The Artist’s Garden

The Artist’s Garden features 20 real gardens that have inspired, and been home to, some of the greatest painters in history, and that can still be visited today. These gardens not only supplied the inspiration for creative works but also provided context for the professional motivation and private lives of the artists themselves. Beautiful paintings of the gardens and locations accompany contemporary photographs, while details from the artists’ archives reveal how each garden was made, how the owners prioritised gardens and planting, and how an artistic sense and painterly eye influenced the development of these ‘garden muses’.

Flowers and gardens have often been the first choice for artists looking for a subject but the relationship between artist and garden is a complex one. A few artists – including Pierre Bonnard and his neighbour Monet – were also keen gardeners; as much in love with their plants as their work. For others, like Sorolla in Madrid, the garden was a sanctuary and a source of ideas, and Claude Monet’s Giverny was the catalyst for hundreds of great paintings (by Monet and other artists), each one different from the one before. Sometimes a whole village became the focus for a colony of artists, as at Gerberoy in Picardy and Skagen on the northernmost tip of Denmark.