Opening Reception, The Olmsted Project: Photographs by Lee FriedlanderFriday, December 10, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Free with Museum Membership or Admission
Lee Friedlander (1934- ) is one of this country's preeminent photographers. Among his projects, Friedlander photographed the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of the Niagara Reservation (North America's oldest state park), Washington Park, the U.S. Capitol Building landscape, parkway systems in Buffalo and Louisville, New York City's Central Park and the grounds of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
Rambling with his camera through the parks' open meadows and densely wooded areas, Friedlander explores Olmsted's landscapes - the meticulous stonework, the balance of sun and shade, the mature trees and the saplings. Friedlander creates an appreciation for Olmsted's parks as invented worlds, not sublime landscapes, designed to delight the eye and offer, as Olmsted wrote, "healthful recreation" for the public. By providing worthy testimony to our era's renewed interest in preserving the finest landscape architecture of the 19th century, Friedlander's black-and-white photographs celebrate the essential pleasures of seeing and being in Olmsted's living works of art.
This exhibition was organized and curated by the Asheville Art Museum. This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation with local support from Kerns Landscape Architecture, Equinox Environmental and Terri Long Landscape Design, Inc. The Museum is grateful for the support of Janet Borden, Inc., New York City in helping organize this exhibition.
Image credit: Lee Friedlander, Biltmore, 1994, gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches. 2008 Collectors' Circle Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2008.36.02.91.
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