What musician George Harrison longed for was a lost connection to nature, something which eluded him during the turbulent, noisy, confusing and melodramatic years he was in the world’s biggest band, The Beatles.
Harrison would find that tranquility while resurrecting the 32 acres of Victorian gardens at his English estate Friar Park west of London during the last half of his life, far from the screaming crowds, flashing cameras and tumultuous life of a rock guitarist.
Starting this weekend, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota will examine that private side by presenting “George Harrison: A Gardener’s Life.” The exhibition, on view through June 29 at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus, is the ninth installment of the gardens’ annual Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition Series, which examines the work of major artists through the lens of their connection to nature.
The roots of the Harrison exhibition trace to the Gardens’ 2022 exhibition, “Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith: Flowers, Poetry, and Light.” The show explored Mapplethorpe’s flower photography and rock singer Smith’s lyrics and poetry about flowers and nature, in dialogue with original horticultural installations inspired by their art. Smith first visited Selby in February 2022 to perform songs and readings she selected to complement the exhibition. Later that year, Smith would be named the Gardens’ artist-in-residence.Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, said those first shows prompted thoughts of who else in the music world would be a good fit for interpretation. Far from being a mashup of different arts—performance versus botanical—Rominiecki seeks to cement Selby as The Living Museum, a garden and research facility which evolves in ways that keep visitors engaged and returning to see new angles on nature.
Selby Gardens is on a hot streak. In January 2024, the first of a three-phase expansion and improvement master plan opened to the public, including the world’s first net-positive energy botanical garden complex. That first phase raised more than $57 million and provided an improved welcome center, parking and restaurant facilities as well as a research complex and stormwater improvements.
Phase Two consists of a new Conservatory Complex, a Learning Pavilion and a Conservatory Complex, crystal palace filled with more than 20,000 plants from Selby Gardens’ living research collections (including the best scientifically documented collections of orchids and bromeliads in the world).
The capital goal for Phase Two is $60.9 million, of which more than $40 million has been raised. Roughly 99 percent of the total for both phases has come from private donations. Groundbreaking for the second phase is expected later this year.
Tying it all together is building upon the success of the recent collaborations with Patti Smith and the Georgia O’Keefe estate.
To keep that momentum, Rominiecki brainstormed which artist next might fit the profile.
WIth husband Rob and sons Luke and Noah being musicians and Beatles fans, they suggested perhaps Harrison might be a fit. (She and Rob’s first dance as husband and wife 22 years ago: “Something,” by George Harrison.)
“At first I thought I didn’t know that he was a gardener,” she said. “I started Googling and found out that not only was he a major gardener, it was a serious, thriving passion of his post-Beatles career. I saw that it needs to be told in a botanical way.”
All of the exhibitions are created from scratch, including Harrison’s, which includes images, music and horticultural interpretations in the gardens as well as food at Selby’s restaurants.
“We really want a totally immersive experience using all of your senses,” Rominiecki told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
George’s free approach to gardening combined creativity, spontaneity, whimsy, humor and joy. This approach has inspired a dynamic display of objects and ephemera in the Museum of Botany & the Arts with stunning horticultural vignettes in the Tropical Conservatory and throughout the gardens of the 15-acre downtown Sarasota campus.
A selection of special programs will be scheduled throughout the run of the exhibit.
On Feb. 11, Olivia Harrison, the musician’s widow, will appear at a luncheon conversation with Robin Lane Fox, renowned gardener, author, and historian, at Selby’s Downtown Sarasota campus. (The event is sold-out.)
A selection of George’s music and lyrics, as well as excerpts from “Came the Lightening,” a book of poems by Olivia Harrison dedicated to George and reflecting on their time together, will be featured in the exhibition, highlighting her husband’s connection to nature and celebrating his life and legacy through the power of plants. Selby’s team worked with Olivia and the Harrison estate to curate the images and music for the show.
Then on Feb. 12, Patti Smith returns to perform “An Evening with Patti Smith Dedicated to George Harrison” at Selby’s Downtown Sarasota campus.
His band was held together by the thinnest thread of a commitment to finishing what would be its 12th and final album, Let It Be. As The Beatles’ lead guitarist, he’d grown tired of playing only what bandmate Paul McCartney directed him to strum. He was chafing to showcase his artistry, especially in the months following the critical and financial success of his song, “Something,”an instant worldwide classic worthy of Frank Sinatra’s praise.
In January 1970, Harrison left the band mid-recording session, an event captured by cameras making a documentary to accompany the album. (Check out the 2021 streaming series “The Beatles: Get Back.”) Harrison would return to finish the project, including reluctantly playing a rooftop concert, but he’d already been working to fill a triple solo album called “All Things Must Pass,” full of all the songs he couldn’t get onto Beatles records.
He purchased Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames, a small town in the county of Oxfordshire, England. Built by an eccentric lawyer named Sir Frank Crisp in 1889, the once-grand Victorian mansion with elaborate, manicured gardens had fallen into disrepair after years operating as a Salesian convent. With the help of his wife, Olivia, George revitalized the neglected property, consisting of the mansion, lodges, caves, lakes, grottoes, underground passages and an Alpine rock garden with a scale model Matterhorn.
George’s love of gardening became an integral part of his identity after The Beatles disbanded. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1979, the singer-songwriter described himself as “just a gardener.” His strong association with gardening was on full display in his 1980 autobiography, “I Me Mine,” which he dedicated “to gardeners everywhere.”
As Friar Park was for Harrison, the exhibit is a new frontier for Selby, Rominiecki said.
“We all know George Harrison and Patti Smith but not through their connection to nature and botanical gardens,” she said. “We’re creating a new dimension in how you can look at these artists.”
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This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2025.