Arthur A. Shurcliff was born in Boston and studied engineering at MIT before going on to studies in landscape architecture. He then went to work for Frederick Law Olmsted at Brookline. He 1899 he and Olmsted founded the world's first landscape architecture education programme at Harvard University. Shurcliff founded his own office and was President of the American Society of Landscape Architects from 1928-1932. His work included commissions for the Metropolitan District Commission and the Metropolitan Planning Board in Boston. He was chief landscape architect for the restoration at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia from 1928 until 1941. Shurcliff was also an essayist, inventor, painter and furniture-maker with an interest in American landscape history. He left a large collection of professional papers and photographs.
Gardens designed by Shurcliff, Arthur Ashael