Though dismissed by Frederick Law Olmsted as a mere “dabbler,” Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959) proved him wrong by winning recognition as one of the premier figures in American landscape gardening and architecture, shattering the glass ceiling for women in a field that was becoming a profession and leaving an astonishingly rich legacy of beautiful parks and other horticulturally significant retreats. Stephen Ives’s biographical documentary is narrated by Lynden B. Miller, a well-known public garden designer who attributes her own career—also briefly recounted here—to Farrand’s literally groundbreaking efforts, and considers it a privilege to have been chosen to restore some of them. Using archival photos and footage, as well as sequences newly-shot in some of Farrand’s creations where Miller chats with other landscape artists, scholars, and horticulturalists about their importance, the film offers a chronological account of Ferrand's development, from the summers she spent at her family’s homes in New York and Maine during her childhood through her unofficial apprenticeship to botanist Charles Sprague Sargent of Harvard at a time when landscape gardening was not yet an established area of study.
We also study her visits to British experts and initial commissions to design residential gardens for prominent families that were part of her family’s social circle until public commissions slowly opened to her in the male-dominated field. Farrand's growing reputation led to important work connected with Washington’s National Cathedral, Hyde Park, the White House, and the Morgan Library, among many other notable locales. Special attention is devoted to probably her most famous achievement, the design and realization of the environs of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Center in Georgetown, to which she devoted her skill for decades.
The film does not ignore her marriage to historian Max Farrand, with whom she relocated to California when he was appointed the first director of the Huntington Library in San Marino. There she undertook the design of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in Mission Canyon, while continually traveling east to continue work on her ongoing projects there, including planting for carriage roads at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island in Maine.
All these aspects of Farrand’s career, and many more, are ably sketched by Ives, Miller, and their guest commentators. Buddy Squires’s cinematography provides elegant visuals to accompany the stream of biographical information. This is a fine contribution to landscape design as an integral part of architectural history, as well as a well-deserved tribute to a figure who was signally important in the opening of the field to women. Recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.