and his circle. Every piece is one-of-a kind. Her figures often delights of electric beauty but from Mills College and spirit. Some of her paintings have a conven- The subject is based on more importantly are profound John Milton’s “Il Pense- display the grace and proportions of ancient Greek and unique visions. moved to New York that she tional landscape format and exist as magical developed her personal style. roso.” Palmer’s mixture sculpture or Renaissance portraits, although she personal Edens. Others are symmetrical and of watercolor and quickly diverges from reality into the realms of “Moving to New York was reminiscent of religious icons although other- gouache creates a rich the emotions and the spiritual through her use Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, a fabulous education for consultant California art worldly, using light to convey spirit, sometimes texture, glowing with soft of “found” objects. “The found object is something me—it allowed me to see to evoke a sinister or foreboding ambiance. Yet light and expressing a that somebody made with another purpose,” so much ‘old’ art that I hadn’t others are up-front, exuberant, all-over patterns, magical mood. Miguez says. “It’s very special when I hold some really seen in California. I balancing enamel-like color and motif to proj- of those objects and think about somebody else was especially taken with the medieval paintings at the Cloisters. ect her inner joy.” working with them. They give incredible vibra- They led me to develop my technique of layering glazes.” This is the Ellis’s Moondance, completed last fall, is one tions to my work.” When she incorporates a tiny technique that gives Ellis’s works that mysterious and expansive of these last. It is the first of a group of paintings box she has picked up at a flea market into a feeling. Using oil alkyd paints she builds up as many as sixty or “that will share the theme of night in some way,” figure, for instance, it becomes the holder of secrets seventy translucent layers on the canvas in a way that makes light as she says—though “it remains to be seen or dreams; a funnel turned into a hat in one of important a medium as pigment. exactly where this theme will go!” Miguez’s works has references to Hieronymus Ellis’s view of the natural world is informed by her appreciation * Bosch, to medieval helmets, or even to a “well- of the writings of Thoreau, Keats, and Wordsworth, as well as by “Sharon Ellis: Modest Ecstasy,” in Evocations: Sharon Ellis, 1991–2001 (Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, Cal., oiled brain,” writes scholar Abbas Daneshvari. the visionary worlds of William Blake and Samuel Palmer, whose 2002), p. 11. A long-time visitor to the Huntington, Miguez Lonely Tower of 1880 is Ellis’s favorite piece at the Huntington. appreciates it not just for its extraordinary hold- “Their intimate and emotional relationship with nature has ings but “as a calm peaceful place to think and guided my own work,” she says. “Beauty and mystery are integral get inspired—a very special corner of the universe.” parts of both creativity and nature.” She is photographed in the North Vista, with its Beyond these inspirations, art Painter Sharon Ellis in the wisteria critic Dave Hickey has located many arbor of the , planted for long view to the San Gabriel Mountains, among Huntington in 1908 by his first gar- seventeenth-century garden sculptures acquired other “improbable ancestors” of den curator, William Hertrich (1880– by Huntington in 1922. In choosing a favorite Ellis’s work: the “extravagant intrica- 1966). The dappled sunlight evokes object Miguez says she always goes back to Ro- cies of Jackson Pollock…floral ac- the sprays of stars and sunbeams Ellis gier van der Weyden’s Madonna and Child, one coutrements of Caravaggio…the often includes in her paintings. hallucinatory specificity of Caspar of a small group of Renaissance paintings col- Moondance by Ellis, 2011. Alkyd lected by Arabella Huntington and bequeathed David Friedrich and Philipp Otto on canvas, 34 by 40 inches. Photo- to her son Archer, who gave them to Henry Runge…the complexities of Burne- graph courtesy of the artist and Huntington for the Arabella D. Huntington Jones and Bridget Riley…the stillness Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Memorial Art Collection. “I love the delicacy of of Seurat,” not to mention “psyche- Monica, California.

