This is an ONLINE ARCHIVE Record of all the Botanical Art Exhibitions ​
held at major national and regional institutions in the UK.
The Natural History Museum, the Queens Gallery (and by the Royal Collection), the Garden Museum,
the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University
and the Ashmolean Museum and Bodleian Library, Oxford University​

PAST Exhibitions at Museums and Art Galleries - National and Regional and Other UK Venues are listed below
In general exhibitions are listed according to date with the most recent first. Dates are provided for the exhibition where these are known.

At the bottom of the page is a list of links to other pages about other exhibitions of botanical art and permanent collections.

NATIONAL GALLERIES
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Past Botanical Art Exhibitions at Museums, Art Galleries & Botanic Gardens
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Natural History Museum - Images of Nature Gallery 

Expeditions and Explorations
Dates: July - October 2019
  • depictions of African flora and fauna by Thomas Baines and Margaret Fountaine, and a seventeenth-century watercolour from the Museum's collection of Cape plants illustrations
  • botanical and zoological illustrations from the Museum's Thomas Hardwicke collection
  • artworks of Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771), naturalist artist on board the Endeavour voyage (1768-1771)
The Art of British Natural History : Images of Nature  
(over 200 illustrations via 4 rotations)
Dates: 11 March 2017 to summer 2018

Geology has been very influential in shaping the diversity of natural history in the UK. The British Isles only separated from other land masses about 10,000 years ago. This means that very few documented species in the British Isles are actually native (i.e. indigenous).  By way of contrast its climate makes the British Isles a natural home for 70,000 documented species of wildlife and plantlife. The exhibition:
  • reviews different approaches to recording natural history over the last 300 years from observation in the field to inspection via the microscope. 
  • considers the different styles of natural history illustration over time and for different purposes.
The Art of British Natural History

Andrea Hart, Head of Library Special Collections, has written a book to accompany the exhibition. It includes over 100 specially selected artworks relating to both flora and fauna from the collections of the Natural History Museum's Library and Archives.

Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: The Natural History Museum
Publication date: First edition (9 Mar. 2017)
BUY THIS BOOK
The Bauer Brothers: Masters of Scientific Illustration
7 November 2015 - 5 March 2017

The exhibition was a rare opportunity to see botanical and zoological artworks by the two brothers who are some of the most accomplished natural history artists ever.  ​The exhibition includedFranz Bauer's intricate illustrations of orchids and other exotic plants introduced to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. You could also see images of the colour charts developed by Ferdinand Bauer in the SBA Facebook Page album
Picture
Colour chart by Ferdinand Bauer
"Images of Nature: the Bauer Brothers"
​
​This book includes:
  • beautiful and finely detailed watercolours of flowering plants collected from across the world,
  • pioneering microscopical drawings of plant anatomy, and
  • pictures of the newly discovered animals from the coasts of Australia ​
Paperback: 112 pages; 25 x 21.5cm
Publisher: The Natural History Museum (22 Oct. 2015)

BUY THIS BOOK
The Bauer Brothers: Images of Nature available from Amazon UK
The Bauer Brothers: Images of Nature Available from Amazon.com

Natural History Museum (Tring)

Natural History Museum (Tring) - The Walter Rothschild building, Akeman Street, Tring Hertfordshire, HP23 6AP
Blooming Marvellous exhibition opens at the Museum
Dates:  Opened 24 May 2013
Blooming Marvellous is an exhibition which reveals 400 years of botanical art that helped scientists learn about plants. It included botanical illustrations by Sydney Parkinson. Ehret and Franz Bauer

RHS Lindley Library
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Worth a Thousand Words
Dates: 20 May - 26 July 2019
Hours: 10am - 5pm

This exhibition explores the ways in which contemporary artists continue to raise standards and push the boundaries of botanical illustration. The RHS Lindley Library continues to add to its Art Collection and acquires contemporary Gold medal standard botanical art by artists who have exhibited at RHS Shows. ​Artists must go through a rigorous selection process before being eligible to exhibit. Their works are judged by a panel of experts and all aspects of the display considered. This ranges from the technical skill of the artist to the botanical and horticultural content of the picture as well and the nature and scale of the project as a whole. This exhibition features original artworks in watercolour, gouache, pen and pencil, by artists who have excelled in all areas to achieve the RHS Gold medal standard.
Picture
(partial view) Passiflora 'Jelly Joker', watercolour by Caroline Jackson-Houlston, 2018
Healing Plants
Venue: Lindley Library
Date: 10th September - 14th December 2018
Hours: 10am - 5pm (Monday - Friday).

