MARK BRADFORD, DAVID HAMMONS, KERRY JAMES MARSHALL, LORRAINE O'GRADY, ALISON SAAR, ALMA THOMAS

Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection Hauser & Wirth 24 February–16 August 2026 Los Angeles

Press Release

Renowned for her generosity to artists and institutions, Eileen Harris Norton has built an inspiring art collection and forged a philanthropic legacy by focusing upon the work of women artists, as well as artists of color and of her native California. Marking fifty years since Harris Norton made her first acquisition—a print purchased in 1976 directly from Los Angeles artist and African American arts advocate Ruth Waddy—‘Destiny Is a Rose’ will present more than 80 works from Harris Norton’s holdings in an exhibition conceived to celebrate the connoisseurship and commitment to social justice and learning that she embodies.

Taking its title from a 1990 painting by Kerry James Marshall, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ features paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Mark Bradford, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Marshall, Patrick Martinez, Beatriz Milhazes, Michael Norton, Catherine Opie, Yoshitomo Nara, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Betye Saar, Amy Sherald, Lorna Simpson, Bob Thompson, Kara Walker and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others. In conjunction with the exhibition, Hauser & Wirth Publishers will release a fully illustrated catalogue with texts by Dr. Kellie Jones and exhibition curator Ingrid Schaffner.

The first to draw comprehensively on Eileen Harris Norton’s collection, this catalogue—and the exhibition that occasions it—builds on the concept that collections can be creative and intellectual constructions in their own right, and that visionary collectors are cultural treasures whose efforts provide beacons for wider cultural advocacy. ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ follows past gallery projects dedicated to such collectors, including major exhibitions devoted to the Helga and Walther Lauffs (2008), Onnasch (2014) and Sylvio Perlstein (2018) collections.

A third-generation Californian, Eileen Harris Norton grew up in sight of Simon Rodia’s famous towers in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was twelve years old when the 1965 riots transformed her working class neighborhood into a flashpoint of the American Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. A graduate of the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles, she taught public school elementary English as a second language before co-founding, with her former husband Peter Norton, the software company that they later sold to Symantec.

Since the 1980s, Harris Norton’s reputation as a collector has developed in tandem with her philanthropy, providing direct support to a generation of museum curators—including Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden and Lowery Stokes Sims—who have all systematically changed who and how institutions collect. In 2009, she established the Eileen Harris Norton Foundation, extending her commitment to social and environmental justice through initiatives supporting education, families and the environment. Then, in 2014, she co-founded Art + Practice (A+P) with artist Mark Bradford and activist Allan DiCastro in Leimert Park, the historically Black Los Angeles neighborhood where Bradford grew up and first maintained a studio. Serving local youth transitioning from foster care and, through global partnerships, children experiencing displacement worldwide, A+P embodies her conviction that art can be a catalyst for care. These values—of access, care and sustained attention—resonate throughout this exhibition, where Harris Norton’s collecting emerges as both an artistic and social act of stewardship.

Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.