Evergreen

This book elucidates all aspects of the various collections at Evergreen Museum & Library, from the largest-the architecture itself and the landscape that surrounds it-to the fine and decorative arts and the library. This cross-disciplinary celebration of the institution makes both a handsome souvenir of a visit and an excellent and substantial contribution to the field. -- Kate Markert, Hillwood Museum & Gardens

This volume will appeal to art collectors and lovers of historic houses, museums, and libraries, as well as readers fascinated by the intersection of art and architecture, literature and history, and the history of ideas and collecting.Evergreen-the long-time home of the Garrett family in north Baltimore-offers a preeminent example of antebellum-American Italianate architecture. It also houses a remarkably diverse collection of over 50,000 objects, including paintings, furniture, sculpture, ceramics, and rare books. Acquired by two generations of the prominent Garrett family, self-described "collectors by instinct and by education," the assemblage of fine and decorative arts is remarkable in scope and inventiveness. Now part of the Johns Hopkins University, the mansion endures as a rare visual encyclopedia, representative of nearly all major architectural and design movements indicative of America's transition from a predominantly agrarian society to a world industrial power. This meticulously researched and handsomely illustrated volume honors the distinct and richly layered collections that characterize Evergreen. The book opens with a history of the philanthropic family itself, which helped run the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and develop many of the Monument City's most important civic and cultural institutions. Tracing their evolution as collectors and philanthropists, the book charts the family's artistic tastes and aesthetic sensibilities from the Gilded Age to the World Wars while also describing the physical landscape and architecture of Evergreen. The Asian Art section explores the world renowned Garrett Collection of Chinese and Japanese art. As one of the earliest American collections of Japanese art assembled, it provides an important insight into collecting habits of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among its highlights is one of only a half dozen examples of blue lacquer known to exist, as well as examples of Chinese Imperial porcelain. The Decorative Arts section highlights the furniture, textiles, and other applied arts largely commissioned or collected by the Garretts. Beginning with the Aesthetic Movement of the 1880s and the talents of renowned design firms such as Herter Brothers, Liberty & Company, and Louis C. Tiffany and Company, Evergreen's interiors have embraced each succeeding decorative trend-including the Bourbon, Colonial, Empire, and Renaissance revivals, the Arts and Crafts movement, and European modernism. The Fine Arts section showcases modernist art assembled by Alice Warder Garrett and her husband,...