Ethne Clarke

The Midcentury Modern Landscape explores the origins of midcentury modern garden design for the home, revealing how designers at the time blurred the divisions between indoors and outdoors, creating gardens that were for living, a style that went on to inspire contemporary gardens around the world. The Midcentury Modern Landscape is a fresh guide for those seeking bold approaches to redefine their outdoor space, or wishing to learn more about the history of mid century modern aesthetics.

English expatriate Cecil Ross Pinsent was responsible for the design and construction of new villas and gardens such as the elegant rural estate La Foce, and the renovation of many historically sensitive ones, including Villa I Tatti, Villa Le Balze, and Villa Medici. Edith Wharton sought his advice; Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson admired and were influenced by him. Geoffrey Scott, author of The Architecture of Humanism, dedicated the book to him; and Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, England’s premier landscape architect, regarded Pinsent as his “first maestro on the placing of buildings in the landscape.” This first book dedicated to bringing to light Pinsent’s contribution to garden design is generously illustrated with photographs from his previously unpublished albums and archive of architectural drawings and sketches, and his letters to family friends and clients.

Known internationally as the epitome of the classic English country garden, it is perhaps less well known that Hidcote’s creator was an enigmatic American. Lawrence Johnston, an expatriate and one of the so-called “Henry James Americans,” a pedigreed member of old New York, left no diaries or significant correspondence. What he did leave, however, is a garden that continues to inspire horticulturists, gardening enthusiasts, and everyone who appreciates the beauty of nature. First published in 1989, the book was the first biography of Johnston; for this revised and enlarged edition Clarke, the author of 15 books on landscape history and gardening, has collected much new, original material that illuminates the creation of the garden and presents Johnston’s life in the context of the period that set the seal on England’s preeminence in garden design and plantsmanship.