Cecil Ross Pinsent

FRIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

(5 May 1884 – 5 December 1963) was a British garden designer and architect, noted for the innovative gardens which he designed in Tuscany between 1909 and 1939. These imaginatively re-visited the concepts of Italian 16th-century designers.

Biography

Cecil Ross Pinsent was born in

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

on 5 May 1884, at

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, the son of Ross Pinsent (a businessman with railway interests) and Alice Pinsent. 1891 Census of Hampstead, RG12/108, Folio 25, p. 43, Cecil R. Pinsent, 16, Moresfield Gardens, Hampstead, London. He studied architecture in Britain. Between 1901 and 1906 he spent some time making topographic drawings of churches and houses in Britain and France; and by 1906 he was making similar drawings in Italy. He and his friend Geoffrey Scott, when touring Tuscany, met the American art historian,

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large h ...

, and his wife,

Mary Berenson Mary Berenson (born Mary Whitall Smith; 1864 in Pennsylvania – 1945 in Italy) was an art historian, now thought to have had a large hand in some of the writings of her second husband, Bernard Berenson. Biography Her father was Robert Pearsa ...

. Berenson employed Scott as his librarian, and Pinsent assisted with work on Berenson's ''

Villa I Tatti Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is a center for advanced research in the humanities located in Florence, Italy, and belongs to Harvard University. It houses a collection of Italian primitives, and of Chinese and ...

''. Through Berenson, Pinsent gained access to a rich clientele, drawn from the English-speaking community in Tuscany. His clients included Charles Alexander Loeser,

Charles Augustus Strong Charles Augustus Strong (28 November 1862 – 23 January 1940) was a philosopher and psychologist. He spent the earlier part of his career teaching in the United States of America, but he later settled in Italy, near Florence, and it was ther ...

; Mrs

Alice Keppel Alice Frederica Keppel (''née'' Edmonstone; 29 April 1868 – 11 September 1947) was an aristocrat, british society hostess and a long-time mistress of King Edward VII. Keppel grew up at Duntreath Castle, the family seat of the Edmonstone baro ...

; Lady Sybil Cutting and her daughter, the historian

Iris Origo Dame Iris Margaret Origo, Marchesa Origo, DBE (née Cutting; 15 August 1902 – 28 June 1988) was an English-born biographer and writer. She lived in Italy and devoted much of her life to improving the Tuscan estate at La Foce, near Montepulcia ...

. Pinsent began by making alterations to connoisseur Charles Alexander Loeser's Villa Torri Gattaia, in 1907; and went on to design gardens at Berenson's

(1909–1914), Strong's

Villa Le Balze Villa Le Balze is a garden villa in Fiesole, a ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Florence and the region of Tuscany in central Italy. The villa was commissioned and built by Charles Augusts Strong in 1913, where he spent much of his life. I ...

(1911–1913), the Origos'

La Foce La Foce is a large estate that lies close to the towns of Montepulciano, Chiusi, and Chianciano Terme in the Southern Tuscan region of Val d'Orcia, midway between Florence and Rome. History La Foce lies on the Via Francigena, the ancient road and ...

(1927–1939) and (from 1939). At

Brdo Castle near Kranj Brdo Castle near Kranj ( sl, grad Brdo pri Kranju, german: Egg bei Krainburg), usually simply Brdo Castle ( sl, grad Brdo), is an estate and a mansion in the Slovenian region of Upper Carniola west of the village of Predoslje, City Municipality o ...

, Pinsent created the gardens' baroque screen. From 1939 to the late 1950s Pinsent lived in Britain – apart from a short visit to Italy in 1944–5. During this time in Italy, he worked on the restoration of villas and gardens damaged by the War. In the late 1950s he settled in Switzerland. Pinsent died on 5 December 1963, at

Hilterfingen Hilterfingen is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Hilterfingen is first mentioned in 1175 as ''Hiltolfingen''. The oldest trace of a settlement in the area are some early-Bron ...

, Switzerland. Some of Pinsent's drawings are held in London in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Other sources

* B. Origo, ''La Foce - a garden and landscape in Tuscany'' (2001). * M. Fantoni, H. Flores, J. Pfordresher, eds., ''Cecil Pinsent and his gardens in Tuscany: papers from the symposium, Georgetown University, Villa Le Balze ...'' (1999. Edifir, Florence) * E. Clarke, 'A Biography of Cecil Ross Pinsent, 1884–1963', in ''Garden History''; 26:2 (1998 Winter), pp. 176–191 * V. Shacklock, D. Mason, 'Survey and investigation of a 20th-century Italian garden', in ''Garden History''; 23:1 (1995 Summer), pp. 113–124 n Villa Le Balze* V. Shacklock, D. Mason, 'Villa Le Balze ...', in ''Journal of Garden History''; 15:3 (1995 Jul–Sep), p. 179–187 * P. Bowe, 'Designs on Tuscan soil', in ''Country Life''; 184:27 (1990 July 5), pp. 90–95 * E. Neubauer, 'The garden architecture of Cecil Pinsent, 1884-1964', in ''Journal of Garden History''; 3:1 (1983 Jan–Mar), pp. 35–48
Published online 2012

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinsent, Cecil 1884 births 1963 deaths 20th-century British architects British landscape and garden designers People from Montevideo Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects British expatriates in Uruguay