Stories from the Library: The Mirror of the Moon

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Oxford Road 1151, 91108, San Marino

June 27, 2026 – November 30, 2026

Follow surprising threads across centuries that show how artists, scientists, writers, and dreamers have traced their ideas onto the lunar surface and discover how the moon is a mirror of humanity. From Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus nuncius (Starry Messenger), the 1610 publication that recorded his telescopic observations of lunar craters and mountains, to Octavia E. Butler’s 1969 notebook documenting the Apollo 11 moon landing, this exhibition brings together materials that show how the moon shaped daily life before modern astronomy, inspired lunar imagination in literature and speculative thought, and documented lunar exploration through photography.