United States of America -- Virginia -- Fauquier County -- Upperville
Scope and Contents:
The folder includes worksheets.
General:
Edgewood was the home of Marie Pichon Oxnard and Henry T. Oxnard (1860-1922) who founded the American Beet Sugar Company. Oxnard, California was named after him. Oxnard made his home in Washington, D.C. as he maintained active interests in tariff legislation affecting the sugar industry. He also maintained a farm in Upperville as his country residence. He was well-known as a breeder of horses at Blue Ridge Farm in Upperville which he established in 1908. It is possible that Edgewood was located at or near Blue Ridge Farm, but that remains unclear.
At the time the garden was documented in the 1930s, it included a large swimming pool with a flagstone surround, lawns, hedges, shrubs, mature trees, and stone steps with urns alongside.
Persons associated with the garden include Henry T. Oxnard and Marie Pichon Oxnard (former owners, 1920s).
Related Materials:
Edgewood related holdings consist of 1 folder (4 3x4 in. lantern slides)
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
The Mulford Family Garden, located on two acres, was purchased in 1998 by the current owner. At the time, the house was surrounded by giant oak trees and a garden had so completely overgrown that the creek was not visible. The owners envisioned its potential and hired Nashville landscape architect Benjamin G. Page, Jr. (ASLA) to design an extensive garden renovation.The garden is now a special refuge for wildlife and a place of adventure and discovery for their children and their friends. Features include a tree house, forts and secret paths cut behind the hedges. The design incorporated the view of the creek, but rather than make it the focal point of the garden its view is meant to be a surprise. The final landscaping phase was the construction of a bridge to connect the property to the home of the owner's sister across the creek. Each summer, the property serves as a day camp for about fifty young children, organized in different areas of the garden.
Other properties designed by Benjamin Page include the residence of the Vice President of the United States at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., The Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee. The design for the Mulford house was implemented by Paul Fields (ASLA), President and Director of Design for Lambert's Landscape Company of Dallas.
Persons associated with the garden include Benjamin G Page, Jr. (landscape architect, 1998), Paul Fields (landscape architect, 2000),Schoelkopf family (1933), Shelby family (dates unknown) and Perrin family (dates unknown).
Related Materials:
The Mulford Family Garden related holdings consist of 1 folder (27 35 mm. slides (photographs) + 1 photographic print)
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
United States of America -- Virginia -- Albemarle -- Charlottesville
Scope and Contents:
1 folder and 16 digital images. The folder includes worksheets and a copy of an article.
General:
Located on two acres, this property has been owned and gardened by members of the same family since 1940, and consists of a series of all season garden rooms each with it's own unique purpose. At first Scotch broom had to be dug up, the farmland had to be improved, paths were laid, and periwinkle dug from the woods was planted as ground cover. There were few trees - a sweet gum tree was planted for quick shade - and a Victory Garden and fruit orchard were planted during World War II. The house, designed by architect Marshall Swain Wells in 1939, was apttered after a dependeny at the Colonial Williamsburg Palace. In 2005 landscape architect Charles J. Stick designed a formal entry garden paved in brick with four boxwood parterres surrounding white crape myrtles. Belgian landscape architect Francọis Goffinet designed an English style cottage garden that spans the front of the center of the house, filling beds with continuous summer blooms, with arched gateways at either end smothered in roses. Behind the house Stick replaced overgrown boxwood that defined mid-century garden rooms with a flagstone terrace. Goffinet also designed a formal allée of four boxwood-edged beds filled with flowering perennials and shrubs that terminates in a grove of crape myrtle.
The kitchen garden, also formal, has four smaller parterres growing herbs with espaliered apple trees as wall on one side. The chapel walk passes a dog cemetery that has stone benches and markers, leading to a stone chapel modeled on a gazebo at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. A meditation garden at one end of the cottage garden has a low stone wall, white sand floor, and a large espaliered camellia. The white garden was redesigned in 2017, pruning back 75-year-old boxwood and adding white peonies and ephemeral bulbs. A log cabin built circa 1830 was relocated to this property, placed so the porch faces west for viewing sunsets over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Paths through the wooded areas lead to the pollinator garden for bees and butterflies, the birch walk inspired by groves seen in England, a secret garden, and a cabin walk and cabin garden. The periwinkle outside the cabin had succumbed to fungal disease so a dry stream, stone wall, and plantings including dwarf Japanese maples, dogwood, hellebores, astilbe, ferns and hosta comprise a newer garden room. More natives including wildflowers have been planted along the original winding paths and in woodlands.
