Art of the Garden
Product details
- ISBN 9781917055086
- Dimensions: 250 x 280mm
- Publication Date: 08 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Tate Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Rich in metaphor and endlessly varied in form, the garden has inspired artists for centuries. Art of the Garden presents over 200 works from 1800 to today, revealing how painters, sculptors, photographers and contemporary artists have drawn on its imagery to explore themes of beauty, nature, identity and community.
This expanded edition traces the garden’s shifting role – from private idyll to shared space, from backdrop for creativity to lifeblood of local communities – but also considers its urgent contemporary resonances. Today, the garden is a powerful site for artists to engage with questions of climate crisis, environmental responsibility and the decolonisation of cultural and natural spaces. At once a place of reflection and of radical possibility, the garden emerges as central to both artistic practice and everyday life.
Featuring essays from Olivia Laing, Bob and Roberta Smith, and Claire Ratinon among others, this volume combines scholarly depth with visual richness, making it an essential companion for anyone fascinated by the enduring and ever-evolving dialogue between art and nature.
Nicholas Alfrey is Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Cultural Media and Visual Studies. His interests are in landscape since 1800 as a genre that continually crosses media boundaries, and in the legacies of Romanticism in British art.
Stephen Daniels is Professor of Cultural Geography, Emeritus, at the University of Nottingham. In 2015, he received the prestigious Victoria Medal from the Royal Geographical Society which is awarded "for conspicuous merit in research in geography". He has curated exhibitions at Tate and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Martin Postle is a senior research fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre. Prior to his present appointment, Martin was Deputy Director for Grants and Publications at the Centre, and previously Senior Curator and Head of British Art to 1900 at Tate.
With additional contributions by Amy Concannon, Brent Elliott, Mary Horlock, Olivia Laing, Claire Ratinon, Bob and Roberta Smith, and Ben Tufnell.
