Time and Change in the Landscapes of Jens Jensen

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Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Midwest Regional Office of the National Park Service, and the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House.

Notes

1. Jens Jensen, Siftings (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), p. 3.

2. For a more detailed biography of Jensen, see the author’s book Robert E. Grese, Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 1–9; and Leonard K. Eaton, Landscape Artist in America: The Work and Life of Jens Jensen (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 1–18.

3. Grese, pp. 52, 65.

4. Wilhelm Miller, The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 2002), pp. 2–3; Julia Sniderman, ‘Bringing the Prairie Vision into Focus’, Prairie in the City: Naturalism in Chicago’s Parks, 1870–1940 (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1991), pp. 26–29.

5. Jens Jensen, ‘The Naturalistic Treatment in a Metropolitan Park’, American Landscape Architect, 2/1, January 1930, pp. 34–38; Jensen (1990), pp. 81–85.

6. Further discussion of these projects by Jensen can be found in Grese (1992) and Eaton (1964).

7. National Landmark Nomination for Fair Lane prepared by the author with support from the National Park Service (unpublished).

8. Karson has suggested that Edsel may have wanted a much simpler, more idealized design consisting only of the trees and lawn. Robin Karson, Genius of Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).

9. Other work by the author on Lincoln Memorial Garden can be found in Robert E. Grese, ‘A Process for the Interpretation and Management of a Designed Landscape: The Landscape Art of Jens Jensen at Lincoln Memorial Garden, Springfield, Illinois’ (Master’s Thesis, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984); and Grese (1992), pp. 112–120.

10. Jens Jensen to Camillo Schneider, 15 April 1939, Jensen Archives, Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

11. Additional information on the evolution of The Clearing can be found in Grese (1992), pp. 136–150.

12. Jensen’s plans for The Clearing are found in the Jensen Archives, Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL.