Derek Fell is a writer and photographer with art, travel and garden books totaling more than 2.5 million in print, plus a photo library numbering more than l50,000 images portraying plants, gardens and travel destinations. His work in Architectural Digest and Veranda has won several writing and photography awards.
This celebrity of the Garden Design world will be releasing his very own line of outdoor furniture and garden structures inspired by the impressionist gardens of which he is the absolute authority. Working exclusively with CedarStore.com, Derek Fell speaks about his newest designs here at the All Outdoor Patio Furniture Blog.
The Famous Garden Book Author Explains the Inspiration behind the Cedar Store’s Latest Design Series
For more than 45 years I have specialized in documenting gardens worldwide and writing about garden design. Many of my books deal with garden furniture and garden structures and these are well known to landscape professionals such as certified landscape architects and garden designers. These include ‘Garden Accents’ (Henry Holt), ‘The Encyclopedia of Garden Design and Structures’ (Firefly), ‘550 Home Landscaping Ideas.’ (Simon & Schuster) and others.
My most successful series of garden books focuses on the great French Impressionist painters and their restored gardens, including Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh. More than 50 of my garden features have been published in Architectural Digest magazine, not only outstanding gardens in North America, but also foreign destinations like Scotland, England, Wales, France, New Zealand, Japan, Morocco, South Africa, Hawaii, Bermuda and the Bahamas.
During these travels I have documented some of the world’s outstanding examples of garden design and garden structures, adapting the best to my own two gardens, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Sanibel Island, Florida, and also private commissions. I greatly value the opportunity to work with the Cedar Store on a special series of garden structures inspired by the Impressionists. The Cedar Store is pre-eminent in the field of garden structures, including custom-design. In the months ahead I will introduce the following distinctive pieces:
Monet’s Bridge with Wisteria Canopy. Monet’s arched Japanese footbridge and wisteria canopy must be the world’s most recognizable garden structure. Spanning a corner of his pond at Giverny, France, the bridge was originally painted white to reflect the changing colors or sunrises and sunsets, but later Monet painted it apple green to harmonize with other garden structures such as his gates, benches and the shutters of his house. It has been replicated in many famous gardens worldwide, including the Grounds for Sculpture Garden, Hamilton, New Jersey. Many ‘Monet’ bridges do not feature the wisteria canopy, but I feel this is what makes the Monet bridge so unique and so romantic. In addition to a calendar titled ‘Monet’s Garden’, I have also authored ‘Secrets of Monet’s Garden’ (Friedman/Fairfax) and ‘The Magic of Monet’s Garden’ (Firefly).
Monet’s Bench. For its size, Monet’s garden at Giverny is the most visited garden in Europe. It is filled with benches because Monet had a large family – two sons of his own, five step-daughters and a step-son, and they would often hold family gatherings in the garden. The most distinctive Monet bench is a six-seater with a curved backrest he saw at Versailles Palace when he went there to paint. Later, he had the Versailles carpenters construct three benches for his garden. The original Versailles bench is unpainted, but Monet painted his apple green to match other structures in his garden. My Monet Bench can be supplied as a six seater, but also as a two-seater or a four seater, since not everyone has a garden space large enough to accommodate a six-seater bench.
Cezanne’s Trail Bridge. Cezanne and Monet were good friends, and they both enjoyed gardening. Cezanne painted the countryside around his home at Aix-en-Provence, and eventually built a special studio with a walled garden within view of his favorite motif, the mountain of Saint Victoire. My design is based on a bridge that spanned a narrow stream bordering Cezanne’s Garden when I first visited there in 1990. He liked all things natural, and his garden is mostly a woodland garden threaded with rustic trails that descend a slope. This bridge is perfect for any situation where a simple, rustic design is needed along a woodland path or as part of a bog garden. My book, ‘Cezanne’s Garden’ (Simon & Schuster) is sold at the garden and helped the garden increase its attendance from 5,000 visitors a year to 100,000 a year.
Van Gogh’s Zig-Zag Bridge. Born in Holland, Vincent van Gogh fell under the spell of the Impressionist painters when he moved to Paris in search of artistic development. He loved to paint bridges, the most famous of which is the Langoise drawbridge near Arles, in the south of France. But also simply slab bridges to cross narrow streams. In addition to the Impressionists, Van Gogh was greatly influenced by Japanese silk screen artists, and this Japanese slab bridge is similar to ones pictured in his collection. Both Japanese and Chinese garden owners valued gardens as a sanctuary, and the purpose of the zig-zag design is to keep evil spirits from the garden. In Japanese and Chinese mythology, evil spirits can travel only in straight lines. The beauty of the zig-zag bridge is that it can be added to in segments so that many more sections can be added to create a longer span. My book, ‘Van Gogh’s Gardens’ (Simon & Schuster) won three awards from the Garden Writers Association, including Best Book, Best Photography and Best Writing.
Renoir’s 3-Compartment Compost Bin. Renoir’s restored garden is in the south of France, near Nice, and when I first visited the garden as a guest of the French Tourist Office in 1989, I was impressed with two features – the enormous age of his olive trees (some 500 years old) and the size of Renoir’s compost pile. Even the skins from his grapes and the manure from his goats were delegated to his compost piles. He was a great believer in organic gardening, and his grandson told me how he preferred to grow pole snap beans rather than bush snap beans because of their greater vine coverage resulted in a more flavorful bean. Monet and Cezanne visited Renoir and had many discussions about art and gardening.
Caillebotte’s Driveway Gate. Gustave Caillebotte was born into a wealthy French family, and after his parents died he established a beautiful home and garden along the banks of the River Seine at Petit Gennevilliers, west of Paris. He not only collected Impressionist art, buying paintings from Renoir, Monet and Cezanne when they were struggling artists, he also was an accomplished Impressionist painter in his own right. He is famous for painting exaggerated lines of perspective, as in his ‘Paris Street Scene on a Rainy Day’. Caillebotte’s gate – with its distinctive criss-cross design – not only served as the entrance to his driveway but also the entrance to his garden. Monet was greatly influenced by Caillebotte’s garden, and a similar criss-cross pattern can be seen today in the entrance gates to Monet’s water garden.
The foregoing is a sampling of the designs in my Impressionist Collection. I always think that when you add a structure to a garden it must serve two purposes – a decorative accent that’s a pleasure to look at, and functional. When you can add a third element – a ‘talking point’ I don’t think one could ask for more of a bridge, bench or gate.
Stay tuned on our blog, by following us on twitter, or becoming our friend on facebook to keep up to date on the release of CedarStore.com’s new design series by Derek Fell.
Tags: Cezanne's Garden, compost bin, Derek Fell, garden bench, Garden Bridges, Impressionist Gardens, Monet's Gardens, Van Gogh's Garden's
