Judith Tankard
Judith B. Tankard received an M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and taught at the Landscape Institute, Harvard University for twenty years. She is the author of ten books on landscape history, including Ellen Shipman and the American Garden (2018), which won the 2019 J. B. Jackson Book Prize; Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden (2011); Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes (2009); A Legacy in Bloom: Celebrating a Century of Gardens at The Cummer (2008); Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement (2004); A Place of Beauty: The Artists and Gardens of the Cornish Colony (2000); Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood (1996; revised edition 2015); The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman (1996); and Gertrude Jekyll: A Vision of Garden and Wood (1989), with co-author Michael Van Valkenburgh. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Hubbard Educational Foundation. In 2000 Judithwas awarded a Gold Medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for her role in the advancement of historic gardens. Her articles and reviews have been published in Antiques, Apollo, Arnoldia, Country Life, Hortus, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and others. She prepared cultural landscape histories for the Garden Conservancy, Historic New England, and the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. She served as editor of the Journal of the New England Garden History Society (1991-2002) and currently is an editorial advisor for Garden History: Journal of the Gardens Trust. Judith is a Garden Conservancy Fellow and organizes the Martha’s Vineyard Open Day. She recently retired as second vice-president of The Beatrix Farrand Society and is currently an advisor to several preservation organizations, including the Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy, The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association, and the Tregaron Conservancy. She was recently interviewed for Karyl Evans’ documentary, The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand, and also appears in Exhibition on Screen’s The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism.