John Dixon Hunt

John Dixon Hunt, 2017

John Dixon Hunt (born January 18, 1936 in Gloucester ) is a British historian who specializes in the history of landscape architecture and the perception of landscape through time.

life and work

Hunt studied history and English literature at King's College of the University of Cambridge , where he the BA and MA graduated. He received a PhD in literary history from the University of Bristol in 1964 . He initially published on Shakespeare and TS Eliot . Through his preoccupation with the 17th and 18th centuries, he came to the reception of gardens and landscape.

In 1988 he was called to Dumbarton Oaks , Washington DC, where he headed the Garden and Landscapes division. Since 1994 he has been Professor of Landscape History and Theory at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia . In 2000 he was retired.

He wrote a variety of books on landscape and gardens.

Honors

• 2000 Admission to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture
• 2006 Honorary Doctorate from Bristol University
• 2017 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Ring of Honor of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts

Works (selection)

• The Figure in the Landscape: Poetry, Painting, and Gardening during the Eighteenth Century , Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976
• Garden and Grove: The Italian Renaissance Garden in the English Imagination 1600-1750 , London and Melbourne: JM Dent & Sons Ltd, 1986
• William Kent, Landscape garden designer: An Assessment and Catalog of his Designs , London: A. Zwemmer Ltd, 1987
• The Pastoral Landscape , Hanover, New Haven and London: National Gallery of Art, 1992.
• Gardens and the Picturesque: studies in the history of landscape architecture , Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992.
• Greater Perfections: The Practice of Garden Theory , Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
• The Picturesque Garden in Europe , London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
• The Afterlife of Gardens , Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
• Historical Ground: The role of history in contemporary landscape architecture , New York: Routledge, 2014.

Web links

Commons : John Dixon Hunt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• John Dixon Hunt on the University of Pennsylvania website