Richard Emil (or Edward) Miller (1875-1943), The Pool, c. 1910
The Artist’s Garden will tell the story of American Impressionist artists and the growing popularity of gardening as a leisure pursuit at the turn of the 20th century. Focusing on the American Garden Movement of 1887-1920, the exhibition will consider such themes as American artists’ visits to European gardens; the enthusiasm for gardening among women; the urban garden, the artist’s garden, and the garden in winter. Organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will include representations of gardens across the United States and Europe.
Among the artists whose work will be included are some of the most beloved artists in the Reynolda House collection such as William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam, along with other major American artists not represented at Reynolda, including Cecilia Beaux, Maria Oakey Dewing, Frederick Carl Frieseke, John Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir.
Katharine Smith Reynolds’s creation of the Reynolda estate, with its formal gardens and carefully landscaped grounds, coincides with and reflects the American Garden Movement. Reynolda architect Charles Barton Keen and landscape architect Thomas Sears were both from Philadelphia, the center of the movement. Katharine Reynolds, a woman always up to date, subscribed to a number of influential periodicals that helped spread information about gardening, including Country Life in America and Garden magazine. Her library also contained important gardening books. A complementary exhibition on the gardens and landscape at Reynolda, Reynolda at 100: Reynolda Gardens, will be on view at the same time in the historic house.
Reynolda House - Museum of American Art -The Artist's Garden : American Impressionism and the Garden - Movement, 1887-1920 - 03.10.2015 - 03.01.2016
