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Home » Events » Talk | Madoo: The Making of an American Garden 

Talk | Madoo: The Making of an American Garden 

We are joined by Alejandro Saralegui, Executive Director of the Madoo Conservancy, to discover the story of a unique American garden.

Madoo is a magical garden that had its genesis in the late 1960s on a fallow farm field in Sagaponack, in the Hamptons. Its founder Robert Dash, a self-taught gardener and painter who was also a noted poet, experimented as he went along, turning Madoo into a nexus of the American art and poetry worlds.

The garden developed over the years around two historic barns, one from 1740 and the other from 1850, which Dash incorporated into two residences for himself. He often described them as having English bones and American flesh. The different garden rooms blend into each other effortlessly with Dash’s interpretations of historic garden periods filling the two-acre site. Rosemary Verey’s influence can be clearly felt in the potager based on a drawing of her own at Barnsley House. Alejandro’s presentation will include archival and present day photography of the garden as well as Dash’s own paintings that illustrate Madoo.

 

Speaker bio

  • Alejandro Saralegui

    Alejandro Saralegui

    Born and raised in Bronxville, New York, Alejandro started his career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after receiving an undergraduate degree in art history from SUNY Purchase. With a varied career in galleries, magazines, fashion and gardening he began at the Madoo Conservancy in 2009 as Executive Director. In addition to being the director of Madoo, Alejandro is the gardens editor of NYC&G and the editor-at-large of HC&G. He resides in Bridgehampton NY.