Annaliese (Ann Marston) Bischoff

Annaliese Bischoff joined the faculty in 1980 and taught courses in design studio, writing and history. Her research advocated creative design exploration. She developed courses on research and grant writing in the arts for the Commonwealth Honors College (CHC) where she taught a senior thesis course on sustainable art before retiring in 2015. She continues to teach part-time for CHC. During her 40 year career Professor Bischoff received several national and regional awards, including a senior research Fulbright grant. She served as the President of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and the President of the Design Communication Association (DCA).

For the past decade Annaliese Bischoff has been collecting drawings and etchings of trees by Frank A. Waugh, who founded the department in 1903. Trees remained central to Waugh’s professional work. Near the end of his life, he was working on a book that would feature his beautiful etchings of trees alongside his ink drawings. He never finished this last work because of his death in 1943. Professor Bischoff's book “The Man Who Loved Trees,” is designed to show some of these little known works and tell something of the man who made them.

“The Man Who Loved Trees” was released May 21, 2024 and is now available at the UMass Bookstore and to order online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Indie Books, among other places. 

The Man Who Loved Trees (May 21, 2024. Koehler Books)

Book Launch: June 20th at 6-7:30 p.m. Amherst Books, 8 Main St, Amherst, MA 01002

The Man Who Loved Trees tells the story of Frank A. Waugh (1869-1943) and his evolving love for trees. Waugh was a professor of landscape architecture and a pioneering advocate of native planting design. He wrote prolifically about trees and landscape design, publishing over twenty books and three hundred articles. He urged people to enjoy nature in the way that they enjoyed music or painting or sculpture. In the last eight years of his life, Waugh created at least 223 etchings, many portraying trees, but few have been viewed by the public. Annaliese Bischoff was inspired to write The Man Who Loved Trees after stumbling upon the prospectus for Waugh’s planned book on tree portraits. It was packed in an orange crate along with over 150 etchings and drawings Waugh had created. Her book describes how Waugh’s life as a professional landscape architect and renowned writer inspired him to learn the art of printmaking. Waugh’s etchings reflect the themes he used in analyzing nature and in landscape design. Bischoff catalogs Waugh’s loving portrayal of trees as individuals, families, and social groups.

"A powerful and beautifully illustrated homage to a remarkable pioneer in sustainable urban forest management" - Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger, Author of Our Green Heart

See the process behind the Bischoff's scholarship here.

Abbreviated CV Below: (Read full CV here)

Education

1976-1978: State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry and Syracuse University, Syracuse, M.L.A., 1979. 

1975-1976: University of Massachusetts, Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning, Amherst, MA. 

1973-1975: Freiburg Universitat, Freiburg, Germany. 

1970-1973: Brown University, Providence Rhode Island, B.A., 1975. 

Positions

2015-present, Professor Emerita; 1986-2015: Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (LARP) and Commonwealth Honors College University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 

1980-1986: Assistant Professor, LARP, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 

1979-1980: Assistant Professor, Architecture and Landscape Architecture Departments, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. 

1978-1979: Zoning Administrator, Carrboro, North Carolina. 

1976-1977: GS5 Landscape Architect, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Savannah River, Aiken, South Carolina. 

Awards

2016 Third Place, Greenfield Winter Carnival, Ice Sculpture, Greenfield, MA 

2014 Merit Award, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Art Exhibit, Baltimore MD, “A Children’s Guide to Turners Falls” 

2013   Merit Award, Boston Society of Landscape Architects, “A Children’s Guide to Turners Falls. 

2013: Exceptional Merit Award, Office of the Provost, Senior Vice Chancellor, UMass, $10,000. 

Service and Recent Activities

2024-present: Member, Frank A. Waugh Arboretum Committee, UMass Amherst. 

Spring 2019: Instructor for “College Success” course through Greenfield Community College at Turners Falls High School, courtesy of a Barr Foundation. 

Spring and Summer 2017: Youth Art Program Leader, Greenfield Recreation Department, funding from Massachusetts Cultural Council, ‘Rainworks” and parking meter projects. 

2020-present: Member, Board of Directors, Leverett Crafts and Arts Center, Leverett, MA 

2013-present: Member, Leverett Arts Council, Massachusetts Cultural Counsel. 

2013-2022: Member, Leverett Trails Committee, Leverett, MA. 

