Arthur Shurcliff Boxwood Research Collection
Dublin Core
Title
Arthur Shurcliff Boxwood Research Collection
Subject
Landscape drawings
Boxwoods - Virginia
Boxwoods - South Carolina
Boxwoods - Georgia
Shurcliff, Arthur A. (Arthur Asahel), 1870-1957
Description
Arthur A. Shurcliff [ne Shurtleff] (1870 – 1957) was the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s first landscape architect. A student of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., considered the father of landscape architecture in America, Shurcliff’s Williamsburg gardens are recognized as consummate examples of the Colonial Revival style.
Arthur Shurcliff arrived in Williamsburg in 1928 to join the Williamsburg office of architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Shurcliff worked in the office of well-known landscape architects, Charles W. Eliot and Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. in Brookline, Massachusetts between 1896-1905. He then opened his own landscape design practice and received commissions for many landscape projects in Boston, such as the grounds of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Charles River Esplanade, and the Franklin Park Zoo. Between 1928 and 1941, Shurcliff oversaw the planning and layout of gardens at Colonial Williamsburg, as well as of traffic patterns, parking, and street curb design, and continued to advise in a consultant capacity until just before his death in 1957.
The first half of the collection consists of measured landscape drawings, arranged by parcel inspection number, of sites in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia from which the Williamsburg Restoration acquired boxwood plants for use in the reconstruction of Williamsburg, Virginia's eighteenth-century gardens. The second half of the collection encompasses miscellaenous drawings, charts and notes concerning boxwood planting undertaken in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area between 1928 and 1940.
Arthur Shurcliff arrived in Williamsburg in 1928 to join the Williamsburg office of architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Shurcliff worked in the office of well-known landscape architects, Charles W. Eliot and Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. in Brookline, Massachusetts between 1896-1905. He then opened his own landscape design practice and received commissions for many landscape projects in Boston, such as the grounds of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Charles River Esplanade, and the Franklin Park Zoo. Between 1928 and 1941, Shurcliff oversaw the planning and layout of gardens at Colonial Williamsburg, as well as of traffic patterns, parking, and street curb design, and continued to advise in a consultant capacity until just before his death in 1957.
The first half of the collection consists of measured landscape drawings, arranged by parcel inspection number, of sites in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia from which the Williamsburg Restoration acquired boxwood plants for use in the reconstruction of Williamsburg, Virginia's eighteenth-century gardens. The second half of the collection encompasses miscellaenous drawings, charts and notes concerning boxwood planting undertaken in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area between 1928 and 1940.
Creator
Shurcliff, Arthur
Date
1929-1933
Is Part Of
Arthur Shurcliff Boxwood Research Collection, AV2023.3, 1-105
Rights Holder
Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Collection Items
