Washington Winter Show 2023

41 Upperville, Virginia. She shaped every aspect of their private country refuge for more than six decades and its essential qualities are still intact. The garden is now returned to its Mellon era splendor, the apple and hardy orange trees are still pruned in the same characteristic style, and the library remains just as Bunny Mellon left it. In the former Mellon home, many of the most precious objects are now dispersed, but much remains. As it moves into the future, Bunny Mellon’s Oak Spring, now the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, still reveals the unique taste and talent of its creator. Her agile mind and discerning eye is manifested at every turn. In her home and garden, and especially in the magnificent library that she created to house her unique collection of art, rare books, manuscripts and prints, Bunny Mellon’s capacity to innovate paired classical with contemporary, formal with casual, and unique with the commonplace. One vignette of elegant simplicity, a simple straw hat against a white-washed stone wall above a grey-painted Louis XVI monogram-backed side chair, says it all. In her ‘Memory House,’ now the Gallery of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, she paired a provincial nineteenth century gray-painted French sideboard with an Oak Spring Garden Library, from the south. Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia. Fred Conrad, photographer. Formal garden at Oak Spring, looking north towards arbor and formal greenhouse, with a view of the Oak Spring Garden Library at top left. Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia. Fred Conrad, photographer.