The Photographer in the Garden

Description

This book explores our unique relationship with nature through the garden. From famous locations, such as Versailles, to the simplest home vegetable gardens, from worlds imagined by artists to vintage family snapshots, The Photographer in the Garden traces the garden's rich history in photography and delights readers with spectacular photographs. The book explores gardens from many angles: the symbolism of plants and flowers, how humans cultivate the landscapes that surround them, the change of the seasons, and the gardener at work. An informative essay from curator Jamie M. Allen and picture-commentaries by Sarah Anne McNear broaden our understanding of photography and how it has been used to record the glory of the garden. The book features photographers from all eras, including Anna Atkins, Karl Blossfeldt, Eugene Atget, Edward Steichen, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Collier Schorr, to name a few. This sublime book brings together some of the most stunning photography in the history of the medium.

Jamie M. Allen is associate curator in the department of photography at the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York. Allen's work at the Eastman Museum focuses on exhibition development and care of the collection. She is the author of Picturing America's National Parks (Aperture, 2015). Allen lives in Rochester, New York. Sarah Anne McNear has over thirty years of experience in museums and cultural nonprofits, with a specialization in photography and community-based art education. She has held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Allentown Art Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, where she was the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Fellow in Photography. Most recently, McNear served as the deputy director of Aperture Foundation and the deputy director of the 92nd Street Y's School of the Arts, as well as the director of its Art Center. Prior to these roles, she was director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago. McNear is the author of several books on photography and has served on advisory committees for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Art in Architecture Program for the U.S. General Services Administration, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She is currently a board member of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine, and Aperture Foundation. McNear lives in New York City.