Lee Friedlander: Photographs Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes

Lee Friedlander: Photographs Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes by Friedlander, Lee. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781933045733.

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 countrys most iconic public landscapes and the father of North American landscape architecture. Olmsted was responsible for a staggering number of Americas greatest parks, including the Niagara reservation (North Americas 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 Citys Central Park, a pioneering egalitarian gesture that, at the time, was very unusual for its ready accessibility. This book, published to coincide with The Metropolitan Museum of Arts 2008 exhibition, compiles 89 photographs made by Friedlander in Olmsteds public parks and private estates. This stunning collection of rich tritones celebrates the complex, idiosyncratic picture-making of one of the countrys greatest living photographers, and also arrives upon the 150 year anniversary of Olmsteds 1858 design for Central Park. Rambling across bridges and through open meadows and dense undergrowth, Friedlander locates a pure pleasure in Olmsteds designs--in the meticulous stonework, the balance of exposure to shade and in the mature, weather-beaten trees that attest to the durability of Olmsteds vision.