AA-2026-DE4B27
On the image
A woman in a teal cardigan stands before a massive flowering plant in what appears to be a botanical garden or arboretum, the kind of place where the 1950s visitor arrived to see living proof that science and cultivation could transform a patch of ground into a rival of foreign lands without leaving home. The plant before her—a towering red Clivia or similar tropical specimen—has been trained and tended into a specimen that announced its own implausibility: this thing should not exist in a temperate climate, yet here it towers, tended by someone's deliberate hand. Behind it, the garden sprawls in orderly demonstration: palms, exotic shrubs in reds and purples, hedges sculpted into geometric confidence, all arranged on the assumption that abundance and control were the same thing. She holds her handbag and gazes at the plant with the expression of someone seeing evidence that the natural world had been solved.
The historian's note
Botanical gardens and arboretums in the mid-twentieth century served as repositories of both horticultural science and the middle-class leisure dream. The cultivation of exotic specimens under glass and in managed climate zones represented a significant investment in institutional infrastructure and gardening expertise. The colourful transparencies that documented these gardens—particularly those in regions with Mediterranean or subtropical climates—were produced to promote tourism and to celebrate the achievements of public gardens in assembling and maintaining collections from around the world. This visit captures the typical postwar casual tourism and the cultural assumption that such gardens were instructive and appropriate for public outings.
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Woman with Tropical Specimen Plant, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-DE4B27. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-tropical-specimen-plant-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026DE4B27,
title = {Woman with Tropical Specimen Plant, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-DE4B27},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-tropical-specimen-plant-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Woman with Tropical Specimen Plant, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-DE4B27 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-tropical-specimen-plant-1950s ER -
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