The year 2022 marks the bi-centennial of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture and the designer of countless parks, estates, and civic landscapes throughout the United States.
The Newport Garden Club presents a yearlong celebration of Olmsted in 2022, including lectures, an exhibit at the Newport Art Museum - and even a birthday party, complete with cake.
According to Jane Carey, chief organizer for the celebration, “Newport, Rhode Island, is really ground zero for Olmsted’s work. We wanted to bring attention to the huge influence Olmsted - and later, his sons’ firm - had on the way Newport looks today.”
The Newport Garden Club has gathered a group of local partners for this project, including the Newport Art Museum, Newport Historical Society, Newport Tree Conservancy, the Preservation Society of Newport County, and Salve Regina University.
Lecture Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Arleyn Levee, author of The Blue Garden: Recapturing an Iconic Newport Landscape, will lecture on Olmsted. “Planning for Beauty and Wise Development: The Olmsted Legacy in Newport.” The lecture will be at 6 p.m. at Salve Regina University, at the Antone Academic Center, in the DiStefano Lecture Hall, 56 Lawrence Avenue. Free and open to the public.
Birthday Party Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Frederick Law Olmsted’s 200th Birthday Celebration will be held rain or shine at 11 a.m. in Morton Park, at Coggeshall and Morton Avenues. Newport Tree Conservancy will give a brief talk and tree walk. The Newport Garden Club will plant a tree and serve birthday cake. Free and open to the public.
Exhibition from Saturday, April 23 to Sunday, July 24
Newport Art Museum presents Olmsted in Newport, an exhibition curated and researched by the Newport Garden Club Olmsted Committee. An admission fee applies.
Lecture Thursday, September 15, 2022
Sara Zewde, principal of Studio Zewde and professor of landscape architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, lectures on Frederick Law Olmsted’s Cotton Kingdom, dispatches from his travels through the antebellum South. The lecture will be at 6 p.m. at Salve Regina University, at the O’Hare Academic Center, in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall, 100 Ochre Point Avenue. Free and open to the public.
The Newport Garden Club is one of the oldest garden clubs in the country and is a member of the Garden Club of America, which is sponsoring numerous Olmsted events throughout the year through its member clubs. For more information about Frederick Law Olmsted and his influence on our national landscape, visit www.olmsted200.org
