Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist by Jens Hoffmann, Claudia J. Nahson
The Jewish Museum / Yale University Press, 2016
Hardcover, 224 pages

One of the must-see exhibitions in New York right now is Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist, on display at the Jewish Museum until September 18th. Although known primarily for the more than 2,000 landscape designs he executed in Brazil and beyond, the exhibition "showcases the full range of Burle Marx's output across nearly 140 works, from landscape designs and sculptures to textiles and jewelry," as I wrote in a review at World-Architects. The exhibition is accompanied by a handsome catalog by the show's curators, Jens Hoffmann and Claudia J. Nahson.

Like the exhibition, the book is primarily visual, presenting the show's numerous drawings, maquettes, models and photographs in thematic sections: Private Gardens, Tiles and Mosaics, and Burle Marx in Brasília among them. Most interesting among these is Burle Marx's Home and Collections (aka Sítio Roberto Burle Marx), which served as a repository for plants, a laboratory for his landscape designs, and a museum of sorts for his art collection. Now open to the public, the house and studio is possibly the best way to understand Burle Marx, since it expresses his views on botany, design, art, and the mutli-faceted output that the show captures.
The roughly 135 pages of works is accompanied by a couple essays: an introduction by the curators, and "A Tree in Sear...