Throughout time, the interests of gardeners and botanical artists have been intimately intertwined. Both come together in the life of Rachel Lambert Mellon (1910–2014), the benefactor of Oak Spring Garden Foundation. As a young child, Rachel Lambert, nicknamed Bunny at birth, grew wildflowers in clay pots next to her bedroom window, and she developed garden designs based on illustrations from fairytale books. With the support of her father, Gerard B. Lambert (1886–1967), she created and planted a garden at Albemarle, the family home in Princeton, New Jersey. At age ten, she also began acquiring rare gardening books. This was the beginning of a collection she continued to build throughout her long life. Her early acquisitions, along with many other magnificent works collected over a period of more than nine decades, are the core of the library that Mrs. Mellon bequeathed to Oak Spring Garden Foundation.
This was a working library. Certainly, Mrs. Mellon was a collector, but she was also a reader and used her library in her research, her gardening practice, and her garden designs. Her first professional design commission was in 1933 for fashion designer Hattie Carnegie (1886–1956) in New York City. Other commissions followed for family and friends, but most significant was the request of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 for Mrs. Mellon to help design and plant the White House Rose Garden. Later design commissions included the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and the National Gallery of Art.
Her interest in horticulture and botany led Mrs. Mellon to collect beautiful paintings and drawings relating to plants and natural history, including works by old master, impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern painters. She acquired exquisite plant portraits by Rory McEwen, Margaret Stones, Sophie Grandval-Justice and other renowned botanical artists of the twentieth century. Her passion for the natural world also influenced her commissions of exceptional objects of art by well-known designers and sculptors, including Jean Schlumberger and Diego Giacometti, as well as textiles and clothes by fashion icons Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy.
Over the years, Mrs. Mellon had collected over 16,000 objects, from the fourteenth through the twentieth century, most relating to gardens, plants and natural history. Her rare and modern books, manuscripts, drawings, prints, and other decorative objects span from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. In 1976, she built Oak Spring Garden Library with the help of her husband, Paul Mellon (1907–1999), and in 1993, she established Oak Spring Garden Foundation.
Mrs. Mellon published four discursive catalogues summarizing different aspects of the Library’s collection: An Oak Spring Sylva (1989), An Oak Spring Pomona (1990), An Oak Spring Flora (1997/1998) and An Oak Spring Herbaria (2009). These four volumes, which can be viewed on the Foundation’s website, demonstrate Mrs. Mellon’s commitment to sharing her extraordinary collection, which continues to attract gardeners, botanists, naturalists, authors, artists, and many others from all over the world. Mrs. Mellon would be delighted with this beautiful book, which connects a great scientist with great botanical art and makes creative use of the illustrations that she so enjoyed.
TONY WILLIS
Head Librarian
Oak Spring Garden Foundation