William Howard Adams (1926–2023)

When the Jewish Museum held an exhibition on Roberto Burle Marx earlier this year, it could boast of being the first exhibition on the famous Brazilian landscape architect since a 1991 show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). That isn't to say the two shows are duplicates, separated by 25 years. MoMA focused on Burle Marx's gardens, while the Jewish Museum broadened their scope to look at his jewelry, paintings, tiles, and other output. As much as I appreciate the diversity of his expression, I find his gardens the most interesting, not just for the way they appear in photos (I've yet to see one in person) but also in the way he designed them; his colorful plans have a beauty that was matched by the plantings that followed from them. This slim catalog to the MoMA show has plenty of those drawings as well as even more color photographs by Michael Moran. Half the book is devoted to a dozen projects documented as such, while the other half is comprised of a two-part essay by the exhibition's guest curator, William Howard Adams.

(As of writing this post, the cost of this book on Amazon starts at around $200. For those who really want the book but don't want to pay that much, head over to MoMA's archive of exhibitions, where the catalog can be downloaded in PDF format free of charge.)… (mais)

This book includes helpful essays on Atget and each of the gardens: Versaille, St;.-Cloud, Scaeaux, Arcueil and City Gardens. The photographs are presented in black and white, frame by a soft brown somewhat close to the tone of Atget's originals. Since Atget worked with a plate camera and made soft re-brown toned contact prints, much of the beauty of his work is lost in these overly contrast black and white reproductions. A useful book, one needs to see original Atget's to appreciate the lost potential here.… (mais)