5 extraordinary gardens designed by artists
To whet your appetite for spring ahead, we've put together a list of five of our favorite artist-designed gardens. Grown by people like Frida Kahlo and members of the Bloomsbury Group, these living works of art have offered inspiration to painters and sculptors. This is the inspiration you need, just in time for spring. Here are 5 extraordinary gardens designed by artists from Frida Kahlo to Robert Irwin.
Bloomsbury Group's Charleston Garden, East Sussex, England
In 1916, British painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved into a house in the South Downs National Park in England. This house became the meeting place for the Bloomsbury Group, an influential group of avant-garde English intellectuals. The couple's friend and fellow artist Roger Fry helped them cultivate a walled garden among the nearby fruit trees, where each year they planted seeds of new flowers they wanted to paint. Hollyhocks, red-hot pokers, Icelandic poppies and at least 10 different types of roses still grow there today. This garden is a breeding ground for all kinds of art: Grant created a mosaic floor outside the studio and set up a hydrangea planter, starting from a plaster torso. Behind the pond, you'll find a nude by Wedgewood sculptor and designer John Skeaping.
Robert Irwin's Central Garden at the Getty Center, Los Angeles
The Getty Center turns 25 this spring, and its central garden is fresher than ever. It was designed by American artist Robert Irwin - a key figure in the West Coast Light and Space movement. Sculpture terraces featuring works by Alexander Calder, Barbara Hepworth and Isamu Noguchi alongside bougainvillea and an azalea maze. Irwin created the 134,000-square-foot garden as an intimate space within, architected by Richard Meier – or, as he put it, as “sculpture in the form of a garden that aspires to be art.” With its more than 500 plant varieties (including Blue Irises, Redbuds and Golden Celebration Roses) selected to enhance the seasonal interplay of color and light, it is indeed a living work of art. Irwin's ethos – which applies to both architectural installations and this garden – is declared in a springboard inscription: "Always changing, never twice the same."
Majorelle Garden by Jacques Majorelle, Marrakech, Morocco
Nearly 100 years ago, French Orientalist painter Jacques Majorelle bought a large palm grove in Marrakech, where he later commissioned architect Paul Sinoir to build an Art Deco studio. The walls, appropriately enough, have been painted in an electric, patented “Majorelle Blue”. Over four decades, Majorelle has cultivated a lush garden on the property like a living work of art, complete with a sanctuary for endemic birds, a collection of rare plants from her travels around the world, and fountains and cacti in abundance. After the artist's death in 1962, Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent acquired and restored the site, opening a museum dedicated to Berber culture in Majorelle's former studio. Jardin Majorelle is now part of the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent; next to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, the garden houses a memorial to the French couturier.
Gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny, France
AsClaude Monet he cultivated flower gardens, diverting a branch of the river Epte to create ponds where he sowed water lilies flanked by willows - the gardens, in turn, helped cultivate his creativity. It was here that the father of French impressionism was inspired to paint his famous “Water Lilies” series. Monet invited friends, including artists Auguste Rodin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as collector Kojiro Matsukata, to enjoy his show of flowers in constantnte change. The gardens reopen for the season on April 1st, with a pink explosion of crab apples and cherry blossoms.
Blue House ofFrida Kahlo, Mexico City, Mexico
For most of his life, Frida Kahlo lived in his house and studio in Mexico City, known as Casa Azul, due to the color of its walls. This building is made even more impressive by the greenery outside - a shaded oasis of prickly pear cacti palm trees, cane lilies and colorful indigenous Mexican plants thatFrida Kahlo cared for, inspiring his works of art as well as his bougainvillea wreaths. archive pictures showFrida Kahlo relaxing in the garden, surrounded by native flora and fauna (monkeys and pet parrots; orange and pomegranate trees).
