The 2024 Historic New England Book Prize goes to Trailblazing Women Printmakers: Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios and the Folly Cove Designers by Elena M. Sarni.
The book is a comprehensive visual history of the Folly Cove Designers (1941-1969) that documents and celebrates the group’s fabulous success. This Cape Ann Massachusetts-based group was comprised almost entirely of talented women block printers who created hundreds of designs. With more than 250 black-and-white and color photographs, Sarni explores the Folly Cove Designers’ history and work.
The 2024 Honor Books are awarded to Boston’s Franklin Park: Olmsted, Recreation, and the Modern City by Ethan Carr and Painting the Inhabited Landscape: Fitz H. Lane and the Global Reach of Antebellum America by Margaretta Markle Lovell.
Boston’s Franklin Park documents the design and history of Frederick Law Olmsted’s urban park. Carr establishes this Boston park as a splendid work of nineteenth-century American art. It is a full historical treatment of Franklin Park, describing the park’s history and early popularity as a gathering place, its later decline, and the current plans for its revival.
Painting the Inhabited Landscape provides a new perspective that singles out the more modestly scaled, inhabited landscapes of Fitz H. Lane. Lovell focuses on the the figures and objects in Lane’s paintings. These “inhabitors” convey a sense of the activity that shaped Lane’s world while providing in-depth research into the historical, economic, and cultural context of his life and work.
For thirty years, Historic New England’s has awarded a Book Prize to books that advance the understanding of life in New England from the past to today by examining its architecture, landscape, and material culture. This includes works in the decorative arts, archaeology, historic preservation, the history of photography, and other related subjects.
View a list of previous winners.
Media Contact: Susanna Crampton, News@HistoricNewEngland.org
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