Garden As Art

Garden as Art: Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks
Edited by Thaïsa Way, with new photographs by Sahar Coston-Hardy

Garden as Art: Beatrix Farrand at Dumbarton Oaks features essays and photographs of this remarkable landscape as a living and breathing work of art. Published on the occasion of the centennial of the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens in 2021, the book illuminates the stewardship of one of the most beautiful gardens on earth. Edited by landscape historian Thaïsa Way, whose first book, Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century, included the important role played by Farrand in the emerging design profession, this volume includes essays from scholars and practitioners as well as photographs by fine art and landscape photographer Sahar Coston-Hardy. The essays place the garden in the context of its historical surroundings, explore its archival significance, and reflect on its effects on the world of contemporary design. Accompanying the essays is a collection of newly commissioned photographs by Coston-Hardy that document the seasons and growth in the gardens over the course of a year; these photographs invite the reader into the gardens to contemplate the art of garden design and the remarkable beauty of the natural world through the lens of landscape architecture. Archival images of the gardens offer a chronicle of evolving design concepts as well as illustrate how gardens change over time as living works of art. Whether you have experienced the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens firsthand or are reading about it for the first time, Garden as Art offers an inspiring view of a place that has been remarkably influential in design and the art of landscape architecture.