Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

Bronze relief portrait of Mariana Griswold by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1888. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (February 21, 1851 – January 20, 1934), usually known as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, was an American author, born in New York City.

Life

In 1868, she moved with her family to Dresden, Germany, where she remained for five years. In 1873, she married Schuyler and lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and they had one child, born in February 1875. She began writing in 1876.^[1] The first woman architectural critic, she grew in influence in the 1880s.^[2]

She was president of the Public Education Association of New York.

In 1893, she wrote "Fifth Avenue", in The Century Magazine, which examined the new development around Central Park.^[3]

Awards

She was elected an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects. In 1910, she received the degree of D. Litt. from Columbia University, the accomplishment being an extraordinary one for a woman at that time.

She was awarded the 1924 American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals.

Works

Her writings include:

• Henry Hobson Richardson and his Works (1888)
• Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (2007). "Landscape Gardening Manifesto". Landscape Journal 26 (2): 183. doi:10.3368/lj.26.2.183. http://lj.uwpress.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/2/183. 
• English Cathedrals (1892; fourth edition, 1892)
• Art out of Doors (1893)
• Should We Ask for the Suffrage? (1894)
• One Man Who was Content (1896)
• Niagara, a Description (1901)
• History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century (1909)
• Poems (1910)

References

1. ^ http://www.tclf.org/pioneers/profiles/Van_Rensselaer/index.htm
2. ^ Sarah Allaback (2008). The First American Women Architects. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252033216. http://books.google.com/?id=OpY0KmICqKYC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=Mariana+Griswold+Van+Rensselaer. 
3. ^ Luther S. Harris (2003). Around Washington Square. JHU Press. ISBN 9780801873416. http://books.google.com/?id=K8aMN50YOvkC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=Mariana+Griswold+Van+Rensselaer. 

"American Country Dwellings." Parts I-III. The Century Magazine. 1886.

External links

• Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer (Mariana Griswold), 1888; this cast, 1890

Persondata
Name	Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 21, 1851
Place of birth
Date of death	January 20, 1934
Place of death