Persons associated with the garden include Birney and Irene Sims (former owners, 1938-1973); Marshall Swain Wells (architect, 1939); M. Jack Rinehart, Jr. (architect, 1991, 2005); Francọis Goffinet (landscape architect, 1993); Charles J. Stick (landscape architect, 2006); C. Colston Burrell (horticulturist, 1991-2017); Leslie Harris (horticulturist, 1991-2017); Donna Ernest (gardener, 1991-2017).
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
Topic:
Gardens -- Virginia -- Charlottesville Search this
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, The Garden Club of America collection.
This collection, which measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986, documents the lives of painter and educator Leon Berkowitz and his first wife, poet Ida Fox Berkowitz, and provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in 1940s and 1950s Washington D.C. through correspondence, notes, sketches, photographs, printed material, and audio cassettes.
Scope and Content Note:
The collection measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986. In addition to documenting the artistic development of Leon Berkkowitz and, to a lesser extent, Ida Fox, the collection provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in Washington D.C. during the 1940s and 1950s.
The collection includes correspondence, primarily between Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, notes, sketches, personal photographs, printed material, and a cassette tape. There are notes on Leon Berkowitz's philosophy of painting, reports from a 1940s U.S. Army art therapy project in which he participated, and scattered correspondence, financial records, and promotional materials from the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts and WCFM radio. Also found here are lecture notes and administrative materials relating to Leon's Berkowitz's teaching career, papers he wrote for several education courses, his master's thesis, sporadic business records concerning shipments and sales of paintings and gallery exhibitions, and drafts of catalogs.
Series 4: Exhibitions, 1944-1985, undated (box 2, 4, 10 folders)
Series 5: Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, 1940s-1950s (boxes 2-3, 14 folders)
Series 6: Other Projects, 1944-1985 (box 3, 4 folders)
Series 7: Notes and Writings, 1940s-1971, undated (box 3, 8 folders)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1950s, undated (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1900-1970s (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 10: Interview on Audio Cassette, [1974?] (box 3, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Leon Berkowitz (1911-1987), a painter associated with the Washington Color School, was born in Philadelphia (the 1919 birth date given by Berkowitz in Who's Who in American Art is incorrect). He met and married his first wife, Ida Fox, between 1935 and 1937. Berkowitz received a B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 and an M.A. from George Washington University in 1948.
From 1943 to 1945, he served as a private in the U.S. Army, participating in a psychiatric program involving art therapy at Camp Lee, Virginia. Berkowitz taught art at Eastern and Western high schools in Washington, D.C. from 1945 to 1956 and taught at Western again in the late 1960s. In 1969 Berkowitz became chairman of the Corcoran School of Art's painting department and taught there until his death.
In 1945, the Berkowitzes founded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts with Helmuth Kern. The Center, an important part of the city's cultural life during the 1940s and 1950s, offered courses in art, music, theatre and dance. Many of the artists who later became prominent in the Washington Color School taught at the center, including Morris Louis, Ken Noland, Gene Davis, Jacob Kainen and Jack Perlmutter. The center also sponsored a retrospective for Willem de Kooning in 1953. The Berkowitzes and Kern were also active in establishing the shortlived (1949-1953) cooperative radio station WCFM.
The center collapsed in 1956, shortly after the Berkowitzes' departure on a sabbatical painting trip to Spain. They spent much of the next decade abroad, including a two-and-a half year stay in Wales and a visit of several months to Jerusalem. During this period, Berkowitz expanded his interest in light, creating paintings by priming canvases with a white ground, then using multiple layers of thin oil paint washes.
Berkowitz had his first one-man museum show at the Corcoran in 1966. Ida Fox died during the 1970s and Berkowitz then married his second wife, Maureen. He continued to paint and exhibit until his death from cancer in 1987.
Poet Ida Fox (1913-197?) was born in Philadelphia. She married Leon Berkowitz between 1934 and 1937 and moved with him to Washington, D.C. where she attended American University from 1942 to 1945. During World War II she worked as a statistician for the U.S. government. In 1945 she cofounded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts. Fox became its director in 1947, resigning the position in 1955 to accompany her husband to Spain. She published poetry in several literary and artistic periodicals, including a series, "Painting Thru a Poet's Eye," inspired by works of art. In 1970 she published a collection of poetry, In the Wind: An American Poet in Wales (St. David's, Wales: Antiphon Press, 1970), illustrated by Arthur Okamura.
