You never know what you will find in the mail. Shortly after I arrived at Descanso last summer, I received a slim envelope that both changed the way I was seeing Descanso and triggered an idea. Inside were photographs of the Gardens and a letter from their maker.  These were pictures unlike any I had ever seen, full of depth and loving detail; panoramic in format; richly colored; of Descanso scenes familiar to me but mysterious and strangely luminous at the same time. The photographer was Warren Marr, based in Tujunga. 

Marr, who has photographed many of the world’s most beautiful and exotic places, had brought his skills and point of view as an artist to bear on the Descanso landscape for a full year.  What I was seeing was extraordinary and wonderful, and I immediately wanted to share these pictures with others who love Descanso and everyone who visits. This jibed with what Marr wanted, too—an independently published book of the work. Together, we approached Glendale-based Balcony Press with a proposal that they publish a book of the photographs to be released in time for the 2006 holiday season and to inaugurate our planned celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Descanso Gardens Guild, 1957—2007. Balcony eagerly agreed and an extraordinary book, Descanso, is becoming reality.

Warren Marr

In addition to approximately 80 pages of Marr’s photographs, the volume will include essays by Anne Lyden, assistant curator of photography at the Getty Museum, and Robert Smaus, long-time garden writer for the Los Angeles Times; a timeline of the Gardens’ history; a collections checklist, and a forward written by me, as Descanso’s director. The book is designed by Kurt Hauser, a distinguished Los Angeles book designer.  To properly display the panoramic format of the photographs, the book will be generously sized at 9” by 14 1/2” and will be available in both hard- and soft-cover editions.

In the meantime, here are a few of my thoughts from the book’s foreword:

“Marr’s photographs are very much works of art. In their conceptual rigor, composition, timing, and almost hallucinatory detail they reward us on second and third sight with a realization that dawns like the light in many of the pictures. This (the photograph) is not the real garden. It is a construct, just as the garden is. This is an artist’s-eye view of Descanso, not a documentarian’s view.  Although subject, place and photographer are undeniably real, these are imaginary landscapes—his, ours, it’s not always perfectly clear. 

“The photographer is to the reality of Descanso what the garden designer is to the garden—a co-creator of experience, of entertainment, of education, of perception, of humility and wisdom. He cares—artist/photographer or garden designer/steward—and so should we. They make startlingly clear what Descanso Gardens is—a piece of land, loved."

David R. Brown
Executive Director