Funded Research

2023-2024: Making Paper from Fungi, an illustrated talk, a foraging hike, and a workshop, Leverett MA, Massachusetts Cultural Council. 

2022-23: The ROY G. BIV of Local Fungi, an outdoor exhibit along the Bill Rivers Nature Trail and an indoor exhibit at the Leverett Crafts and Art Center, Leverett, MA, Massachusetts Cultural Council. 

Other Work

2004: Consultant, Whistler House and Art Museum in Lowell, to help site a sculpture of Whistler by Mico Kaufman on adjacent donated land.  

2001-2003: Invited Instructor, with the Cultural Preservation Institute, at the UMass Lowell and I-495 Karl Weiss Education and Conference Center, "Exploring and Preserving a Community's Roots through Historic Preservation." 

Exhibits

What’s On Your Plate?” Juried group show in collaboration with the 2024 Food, Farms, and Factories project and Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC),“May 5-June 29, 2024, Great Falls Discovery Center, Turners Falls, MA. 

Curator and Guest Teacher, “Winter Trees,” collage project of fifth graders from the Leverett Elementary School, Exhibit at the Leverett Crafts and Arts Center, Leverett, MA, February 2024. 

“Three Sisters,” Light Pole Banner juried selected for the Crossroads Cultural District Program, Greenfield, MA, May 2023-present. 

“The ROY G. BIV of Local Fungi,” An outdoor interpretive exhibit along the Bill Rivers Trail in Leverett, MA and an indoor exhibit at the Hall Gallery, Leverett Crafts and Art Center, October 2022. With funding by MCC. 

Invited artist in group exhibit, Artful Ice Shanties, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center and the Brattleboro Retreat Farm, Brattleboro, VT, January-February, 2022, 2023, and 2024. 

“Boundaries,” Juried group show, A3 Gallery, Amherst, MA, August 2022. 

At Viridian Artists Inc. New York | USA: Un-Trashed, Jan 23, 2024 - Feb 17, 2024; Art From Detritus Mar 28,2023 - Apr 22, 2023; Herstory , Feb 28,2023 - Mar 25,2023; The Gifts We Don’t Know We Have Nov 29,2022 - Dec 30, 2022; The Darkness Of This Time Oct 04, 2022 - Oct 29, 2022.  

Invited Talks

September 19, 2024, “A Look at the Women in the Etchings of Frank A. Waugh,” Zube Lecture, Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning, UMass Amherst. 

October 25, 2025, “The Man Who Loved Trees,” Amherst Historical Society, Amherst, MA. 

October 19, 2023, “Making Paper from Fungi and More,” Leverett Library, MCC funded.  

April 29, 2015, The Man Who Loved Trees, illustrated talk for the Amherst Garden Club, at the Leverett Library 

Refereed Publication

“Impressions from a Lost World, the Connecticut River Valley Trackway Plan: Preliminary Concepts,” Landscape/Greenway Planning Conference Proceedings, held at UMass. April 12-13, 2013. 

“A Developing Agro-ecotourism Initiative in Belarus,” UrbanNature, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, CELA 2011, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, March 30-April 2, 2011, pp 281. 

“Planning a Three Sisters Garden,” UrbanNature, CELA 2011, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, March 30-April 2, 2011, pp348. 

“A Strategy for Integrating Public Art into Greenway Planning,” Proceedings of Fabos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning, 2010, Budapest July 8-11, Editors Julius Gy. Fabos et al., pp. 863-870. (and Book of Abstracts, p.224.) 

Other Publication

Author, The Man Who Loved Trees, May 21, 2024 book release date, Koehler Books, Virginia Beach. 

“Historic Landscape Preservation: Saving Community Character,” in Preserving and Enhancing Communities, Elisabeth Hamin, Priscilla Geigis and Linda Silka, Editors, University of Massachusetts Press, 2007, pp 220-229, 240. 

Selected Papers Presented at Conferences 

“Creating a Color Palette,” SALT Symposium, The Arboretum, Connecticut College, November 2005. 

“When Parallel Worlds Meet:  Landscape Design 
and the Study of Ecological and Cultural  Landscapes” Sponsored by the Morris Arboretum and New Directions in the American Landscape, Co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania/Delaware Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Villanova and at the Connecticut College Arboretum January 11-12, 2005.