Huntington Library, Art Museum

The Huntington Library

Expansive complex housing art galleries with famous works, rare-book collections & lush gardens.The Huntington Library is one of the world’s great independent research libraries, with more than eleven million items spanning the 11th to 21st centuries.Every year, researchers from over 30 countries make over 20,000 research visits to the Library’s reading rooms, and thousands more remote researchers make use of the Library’s virtual services and digital collections. Some 75 Library staff play a critical role in cultivating and expanding access to the collections, creating new opportunities for discovery and engagement, and ensuring that collections are preserved for the future.The Art Museum features British, European, American, and Asian art spanning more than 500 years and includes more than 45,000 objects.

Extraordinary examples of decorative arts and folk art, paintings, prints and drawings, photography, and sculpture are displayed in the Huntington Art Gallery, the original home of Henry and Arabella Huntington, and in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. Both buildings also showcase smaller, temporary exhibitions that focus on masterworks in the collection or place The Huntington’s historic works in conversation with contemporary artistic practice.

Encompassing about 130 acres, the botanical gardens feature living collections in 16 stunning themed gardens with more than 83,000 living plants including rare and endangered species, and a laboratory for botanical conservation and research.

In 1903 Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) purchased the San Marino Ranch, a working ranch about 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles with citrus groves, nut and fruit orchards, alfalfa crops, a small herd of cows, and poultry. His superintendent, William Hertrich (1878–1966), was instrumental in developing the various plant collections that comprise the foundation of The Huntington’s botanical gardens. The property—originally nearly 600 acres—today covers 207 acres, 130 of which are open to visitors.