Marianne North was a 19th century traveller and plant painter
who painted the plants she found on her travels and founded a Gallery to house them at Kew Gardens

Introduction
​

Marianne North was a Victorian plant hunter and prolific botanical painter.

​She was an energetic, experienced and enthusiastic traveller who visited many continents and many countries in pursuit of interesting plants to paint.

Between 1871 and 1885 Marianne North painted over 800 paintings while visiting 17 countries on 6 continents  in 14 years - during visits to
  • North and Central America: the USA, Canada, Jamaica and the Caribbean,
  • South America - Brazil and Chile.
  • Europe - Tenerife
  • Asia - Japan, Singapore, Sarawak, Java, Sri Lanka, India,
  • Australasia - Australia, New Zealand,
  • Africa - South Africa and the Seychelles
All this was accomplished while travelling alone in Victorian dress.

Unusually for a botanical painter - especially one who was travelling - she painted in oils.

Towards the end of her life. she presented her life's work - 832 paintings - to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and provided the funds for a Gallery to house it.
This page covers:
  • the timeline of her life and travels
  • her paintings and painting methods
  • The Marianne North Gallery at Kew 
Picture
Marianne North c.1880 (age 50) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Biography and Travels of Marianne North (1830-1890)
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We know a lot about the life of Marianne North due to the fact that she kept diaries and wrote her autobiography in her latter years. After her death, this was edited by her sister and published. (Read it online and/or download it)
Picture
The front page of her autobiography "Recollections of a Happy Life" which was edited by her sister and published after her death in 1894.

1830-1870 - The First 40 years - Life in Hastings and the UK and Travels in Europe
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24th October 1830: Born in Hastings - at Hastings Lodge, 2 Old London Road, Hastings, East Sussex (on the corner of Ashburnham Road and Old London Road)

She was the child of two political families. Her father was Frederick North DL, JP (1800-1869), who was elected as the Whig/Liberal MP for Hastings seven times between 1831 and 1869. Her mother was Janet (d.1855), daughter of Sir John Marjoribanks M.P., 1st Baronet of Lees in the County of Berwick, in 1825. She had two siblings - a younger brother Charles and a younger sister Catherine. 

Her family was "comfortably off" and cultured. As a child she spent much time on travels between family homes in Hastings, Norfolk and London.

Sir William Hooker, the Director of Kew (who founded the Herbarium (1853) and built the Palm House at Kew Gardens) was a friend of her father and she spent time at Kew. During visits to the Palm House she developed a love for exotic flora and the plants of the tropics.

​She displayed a talent for painting from an early age. Her family supported Marianne’s attempts at singing and painting as suitable "hobby" activities for a Victorian lady.

She also studiously collected specimens of plants and grasses near her holiday home in Norfolk.

1847 - 1850 - a three-year family trip through Europe. North studied flower painting, botany, and music.

1855 - her mother died.  Her mother had made her promise she would never leave her father.

Subsequently the house was let in the summer and she travelled extensively with her father and sister in Europe.  They visited Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Greece and the Bosphorus.. North recorded her trips in both a diary and a sketchbook.

This means that when she embarked on her "around the world" travels to far flung places she was already a seasoned traveller.

1864 - her sister married. North remained her father's companion for the last five years of his life.
Where she lived until the age of 40 when she started travelling on her own all over the world.
1865 - Frederick North lost his parliamentary seat - which provided a great excuse for the two do yet more travelling! They visited Switzerland, the South Tirol, Egypt, and Syria.

1867 (age 37): received her first lessons in oil painting from Robert Hawker Dowling (1827-1886) who was an Australian colonial artist originally born in England better known for painting figures than flowers.

1869 - Her father became ill during a trip to the Alps. He returned with her to Hastings where he died.

The death of her father had a profound effect on her. As his companion and friend, he had become the centre of her world.

She received a large inheritance on his death. She was able to spend this as she wished as she never married. North abhorred the idea of marriage. Her view was that it  turned women into 'a sort of upper servant’.

1871 - 1885 - The next 24 years - Travelling to six continents painting plants and flowers
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'I had long dreamed of going to some tropical country to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant luxuriance.' 
Picture
From her autobiography - this double page spread shows the countries Marianne North visited and the floras she illustrated
North did go against the conventions of her day deciding to travel and paint alone. Moreover, she did so without any significant concerns about her own safety or the way she looked and behaved.  
PhD thesis by Lynne Helen Gladston
1871 - Age 40, she sold Hastings Lodge and began her solo travels around the world in pursuit of her devotion to botanical painting.

She travelled on her own, having found it difficult to find a satisfactory companion.

Her travel as a single woman was helped by her family's political connections. She was able to furnish "letters of introduction" to ambassadors, viceroys, rajahs, governors and ministers all over the world.  

