| Notes | Hardcover. First edition, first printing. 84 pages with 89 Triton-Fotos. Hardcover in linen without jacket (as issued)., with tipped in photo to front cover.
A selection of the photographs in this book were included in the exhibition: "Lee Friedlander: a Ramble in Olmsted Parks" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City 22 January-11 May, 2008.
A natural chronicler of all things uniquely American, photographer Lee Friedlander here puts his lens to the work of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), designer of many of this country`s most iconic public landscapes and the father of North American landscape architecture. Olmsted was responsible for a staggering number of America`s greatest parks, including the Niagara reservation (North America`s oldest state park), Washington Park, the Biltmore Estate, the U.S. Capitol building landscape and entire parkway systems in Buffalo and Louisville. His most famous work remains New York City`s Central Park, a pioneering egalitarian gesture that, at the time, was very unusual for its ready accessibility. This book compiles 89 photographs made by Friedlander in Olmsted`s public parks and private estates. The collection of rich tritones celebrates the complex, idiosyncratic picture-making of one of the country`s greatest living photographers, and also arrives upon the 150 year anniversary of Olmsted`s 1858 design for Central Park. Rambling across bridges and through open meadows and dense undergrowth, Friedlander locates a pure pleasure in Olmsted`s designs, attesting to the durability of Olmsted`s vision. |
