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An american landscape designer and author, Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-52) promoted the Gothic Revival style in gardens throughout the United States, writing a number of books and editing The Horticulturalist, a magazine published from 1846 until 1852.

Andrew Downing was born on October 30, 1815, at Newburgh, New York. His father was Samuel Downing, a nurseryman. He was named after Andrew Jackson, the American victor at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, and later the 7th president of the United States. He left school at the age of 16 and started work in his father’s nursery, becoming interested in landscape gardening and architecture. As a result, he started writing about garden landscapes and botany. His first book, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America, published in Boston, New York, and London in 1841, was widely acclaimed.

This led to work with Alexander Jackson Davis on another book, entitled Cottage Residences, which was published in the following year. It included many designs of houses and architectural styles, drawing heavily on an idealistic view of English country housing. In 1845, Downing collaborated with his brother Charles on Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (1845), which became recognized as the standard work on the topic. In the following year he started editing and published the journal The Horticulturalist, and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste which continued until his death. Another book, The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), followed, again showing many designs of houses.

Late in 1850, Downing went to Europe, where he saw an exhibition of watercolors by Calvert Vaux, whom he persuaded to move to the United States and work with him as partner in his company. This collaboration on a number of major projects included landscaping some of the gardens of the White House, and also the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Just as business was going well, Andrew Jackson Downing was killed on July 28, 1852, during a fire that followed a boiler exploding on a steamboat. His remains were buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery, in Newburgh. Vaux continued the architectural practice for many years, and in 1858 was one of the men involved in the design of Central park, New York. There is a memorial to him near the Smithsonian.

Bibliography:

Judith K. Major, To Live in the New World: ]. Downing and American Landscape Gardening (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997);
David Schuyler, Apostle of Taste: Andrew ]ackson Downing 1815-1852 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).