Many plants grown in gardens have been put to medicinal use throughout history. Details of treatments can be found in botanical encyclopaedias, known as ‘herbals’. ​These promoted the use of plants for culinary, health and wellbeing purposes. Early printed herbals of the 16th to 18th centuries feature many familiar plants that still grow in and around our gardens today. ​Separating medicinal uses from medical myths, this small display at the RHS Lindley Library in London will look at how our understanding of these plants has changed and investigate their use for healing today. 
Picture
(partial view) Honeysuckle, hand-coloured engraved plate, 1730, after an original drawing by Jan van Huysum

Buckingham Palace | Royal Collection
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Maria Merian's Butterflies
Venue: The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
​Dates: Friday, 15 April 2016 to Sunday, 9 October 2016
Exhibition preview
Read my review REVIEW: Maria Merian's Butterflies

Venue: The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh
Dates: Friday, 17 Mar 2017 - Sunday, 23 Jul 2017
Exhibition preview
​
Maria Merian's Butterflies told Merian’s story through her works in the Royal Collection, acquired by George III.
The exhibition brings together 50 of Merian's exquisite watercolours, including many recording the flora and fauna of Suriname, published in 1705. Many are luxury versions of the plates of the Metamorphosis, partially printed and partially hand painted onto vellum by the artist herself. I've seen Merian's works in the Royal Collection in previous exhibitions and the quality of these plates is outstanding. 

See About Maria Sibylla Merian on this website to find out more about this artist and her approach to botanical and natural history art.
Picture
Cassava with White Peacock Butterfly and young Golden Tegu by Maria Sibylla Merian. Royal Collection Trust / (C) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Maria Merian's Butterflies
by Kate Heard

This is a small but fat book with lavish illustrations of the works in the exhibition. It includes lots of double page spreads of edge to edge illustrations plus a lot of cropped images of the details.

This is one of the best books I've seen for giving you almost as good a view of the images as I saw in the exhibition.​
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Royal Collection Trust; 
Publication date (1st edition) 4 April 2016
Royal Collection - Amazing Rare Things 
​​Venue: The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
Dates: 14 March 2008 to 28 September 2008

​​The curators of the Royal Collection and David Attenborough selected six groups of natural history drawings and watercolours in the Royal Collection for this exhibition - relating to
The artwork dates back to the Age of Discovery - from the late fifteenth century to the early eighteenth century.

​During this period, flora and fauna across Africa, Asia and the Americas were discovered by European explorers and travellers - on voyages of Discovery. 

REFERENCE: See also pages on this website about
Amazing Rare Things:
The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery
by David Attenborough, Susan Owens, Martin Clayton, Rea Alexandratos

This is the book produced to accompany the exhibition at Buckingham Palace. While the focus of the exhibition is natural history the artwork includes plants and flowers.
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press;
Publication date: 2008
Reprint edition: 29 Sept. 2015
Average rating of 5 out of 5 stars by 4 customer reviews (UK)
Average customer rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars by 23 customer reviews (USA)

National Gallery, London

Venue: National Gallery, Trafalgar Square London WC2N 5DN
Dutch Flowers
Venue: Room 1, National Gallery, London (near the main stairs) 
​Dates: 6 April - 29 August 2016
​Website: Dutch flowers in detail

​​Time Period covered: early 17th century to late 18th century
Featured artists: Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, Jan van Huysum, and Rachel Ruysch,

​This was the first display on this topic by leading artists for 20 years. 
The exhibition included :
  • 22 examples of Dutch flower painting from the collection of the National Gallery
  • long term loans from other collections - with some being seen in the Gallery for the first time.
  • emphasised the connection between flower painting and increased interest in botany, horticulture, and the phenomenon of ‘tulip mania’ in the Dutch Golden Age.
Picture
"Flowers in a Glass Vase" (1609–10) by Ambrosius the Elder Bosschaert.