Related Material:
Also available in the Archives of American Art are two audio cassettes of a transcribed oral history interview with Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, June 5, 1979.
Provenance:
Leon Berkowitz donated the papers of his first wife, Ida Fox, in 1987. After his death in 1987, his second wife, Maureen Berkowitz, donated his papers to the Archives of American Art. In addition to these two accessions, one folder of material on Leon Berkowitz was donated in 1979. This material was microfilmed on reel 2786.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Series includes announcements and catalogs for two Saarinen exhibitions, as well as some for other artists, many of which are annotated with comments by Saarinen stating her opinion of the artist featured. Also found are copies of a book jacket for The Americans: A New History of the People of the United States (Little Brown and Company, 1963) by Oscar Handlin, the jacket design for which includes a photo of a brass eagle by Saarinen.
Printed material also includes a group of reference files of clippings, primarily featuring photos of animals, arranged alphabetically by animal, some news clippings about Saarinen and the Saarinen family, and a folder of news articles on miscellaneous subjects of interest to Saarinen.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation; and John R. & Barbara Robinson and Deborah Schmidt Robinson & Dr. R. Perry Robinson, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
Saarinen's correspondence files document her personal life and career. Incoming letters form the bulk of the series, but are interspersed with outgoing letters, often in the form of drafts handwritten by Saarinen. Personal correspondence includes letters written between Lilian and Eero Saarinen, which provide insight into their relationship during the 1940s and early 1950s, and their decision to divorce in 1953. These letters also reference professional projects, including Eero Saarinen's involvement in the design of the Antioch College residence halls. Other letters describe Saarinen's planning meetings for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and enclose sketches of his preliminary ideas for the project.
Many letters from Susan Hammond, Saarinen's mother, chronicle events in the Swann and Sedgwick families. Hammond frequently enclosed letters sent to her by others about Saarinen in her letters to Saarinen. Family correspondence includes letters from Saarinen's son, Eric, her sister Lucy Livingston Schwartz, letters from other members of the Swann family, and a letter from her cousin, Edie Sedgwick.
Letters which document Saarinen's professional life include correspondence with publishers and publications such as Child Life, for which Saarinen provided illustrations; Interiors regarding the publication of an article by Saarinen about her and her work; Otava Publishing Company, including the 1956 contract for the Finnish edition of Who Am I?; Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., relating to the original publication of Who Am I? in 1946; and Rutgers University Press regarding Saarinen's proposed jacket design for the cover of A Short Chronology of American History 1492-1950 (1952) by Irving S. and Nell M. Kull. Additional correspondence relating to Saarinen's writings can be found in Series 3: Writings and Notes.
Also found is correspondence with Caresse Crosby regarding the consignment of Saarinen's artwork to Gump's and other galleries in the 1940s, and referencing Crosby's Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly, for which Saarinen provided illustrations. Correspondence with Alan D. Gruskin of Midtown Galleries, who Saarinen contracted to represent her nationally from 1943-1948, includes Saarinen's sketches for her 1944 exhibition at G Place Gallery in Washington D. C., under the direction of Caresse Crosby.
The series includes substantial correspondence with other artists and architects, many of whom were personal friends of Saarinen, including Merle Armitage, Walter Baermann, Alexander Calder, Charles and Ray Eames, Carl Koch, Henry Kreis, Carl Milles, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Robert Venturi, and Harry Weese. Also found is correspondence with the design firm Knoll Associates, Cranbrook Academy of Art directors and artists Soltan Sepeshy, Maija Grotell and Marianne Strengell, six letters from Loja Saarinen, and a telegram from Eliel Saarinen.
The bulk of the correspondence relating to Saarinen's sculpture commissions can be found in Series 5: Project Files, but related correspondence is scattered throughout this series.
Arrangement:
Correspondence is arranged alphabetically. Correspondents who are represented by four or more items are housed in named files; all others are housed in general files for the corresponding letter of the alphabet.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation; and John R. & Barbara Robinson and Deborah Schmidt Robinson & Dr. R. Perry Robinson, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