168 Antiques MAY/JUNE 2012 26 f Henry Huntington’s ghost is at for finials and handles, taking casts from plants, stands in one of the large in his old home, he’s prob- especially those in the Huntington’s Garden. new galleries installed during ably familiar with ceramist Adrian In 1983 the French Ministry of Culture the 2008 renovation of the Hun- I tington Art Gallery. The secré- Saxe, a third-generation Angelino who awarded Saxe a fellowship and six-month resi- taire à abatant by Bernard Mo- has been going to the Huntington since dency at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres. litor (1755–1833) incorporates he was a boy. As early as high school As he puts it, “when Mitterand came in he a large Sèvres porcelain plaque he was enamored of the Sèvres and wanted to revitalize Sèvres and sent out a com- (painted by Charles-Nicolas Do- Chelsea Red Anchor period porcelains mittee to find ceramists to come work there—and din), added in the late nineteenth that Huntington had acquired for the they found me!” He was allowed to use the century by Alfred de Rothschild, Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art original eighteenth-century molds and models, who owned both the secrétaire Collection; by college (at Chouinard but rather than seeking to idealize a form in the and the porcelain-topped table in which the plaque was originally Art Institute and the California Insti- French manner, he was spurred to experiment set. The Sèvres plaques mounted tute of the Arts) Saxe was frequenting further with molds taken directly from nature— on the sides, dating to the 1770s the place both for inspiration and “I would buy vegetables in the local markets and and also by Dodin, were add- because his fiancé was employed there use them,” he says. (Later, he would grow his ed sometime between 1884 and as the first woman gardener. own gourds: “the double-gourd form has been 1927, when Henry Huntington Adrian Saxe After working in stoneware and earth- around in ceramic traditions for thousands of acquired the secrétaire. Steiner- enware, Saxe turned almost exclusively years,” he observes. “We sent Japanese seeds for titles, juxtaposition of materials, or other devices. 2008. Several rooms are furnished much as they Halperin photograph. What I love about Adrian’s work is its to porcelain—putting him at odds with some to my father-in-law in Oklahoma, and He has even created his own takeoffs on Sèvres were in Huntington’s time to reflect his style of Centerpiece of 1-900-Zeitgeist combination of elegance with humor. It is sly the American studio ceramics world of they grew like mad! I used them a lot.”) garnitures, sometimes using anagrams to order and life among the British portraiture and French by Saxe, 2000. Porcelain, stone- and knowing, but at the same time pays ware, and mixed media; approx- serious homage to the traditions of both the late 1960s and early 1970s. On his Inspired by the extensive use of gilding on reorder his vessels: One group, called ELVIS/LIVES, decorative arts that were his and Arabella’s pas- imate height (of tallest vessel) Jingdezhen in China and Sèvres/Limoges/ frequent visits to the Huntington he the French wares (Saxe was awarded a second has finials of quartz crystal, the largest component sions. In addition, new galleries were built to 34 ¾, overall width 55 inches. Vincennes in France. Saxe knows how studied the range of decorative techniques fellowship at Sèvres in 1987), he increasingly of the earth’s crust, which, according to Saxe, “plays provide educational displays of the European Not pictured are two additional porcelain works; he knows how to control on the Sèvres soft-paste wares and was employed it in his own work. “Each gold is dif- on the notion that Elvis, if his remains have been fine and decorative arts in the collection, most vessels made as part of this take brilliant glazes; and he creates references to particularly drawn to a garniture with ferent,” he says, “they have to be burnished in committed to the earth or his ashes to urn-like jars, acquired by Huntington for the Arabella D. on a traditional garniture, cre- early porcelains that are smart and elegant. idiosyncratic forms of cannons and tur- different ways.” He developed his own form of is ever present.” Huntington Memorial Art Collection. Saxe is ated for an installation at the J. Ulysses Grant Dietz, rets that appealed to his sense of quirki- craqueleur to enhance the effect. Which brings us back to Huntington’s ghost, shown in one of these galleries, beside three Paul Getty Museum. Collection Newark Museum ness (and remains his favorite thing at In the tradition of fine eighteenth-century por- who, if he haunts his house, probably finds much cases of eighteenth-century Sèvres garnitures and of the artist; photograph by An- the Huntington). He also began experi- celains, Saxe’s works are intended for display, and that is familiar and much that has changed, since an early nineteenth-century secrétaire à thony Cunha, courtesy of Frank menting with animal and plant forms they almost always make a point through punning the building underwent a major renovation in abattant by Bernard Molitor. Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, California.

Garniture, Sèvres, 1762–1763. Soft-paste porcelain, with over- glaze and enamel decoration, and gilding; height of center vessel 20 ½ inches. These three vases are among the largest and most extravagant ever produced by Sèvres. The central vase with goat-head handles is painted with a battle scene; the side vases, in the form of fortified towers, bear military trophies, garlands, and wreaths. These details suggest that the set was made for a military hero, per- haps a veteran of the Seven Years’ War, which ended in 1763. Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collection.

Untitled Ewer (Acorn Squash) by Saxe, 1990. Porcelain; height 7 ½, width 9 ½ inches. Frank Lloyd Gallery photograph.

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