Judith B. Tankard, Landscape Historian, Author, and Preservation Consultant

(author of chapter in exhibition catalogue, The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement)

In the early 1900s women emerged as leaders in the field of residential garden design. They approached the art of landscape design from an artist’s viewpoint, bringing their sensibilities to art, design, and history to the profession. Beatrix Farrand, Ellen Shipman, and Rose Standish Nichols were prominent designers of the day, creating magnificent country house gardens. Their intimate circle of friends included artists and architects, such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Charles Platt, who helped form their ideas about garden design, ornament, planting designs, and, above all, the integration of house and garden. Judith’s lecture is based on her chapter in The Artist’s Garden exhibition catalog.