The Designs of Russell Page

After studying painting at the Slade School of Art in London and Paris, Russell Page’s passion for plants led to a career as a professional garden designer, beginning in 1928. This book not only provides a comprehensive and insightful biography, but reveals the landscape architect’s design process from concept, through to detailing and realisation (as is more common with architectural history), and includes working drawings, from concept to presentation watercolour perspectives. It follows his career from his brief partnership with his good friend Geoffrey Jellicoe and through the 1940s and 50s when Russell lived and worked in France and enjoyed an international practice, undertaking commissions in Europe, the Middle East and North and South America. He undertook all types of gardening projects from small private gardens to parks and estates and public spaces and continued to work up until his death in 1985.

In 1962, Russell Page’s book The Education of a Gardener was published and is now recognised as a classic in the field of garden and landscape design and planting. Page wrote a lot on particular topics in garden design such as colour, designing with water, and designing for particular topographies and climates, which are explored through a carefully selected range of case studies, reflecting the full scope of his work.

Tania Compton is a garden designer, writer and plantswoman, who spent twelve years as Gardens Editor for British House & Garden. Books include Dream Gardens (2007, Merrell) and The Private Gardens of England (Constable, 2015). She is a contributing Garden Editor to The World of Interiors and a Trustee of the Garden Museum.The Garden Museum explores and celebrates the art, history and design of British gardens and their place in our lives today. It houses the Russell Page Archive, which contains over 3300 plans as well as photographs, correspondence and notes.