Pearl Fryar, Self-Taught Topiary Artist Known as 'Picasso of Plants,' Dies at 86

Pearl Fryar, a self-taught topiary artist celebrated as the 'Picasso of Plants,' died on April 4 at age 86 in his Bishopville, South Carolina home. Born in 1939 to sharecroppers in North Carolina, he served as a U.S. Army chemical weapons specialist in Korea before working in can manufacturing in New York and South Carolina. In the late 1970s, after facing housing discrimination in Bishopville, he transformed three acres into a garden with free-form plant sculptures and 'junk art' made from found metal. His work, which broke from traditional symmetrical topiary shapes, earned him the local Yard of the Month award in 1986 and later national fame through TV shows like 'CBS Sunday Morning' and a 2006 documentary, 'A Man Named Pearl.' Fryar's garden attracted up to 10,000 visitors annually and featured a 40-foot-wide message spelling 'Love, Peace + Goodwill.' It remains open to the public under the management of the nonprofit Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden. Topiary has ancient roots, with practices documented in Roman times, China over 1,000 years ago, and Japanese bonsai by the 14th century, and saw Renaissance revivals in Europe at sites like Hampton Court Palace and Versailles.