However she was not fond of conventional society and typically tended to prefer to make her way - on her own - across the next new country she was visiting.

1871-72- Her first trip covered United States, Canada and Jamaica. ​
My sister was no botanist in the technical sense of the term; her feeling for plants in their beautiful living personality was more like that which we all have for human friends. She could never bear to see flowers uselessly gathered their harmless lives destroyed.
Foreward to the autobiography by her sister
Picture
A photo of Marianne North painting
Subsequently she travelled alone into the interior of Brazil and completed more than 100 paintings during her eight-month stay in Brazil.

1875 - Visited Tenerife and the Canary islands

1875-77 - She then started a two year journey around the world. She painted flowers in California, Japan, Borneo, Java, and Ceylon.

1877 - Exhibited some of her paintings in Kensington Gallery

1878-79 - Visited India and travelled alone around the country. Produced 200 paintings.

​1879 - Exhibition of her paintings in a London gallery

1879 - Wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker, the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew - who she knew personally - with an offer to donate her paintings and provide the funds to create a building to house them. She subsequently donated her paintings (as a collection) to Kew Botanic Gardens.
Picture
Marianne North (1830-1890) at her home in Ceylon. Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron
1880 - Visited Borneo Australia and New Zealand (at the suggestion of Charles Darwin) and California.  Produced 300 paintings in Australia.

​An album containing 41 paintings made by Marianne North during her travels in Sicily, Canada, India, Tenerife and Australia was recently donated to Kew.

1881 - Visited Charles Darwin at his home, Down House in Kent, to show him her Australian paintings. On 2 August 1881, Darwin wrote to North to tell her that he is pleased to have seen her Australian pictures, and to comment upon their vividness.
2nd August 1881 My Dear Miss North, – I am much obliged for the “Australian Sheep,” which is very curious. If I had I seen it from a yard’s distance lying on a table, I would have wagered that it was a coral of the genus Porites.
​
I am so glad that I have seen your Australian pictures, and it was extremely kind of you to bring call up with considerable vividness scenes in various countries which I have seen, and it is no various countries which I have seen, and it is no small pleasure; but my mind in this respect must be a mere barren waste compared with your mind.

I remain, dear Miss North, yours, truly obliged, CHARLES DARWIN
Picture
Musk Tree and background of Evergreen "Beech," Victoria. Olearia argophylla by Marianne North | painted 1880 in Victoria Australia

1881 - The Gallery opens at Kew
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1881 - The Marianne North Gallery opened to the public on 7th June 1881 - after a year of unpacking and working out the design for the hang. She was very astute and made it a condition of her bequest that the paintings were to hang as a collection in the Gallery she funded and the design could not be altered.

1882-3 Two month after the Gallery opened she was off on her travels again - this time visiting South Africa....

1884-84 - ...and the Seychelles Islands

1884–5 - ​Visited Chile to paint Araucarias and completed her last painting journey 

1886-1890 - The last 4 years
​- writing in Gloucestershire
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1886: Moved to Mount House Alderley, Gloucestershire. Apparently she was not in good health in her later years and reportedly suffered from deafness,rheumatism and nerves.

1886-1888 - Wrote her autobiography Recollection and Further Recollection of a Happy Life: being the Autobiography of Marianne North

Aug. 30, 1890: Died age 59 at Alderley, Gloucestershire, England. Her death was attributed to Liver Disease.

She is buried in St Kenelm Churchyard in Alderley. This is a picture of her grave. 
​(view on Google Maps - it's 8 miles from the National Arboretum at Westonbirt).

Commemoration
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Her contribution to botany and botanical art has been commemorated through botanical names
  • A genus was named after her -  Northia
Various plant species were named in her honour and indeed four of them were first recorded by her:
​Her paintings can be seen in the Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens (see below)

In 2015 a further 41 paintings were donated to the collection by Marianne North's grandniece and grandnephews.
This is a video made by Kew Gardens some years ago (hence the quality) about Marianne North and her life and travels. The quotations are from her autobiography.

Reference
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READ: You can read (and/or download) her autobiography Recollections of a Happy Life online.

REFER: 
Papers relating to Marianne North are archived at Kew. There are two kinds:
  • letters written by Marianne North to various friends and acquaintances both about her travel experiences and the creation of the North Gallery at Kew Gardens.
  • other Kew documents (e,g, Directors Correspondence) relating to Marianne North.
 ​
Other sources:
Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter ​(Second Edition)
by Michelle Payne (Author)

​This is the second edition of the best-selling and highly rated book about Marianne North which is published by Kew. ​
It covers:
  • the story of Marianne North's life
  • her travels
  • the building of the Gallery - its design, history and subsequent restoration

​It contains a number of illustrations of her paintings. This second edition benefits from the use of new technology which allows them to be printed on a larger scale than hitherto.

