Thursday, 2 July 2009

Illustrated book of the week - Garden People

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Another departure from our usual kind of illustrated book, this week we have a book full of gorgeous photographs. The Thames and Hudson classic presents the works of renowned horticulturalist and plant photographer Valerie Finnis, and is packed with period portraits of her contemporaries, mainly the landed gentry hard at work in their little handkerchiefs of paradise. The get up of these land laboring aristos is much as one might imagine, but seems all the more eccentric due to the time faded hues of the vintage colour plates mainly taken in the 50's and 60's. All in all it's another visual treat.


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Those eagle eyed interiorphiles out there will have spotted Jan Baldwins inspiring photos of Valerie Finnis' house in the April 2009 issue of World of Interiors (well worth rummaging around for if you missed it)


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Garden People : Valerie Finnis and the Golden Age of Gardening by Ursula Buchan published by Thames and Hudson

2 comments:

  1. Hi Graham! I'm Elisa, Paula's brazilian friend. I love the Curious Eye, and I can't help myself saying that this man in kilt is absolutely wonderful. What elegance! Any chance of Kilts return to fashion in UK? What do you think? Would you use it? Here in Brazil the idea of men wearing skirts seems a little funny, but we had a multi talented artist, who in the 60 proclaimed that the clothes of the "new man" was a kind of kilt ... have a look http://northeastwestsouth.net/node/129 he designed beautiful furniture: http://www.archiexpo.com/prod/objekto/contemporary-armchair-51591-152740.html and also wrote a very interest book on fashion.

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  2. Thank you for this post. Greetings from Poland!

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