THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020 F 19Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux and
André Le Nôtre are names nearly as well
known as their famous landscapes — Cen-
tral Park for Olmsted and Vaux, and Ver-
sailles for Le Nôtre, the principal gardener
of King Louis XIV of France.
But what about the women? They have
played major roles in a diverse array of
landscapes in the United States: Marjorie
Sewell Cautley, the landscape architect of
Radburn in Fair Lawn, N.J., a New Deal-era
planned suburban community based on
safety and access to shared parks and open
spaces that became a model for projects
around the world; Clermont Lee, whose de-
signs revitalized the public squares and
gardens of the Historic District in Savan-
nah, Ga.; and Genevieve Gillette, the force
behind the multimillion dollar funding for
Michigan State Parks, one of the nation’s
most robust public systems.
“Women have literally shaped the Ameri-
can landscape and continue to today,” said
Charles A. Birnbaum, president and chief
executive of The Cultural Landscape Foun-
dation, “but their names and contributions
are largely unknown.” For example, Ruth
Shellhorn, who created the private gardens
of many Hollywood moguls and worked di-
rectly with Walt Disney on his park in Cali-
fornia, “has been overshadowed,” Mr. Birn-
baum said. “At Disneyland today, there’s no
recognition of her work.”
Earlier this month, the nonprofit educa-
tion and advocacy association released
Landslide 2020: Women Take the Lead, an
online exhibition to raise awareness about
100 years of women landscape architects
and the works they designed. (The initia-
tive is timed to the 100th anniversary of the
passage of the 19th Amendment, which
granted women the right to vote.)
The exhibition highlights the stories of
the lives of 12 designers and 12 sites (two
have multiple locations) that represent a di-
versity of geography and approach. All
properties are at risk — from threats includ-
ing insufficient funding, deferred mainte-
nance and even demolition — but most are
still publicly accessible.
“We’re trying to elevate what these trail-
blazing women have brought to the table,”
Mr. Birnbaum said.
But that recognition has been an uphill
battle.
Over all, landscape architecture as a pro-
fession is often judged by a different stand-
ard than building architecture and other art
forms, and parks and gardens are fre-
quently considered natural — grown organ-
ically —- but not designed. “When people
see a landscape like Central Park, they of-
ten think it was an act of God,” Mr. Birn-
baum said. “The hand of the landscape ar-
chitect is often invisible.”
Women have faced further challenges. In
the 1800s and 1900s women excelled in gar-
den clubs, civic improvement initiatives
and as columnists for their local papers.
Landscape architects, though, were also ac-
tive, said Thaïsa Way, landscape historian
at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection. “The profession had women
early on — before law, medicine and archi-
tecture — but there were few women at the
big firms, and the ones who were there were
pretty invisible,” said Dr. Way, author of
“Unbounded Practices: Women, Land-
scape Architecture, and Early Twentieth
Century Design.”
There were exceptions. Beatrix Farrand,
the only woman founding member of the
American Society of Landscape Architects
(started in 1899), was celebrated for her pri-
vate estate gardens and design work on
campuses like those of Yale and Princeton.
In contrast Annette McCrea, who also was
active in the late 1800s, designed the land-
scapes around train stations in small towns
throughout the Midwest for four of the ma-
jor railroad companies at that time, but
those sites and documentation about her
work are long gone, said Dr. Way.
“One hundred years later,” Dumbarton
Oaks, Farrand’s Country Place Era-style
garden in Washington, D.C., “is still a stun-
ning work of art,” Dr. Way said. However,
Dumbarton Oaks Park, a 27-acre nature-fo-
cused public space, originally part of 53-
acre Bliss estate, is threatened by storm
water runoff problems and funding issues.
Around the time of the Depression, many
women landscape architects began to ex-
pand their focus to projects with a social
agenda. Examples featured in the exhibit
include Susan Child, whose firm designed
South Cove, a multilevel waterfront park in
Battery Park City, N.Y.; Martha Schwartz, a
co-designer of Children’s Park and Pond in
San Diego; and Angela Danadjieva.
Ms. Danadjieva, an 89-year-old Bulgar-
ian, led many urban design and city plan-
ning projects with Lawrence Halprin & As-
sociates, including large-scale ones in the
1970s like the Ira Keller Fountain in Port-
land, Ore., and Freeway Park, perched
above Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle.