This revised edition has a foreword by Chris Mills, former Head of Kew’s Library, Art & Archives, as well as updated information.
Hardcover: 112 pages
Publisher: Kew Publishing (Second Edition)
Publication date: 3 Feb 2016

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK: 4.8 based on 10 customer reviews (1st edition had 7 5* reviews)
  • in USA: 4.5 based on 2 customer reviews​

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Marianne North Paintings - and the Online Gallery
​

She completed 848 paintings in 13 years, of which 832 were given to Kew Gardens in 1882.

​The Kew website has an online gallery of digital versions of all the Marianne North Paintings
  • It's possible to compare places she painted with the same places today.
  • ​The categories used for browsing the paintings illustrate the diversity of her subject matter and the countries she visited.
NEW: Marianne North: The Kew Collection
​This is a brand new book in 2018 - and the first time ever that the complete collection of paintings by Marianne North have been produced in a book and published.
The paintings are arranged geographically - as they are in the Marianne North Gallery.

This is a BIG and heavy book - I'd recommend sitting at a table or with the book resting on a cushion on your lap as otherwise it's awkward to read

Productions values are good and the colours read well.
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Kew Publishing
Publication date: 26 Jun. 2018
Product Dimensions: 25.4 x 2.8 x 29.8 cm

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Prints of Marianne North Paintings

You can obtain prints of paintings by Marianne North from Kew Gardens Prints. There is a special gallery on their website.
REFERENCE: Other places you can see images of her paintings online

Her painting methods
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Marianne North's paintings are a surprise to anybody used to conventional botanical illustration associated with journeys of discovery.

Interestingly, most of the books about the history of botanical painting also ignore her paintings and contribution to the art.  

​Maybe influenced by Wilfird Blunt who was NOT a fan - and at the same time appeared to ignore the conditions in which she was painting!
Indefatigable alike as painter and traveller, she scoured the globe for spectacular plants which she painstakingly recorded in oils in their natural surroundings. Botanists consider her primarily as an artist; but artists will hardly agree, for her painting is almost wholly lacking in sensibility. ....Moreover her work, being painted in oils, is almost unaffected by light and remains perennially gaudy...
Wilfrid Blunt - in Chapter 22 of The Art of Botanical Illustration
Art Education and Practice
She had no formal training in illustration. ​As a result her methods were unconventional. It's unclear whether she ignored more normal practices because she wasn't aware of them or because she preferred doing things her way.

Her paintings clearly indicate that Marianne North had a both natural artistic talent and was very prolific.  

Producing over 800 paintings in 13+ years equates to some 60+ paintings per annum.

Characteristic features
  • She had no time for white backgrounds that are associated with more conventional botanical paintings.
  • Her paintings are very colourful. For those unable to travel - and in the absence of colour photography - this was the first time they had ever been able to get a sense of the colour of flora in more tropical areas.  By the same token, some found her paintings to be too colourful and characterised them as gaudy (see the quote from Wilfrid Blunt) !
  • the oil paint is applied thickly. There is a complete contrast with the development of form and colour through the careful application of thin glazes of watercolour as many botanical artists do.  
  • She paints plants in their habitat.. In this she preceded Margaret Mee who adopted exactly the same practice when she realised the habitat of the Amazon was threatened by loggers. In painting the plants within the content of the country and habitat in which they grew we actually learn a lot more about the plant than a simple painting of its structure, form and colour can tell us.
​
"I have never done anything else since, oil-painting being a vice like dram-drinking, almost impossible to leave off once it gets possession of one."

​A lot was learned about how Marianne North worked during the process of conserving her paintings. Tests were made of samples of the paint

Technique
  • her style was well developed before she started travelling outside Europe and to the tropics. It was probably well practiced over several years of travelling with her father in Europe.
  • first a rough pen and ink sketch was made on prepared paper
  • she sketched out a composition first and then added the colour later
  • she also re-worked compositions and reused supports when not happy with the drawing - painting over them with a completely new painting (unsurprising given the lack of opportunity to secure new supplies!)
  • notes about the subject were made on the reverse of some of the paintings. 
  • she mixed paint on the support in areas where paint is thicker - painting wet in wet
  • some of the paintings were changed during the design of the hang in the Gallery. Paper was added and the painting continued to fit the space!
Paint: 
  • ​She initially painted in watercolours. ​Subsequently we know she had tuition in painting in oils in 1867.
  • Colour was applied straight from the tube
  • Black was not used much - which in part accounts for the vibrancy of the paintings
  • Blue, green or orange were used to tone down strong colours
  • The reason North's paintings have survived despite travelling for weeks in hot clammy countries was that she painted in oils. Had she painted in watercolours it's likely that the paintings would have deteriorated before arriving home.
Supports: 
  • she used paper of medium thickness which was not archival and probably contained wood pulp. The acid in the paper is now affecting the paintings
  • the paper was fixed to card after the paintings had been hanging for ten years - to prevent them from sagging
Picture
Nepenthes northiana by Marianne North (named after her) Source: Wikimedia Commons
Conservation changes made by Kew

