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About the Exhibition The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman was organized for UBS PaineWebber Art Gallery, New York City, in conjunction with the publication of The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman. The exhibition presented the life and landscape designs of one of the early twentieth century’s most successful landscape architects. Shipman created gardens for wealthy American industrialists, such as the Fords, Seiberlings, and duPonts, yet she considered gardening “the most democratic of the arts.” At the time of her death in 1950, Shipman had completed over 650 projects. This exhibition presented thirty projects by Shipman through new photographs and several plans and drawings on loan from Cornell University. “The exhibition is beautifully illustrated with many of the photographs of Mattie Edwards Hewitt, one of the period’s most prominent photographers, as well as contemporary photographs by Carol Betsch. Ms. Betsch’s huge color prints have an old-time stereoptic look . . . The juxtaposition of them with the black-and-white photos both old and new has a curious effect on the imagination: a bit like remembering a dream, halfway between memory and sensual perception.” —Anne Raver, The New York Times “A popular traveling exhibit, The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman has drawn crowds at every stop and is now on view at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center. Combined with the impact of an accompanying book, the show has done much to restore the designer’s once nationally recognized luster.” —Daily Press (Newport News) “Painting with peonies and larkspur, composing scenes with fountains and teahouses, Ellen Biddle Shipman saw her fame bloom in the early years of the century. In 1933 House and Garden magazine called her the dean of American women landscape architects. Garden plans and photographs of her work are on show in a traveling exhibition in which flowers all but tumble out of the images, and quiet terrace paths seem to beckon you on forever.” —Joan Brunskill, Associated Press
EXHIBITION VENUES A four-year tour was underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts. January 27 – April 4, 1997: PaineWebber Art Gallery, New York City April 15 – June 15, 1997: The Museums at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. August 8 – October 26, 1997: Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, N.Y. January 15 – March 5, 1998: Longue Vue House and Gardens, New Orleans, La. March 15 – May 30, 1998: Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, N.C. June 20 – August 16, 1998: Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio September 16 – November 25, 1998: Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, Grosse Pointe, Mich. January 17 – March 19, 1999: The Morris Museum, Morristown, N.J. March 25 – April 25, 1999: The Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, Va. September 1999: Olin Library/Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. |
