Beginning tomorrow, we throw open the gates to America’s grand estates in Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and the Women Who Designed Them. This show examines early 20th-century America’s boom in garden culture, with groundbreaking women leading the charge in the fields of landscape architecture, design, and photography.
The centerpiece of this exciting exhibit—a must for aficionados of historic homes and gardens—is Mrs. Rockefeller’s Garden in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. This interpretation of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Maine evokes one of the most stunning properties designed by Beatrix Farrand, one of the Groundbreakers examined in the show. Farrand, along with Marian Coffin and Ellen Shipman, represents a pivotal moment in history, from the end of the Gilded Age to the height of the Jazz Age. Their lives, times, and careers will be the subject of exhibition components throughout the Garden grounds.
For a taste of what’s in store, check out Edward Rothstein’s latest write-up of our brand new summer exhibition in The New York Times. Read on for the full list of this weekend’s programs surrounding Groundbreakers, including all-new children’s activities and plenty of musical interludes!
Karen Daubmann is NYBG’s AVP for Exhibitions. She has researched, planned, and installed over 50 exhibitions in her seven years at the Garden.
The moon gate in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden
The Free Dictionary defines “evocation” as the creation anew through the power of the memory or imagination. In the exhibitions department at The New York Botanical Garden we craft exhibitions years in advance with the intent of bringing to life distant lands, famous people, interesting plants, rarely seen gardens, and fantastical landscapes. Creating evocations is our job, and one that we take great pride in doing.
Not only do we bring the visual (garden composition) to the visitor, we also bring content to enrich their experience—including catalogs, signage, audio tours, plant tours, iPhone apps, related poetry tours, and programming. Our goals are to transport you, to immerse you, to educate you, and maybe, just for a moment, to help you forget about your life outside the Garden gates. Using our upcoming exhibition as an example, Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and The Women Who Designed Them, I’d like to show you some of the behind the scenes of how we put together the exhibitions.
Starting with an exhibition idea, we begin to plot the idea on our calendar and determine which exhibitions will come before and after it. Initial themes are developed and concepts for the designs are discussed. Early in the process, a scouting mission is planned, so that any physical locations relating to the topic can be photographed and documented. Later, visits to libraries and archives are planned so that assets for the galleries and related collateral can be gathered.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Tiffany’s might have taken some inspiration from the blue-green seafoam of one of our favorite species (and rightfully so). See it now in the aquatic plant house of the Conservatory—it won’t be swirling its colorful skirts forever.
Beginning tomorrow, we throw open the gates to America’s grand estates in Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens and the Women Who Designed Them. This show examines early 20th-century America’s boom in garden culture, with groundbreaking women leading the charge in the fields of landscape architecture, design, and photography.