“The great majority of people never
heard her name, but she is one of the un-
sung heroes,” said Gina Ford, a landscape
architect and co-founder of Agency Land-
scape + Planning. “She really gave shape
and form and design expression to those in-
credible spaces.”
Thomas Polk Park, in Charlotte, N. C., an
urban pocket park and fountain, was one of
Ms. Danadjieva’s first solo commission;Ms.
Ford called it a masterwork of water feature
design that is singular in this country.
“It’s just a magnificent monument, a pow-
erful cascade of water, steps, stones, plants,
and greenery, sculptural and beautiful,” she
said. “All you hear is the rush of the water.
When you see people walking by, they are
just drawn to it. It has this kind of presence
in the city center.”
Ms. Ford said her firm would update the
site, which had fallen into disrepair, “but
will recognize its history and beauty.”
Because of the growing presence in land-
scape architecture programs of women,
who now outnumber men, but who remain
underrepresented in the profession, Ms.
Ford co-founded WxLA, a coalition to assist
the next generation of women in the work
force. “The fact that, over all, women have
not been acknowledged as leaders in land-
scape design makes their work even more
precious.”
A smaller location featured is the Lynch-
burg, Va., home and garden of the Harlem
Renaissance poet Anne Spencer, who creat-
ed and nurtured the garden from the time
she moved there in 1903 with her husband
Edward, until her death in 1975 at age 93.
“One of the unique things about my
grandparents’ garden is the history, the
stories,” said Shaun Spencer-Hester, the
site’s executive director and curator. Her
grandfather, a carrier for the U.S. Postal
Service, salvaged items along his mail route
that he would turn into arbors, pergolas and
benches. The property was a popular gath-
ering spot for leading Harlem Renaissance
figures, including Langston Hughes, James
Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. DuBois,
Spencer’s editor, who called it “the shrine.”
Guests would stay at the house because
the area’s segregated hotels wouldn’t ac-
cept people of color, Ms. Spencer-Hestersaid, although it was not listed in the “The
Negro Motorist Green Book,” a guide first
published in the 1930s to help African-
Americans travel safely. “It started out as a
straight out-of-the-back-door vegetable
garden to feed their family and grew into a
lush flower garden and a refuge for people.”
After Spencer’s death, the garden be-
came severely overgrown. Though funding
remains a concern, it was reconstructed by
local garden club volunteers who worked
from period photos and other documents.
Other sites have not been as fortunate.Clermont Lee, one of the first women li-
censed to practice landscape architecture
in Georgia, was successful in modernizing
some of Savannah’s historic squares, origi-
nally built in the 1700s, by rounding their
corners to ease traffic flow before they were
demolished or roads were built through
them.
But her viewing garden for the Juliette
Gordon Low Birthplace, home of the
founder of the Girl Scouts, didn’t have such
a positive fate. Earlier this year, “this im-
portant, pioneering woman landscape ar-
chitect’s garden was destroyed,” Mr. Birn-
baum said.
“This renovation is a continuation of on-
going efforts to make the site fully accessi-
ble for programming and tours,” the Girl
Scouts of the USA said in a statement.
“Conservation is more challenging with
landscapes than buildings,” said Dr. Way of
Dumbarton Oaks. “You’re working with in-
credibly dynamic material that’s growing
and changing every day.” But the work is in-
credibly important, especially during the
pandemic when shared public outdoor
spaces have become increasingly popular,
she said. “Understanding the history, and
being stewards of our public lands are more
critical than ever.”By TANYA MOHNRuth Shellhorn with Walt
Disney in July 1955, top left.
Above, the Harlem
Renaissance poet Anne
Spencer, standing at far left, in
her garden in Lynchburg, Va.,
with friends. Her husband,
Edward, is kneeling, at left.
The garden as it looks now,
top. Below, Dumbarton Oaks
Park in Washington, D.C.Shaping Landscapes
Women have played major, but not
well-known, roles in U.S. designs.
VIA THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE FOUNDATION DAVID LEPAGE, VIA THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE FOUNDATIONVIA ANNE SPENCER HOUSE GARDEN MUSEUMVIA THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE FOUNDATIONBLACK ART AUCTION
200 WORKS BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2020
317.986.6048
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Sargent JohnsonJacob Lawrence Augusta Savage Laura Wheeler WaringStanley Whitney James Van Derzee Romare BeardenEd Clark Al Loving Eldzier Cortor.