Garden Party: The Collection of Renny Reynolds
As a landscape architect, Renny Reynolds has long championed the beauty and joy of gardens, turning his career into a lifestyle. His journey began in the 1960s with the opening of his first shop in New York City, soon followed by a commission from fashion icon Bill Blass to design a penthouse terrace garden. Over time, Reynolds’s client list grew to include Giorgio Armani, Diana Ross, Andy Warhol, and others. He planned legendary events at Studio 54—including the launch of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium—and orchestrated receptions at the White House for Presidents Ford, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton following his tenure in Washington. In 1972, he founded Renny Design for Entertaining, later Renny & Reed, and in 1992, published The Art of the Party, often referred to as “the party planner’s bible.” His achievements were recognized in 2008 with the Great American Gardener Award, the American Horticultural Society’s highest honor.
At his core, Reynolds is a steward of gardens and architectural treasures. Both his “Dogs and Frogs” estate—a 1780 farmhouse in Bucks County—and Hortulus Farm, an 18th-century homestead he restored with partner Jack Staub (1951–2020), reflect that lifelong devotion. The latter was eventually turned into a foundation to publicly showcase its gardens and the couple’s private art collection.
It’s no surprise, then, that Reynolds developed a deep affinity for the Impressionist painters of Bucks County, whose works mirror his reverence for both natural and designed landscapes. The collection offered at Freeman’s | Hindman this fall speaks in a vibrant pictorial language that parallels his vision of landscape—both raw and refined.
Daniel Garber (American, 1880-1958) Sycamore and Elm, 1932 | $50,000 – 80,000
Two artists in particular embody this duality: Daniel Garber and Edward Willis Redfield. Sycamore and Elm epitomize Garber’s soft lyricism and thoughtful assemblage of quaint details filling the landscape with soothing poetry, while Early Spring exemplifies Redfield’s muscly approach, wrestling beauty from the landscape, shown in its full vigor and seemingly untouched.
Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965) Early Spring | $25,000 – 40,000
Yet the line between raw nature and designed landscape can be misleading. Thoughtful garden design often conceals its own construction—enhancing nature through subtle, deliberate arrangements.
Works by Fern Coppedge, Samuel George Phillips, and R.A.D. Miller further this idea, highlighting a harmonious interplay between built structures and the natural world. These scenes reflect the philosophy behind a well-designed garden: curated yet organic, framed yet free.
Robert Spencer (American, 1879-1931) Waterloo Row, 1917 | $60,000 – 100,000
Through sensitive composition, light, and color, the paintings elicit varied moods. In winter nocturnes by Harry Leith-Ross and George Sotter, the mood is hushed and contemplative. In contrast, Robert Spencer’s Waterloo Row, the top lot, captures the calm before a day’s labor begins—still and full of quiet expectancy. A leading figure of the New Hope art colony, Spencer portrayed working-class life with empathy and honesty. In Waterloo Row, nature subtly disrupts the grid-like structure, just as a garden might soften architecture with the promise of renewal.
The theme of cultivation extends beyond paintings. Reynolds’s furnishings reflect a blend of formal 18th-century style and rustic charm, with painted surfaces, patinated finishes, and playful contrasts. Indoors and outdoors merge through majolica tableware, beaded floral arrangements, tinware lighting, and garden seating.
The sale is rounded out by over 150 volumes from Reynolds’s personal library on garden design and architecture, featuring works by Humphry Repton, Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville-West, William Robinson, and others—offering a window into the mind of a lifelong gardener, collector, and designer.
INQUIRES: [email protected]