All the paintings received a detailed inspection prior to conservation:
  • Each painting and its substrate was examined in minuted detail.
  • Detailed notes were made of what work needed doing and added to a conservation database
  • Any flakes of paint were kept for the restoration. 
  • The paintings were first cleaned

In terms of restoring the paintings:
  • the acidic backing boards attached by Marianne North were removed (in doing so they discovered one new painting which was previously unknown!)
  • flakes were reattached
  • paint was added where there were gaps.
  • Paintings were then attached to special archival board to maintain their stability and ongoing conservation.
Picture
Marianne North in Mrs Cameron's house in Ceylon. Depicts Marianne North painting a Tamil boy. Albumen print, 277 x 236mm (10 7/8 x 9 1/4")
REFERENCE:

The Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens
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The Marianne North Gallery
The Marianne North Gallery. It's next to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery and adjacent to Kew Road, inbetween the Victoria Gate and the Lion Gate into Kew Gardens.
Today the restored Gallery houses 832 of her paintings which depict over 900 species of plants.

It is the only permanent solo exhibition by a female artist in Britain
As might be expected of anybody who has taken the trouble to make so many paintings, she was keen to have them exhibited - and where better than Kew Gardens!

However if they were to be made available as a permanent exhibition they would need a Gallery to house them.

The Donation

In 1879, North offered to donate both her 832 paintings and to provide a building for them to be housed in - on condition that the gallery also served as a place where visitors to the Garden could rest.

She catalogued her paintings but also had the assistance of the botanist W.B. Hemsley (1843-1924). He corrected identification of some plants and completed the task of identifying others.

She also donated her time and effort in designing the interior and paintings murals and decorative features around the interior.
The Design and Hang

The building was designed by a friend, the architectural historian James Fergusson.  Given the colonial nature of much of her travels the style of the building echoes that of the colonial buildings of India.

The building as constructed contained a Gallery, a single storey studio for the artist's use on one corner and on another, a two-storey 'flat', which Marianne North intended as accommodation for a resident gardener.

It has a large verandah around the outside and some very comfortable seats which  are very comfortable after a long walk round the gardens!  There is also a lobby area - with information about the Gallery - outside the Main Gallery and the Inner Gallery.

​The Main Gallery is a double height room - and it's a very impressive room - not least because of the arrangement of the paintings. They are hung close together, with no space in-between, from the dado rail to the high level clerestory windows at the top of the double height wall. This means a room full of paintings is flooded with light. It's not what you expect when you walk in for the first time....

​As you look more closely at the paintings, it becomes clear that all the paintings are organised according to geographical location. The arrangement is a mosaic worked out by Marianne North herself.
Picture
Marianne North Gallery, in Kew Gardens, London. Interior shot taken before the gallery was closed for restoration. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Development and Restoration

For many years, although very much an Institution within the Gardens, the Gallery was something of a backwater.

​However this changed when the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art was built next door and opened in 2008 - with a programme of changing exhibitions. The two buildings are now joined and Marianne North's Gallery gets a lot more visitors as a result.
We now celebrate Marianne North's contribution not only as an artist and intrepid explorer but as one of Kew's first benefactors whose building and collections constitute an important piece of our heritage and a unique window on to the past.
Kew Gardens
Picture
The Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Works to restore the Gallery were also implemented at the same time as the development of the new Shirley Sherwood Gallery. As most buildings do, time and weather had caused the building to deteriorate. It had suffered problems with water penetration which in turn was threatening the condition of the paintings.  

In addition the unusual wall-to-ceiling framing system that Marianne North invented to display her works was also causing problems as the paintings were in direct context with the walls (paintings should usually have spacers attached so that there is space behind them) and this meant that were much more likely to soak up any moisture which penetrated the brickwork and plaster.

Prior to the restoration, the Gallery was under threat of closure due to its condition. It needed a new roof and for the interior to be better weather proofed to protect the paintings.  New state of the art environmental controls were also installed to help to maintain the paintings in the best possible condition for the future.

The Gallery reopened to the public in October 2009.

Kew Gardens raised funds for the scheme through
Conservation of the Paintings

When the Gallery reopened in 2009, the paintings looked different.

That was because the oil paintings were all treated to a visit to the new state-of-the-art Marianne North Conservation Studio, based in RBG Kew’s Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives.

Facsimile prints were installed while paintings were being cleaned and conserved prior to their return to the Gallery.
REFERENCE: 
Hardcover: 128 pages
Publisher: Webb & Bower;
Publication Date: 1st Edition 30 Aug. 1990 (it has since been reprinted)

More about Famous Botanical Artists of the Past
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