The Garden Museum

Venue The Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London,
 SE1 7LB
​Emma Tennant: A Botanical Tour Of Great Britain From The Scillies To Sutherland
Dates: 6 March - 28 April 2019

a keen botanist and watercolourist,  her watercolour paintings are accompanied by notes delving into the history of her subjects, paying tribute to the famous plant hunters and explorers of the past. All works are watercolour and ink on either an off-white Nepalese paper, or a Japanese kind made from the bark of a tree called Broussonetia papyrifera.
Picture
Crops of botanical paintings in watercolour by Emma Tennant
Cedric Morris: Artist and Plantsman
Dates: 18th April - 22 July 2018

The ‘artist plantsman’ Cedric Morris (1889–1982) founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing where he taught Lucian Freud. However Morris is best known for his flower paintings, which reveal his keen interest as a botanist – he cultivated over 90 new irises. The exhibition at the Garden Museum focuses on his horticultural works that took flower painting out of the taxonomic sphere, into an expressionist mode with echoes of surrealism and cubism. 
Picture
Poppies (1926) Sir Cedric Morris © Cedric Morris Estate
Tradescants’ Orchard: A Celebration of Botanical Art
Dates: 22nd May - 4 October 2017

The exhibition comprises two main displays:
  • 50 eminent botanical artists from across the globe are displaying contemporary botanical art about varieties of heritage fruits
  • alongside a display of ‘The Tradescants’ Orchard’. This is 17th century volume of 66 watercolour paintings that depict the fruit varieties that John Tradescant and his son might have grown in their market garden at Lambeth. It's considered to be one of the Bodleian Library’s finest treasures. The book records the size, colour and texture of fruit with their ripening dates. Botanical Illustrations of the fruits also include birds and insects.​
 ​​See my blog post Tradescants’ Orchard: A Celebration of Botanical Art for more information

REGIONAL MUSEUMS

The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University

Venue: Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, University of Oxford
​
A New Flowering: 1000 years of Botanical Art 
Dates: 2nd May - 11th September 2005
  • The exhibition comprised artwork from the collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood combined with items from the collections of Oxford University's Libraries and Museums.
  • Contemporary botanical artwork was compared to paintings of plants from the last 1,000 years. 
REFERENCE:
A New Flowering
1000 Years of Botanical Art
by Shirley Sherwood

This is the fully illustrated catalogue for the exhibition of the same name. It's written by Dr Shirley Sherwood with contributions from Dr Stephen Harris, Department of Plant Sciences, Barrie Juniper, Reader Emeritus in Plant Sciences, and Professor Lucia Tongiorigi Tomasi, University of Florence. 

​The image on the front cover is a painting of an Australian Tree Fern (2004) by Stephanie Berni
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Ashmolean Museum
Publication date: 2005
Reprint edition: 19 May 2014
Rated an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars by 8 customer reviews (UK)
Rated an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars (USA) 

​The Bodleian Library, Oxford University
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​Painting by numbers
Venue: Blackwell Hall, Weston Library 
Dates: 29 April 2017 — 9 July 2017
  • showcased sketches and watercolours based on Bauer and Sibthorp's journey around Greece and Turkey in 1786-88 (see Flora Graeca in Florilegium an Flora)
  • examples of colour pigments and a reconstruction of a colour chart Bauer possibly used
  • Display of modern scientific analyses which reveal the techniques Bauer used to transform his sketches into natural history illustrations 
For more information see ​
Picture
A digital image of a plate in John Sibthorp's Flora Graeca titled Hellebores officinalis (=Helleborus orientalis) Source: Wikimedia Commons

Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

Venue: Gallery 14, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, Trumpington Street, Cambridge
​
  • ​From root to tip: Botanical art in Britain This exhibition brings together a selection of watercolours from the Fitzwilliam’s outstanding collection of botanical art. It draws on over 300 years of work by both professional and amateur artists, tracing a history of flower drawing in Britain. This is a review of the exhibition: Flowers in the Fitzwilliam Museum​ | Apllo Magazine
Picture
Image from Floral Fantasies at the Fitzwilliam Museum: Pierre-Joseph Redouté A bunch of flowers including roses, Parrot tulips, forget-me-not and auricula with an imaginary butterfly, graphite and watercolour on vellum, PD.881-1973

Other UK Venues
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Strawberry Hill

'A Collector's Collection: Dr Shirley Sherwood selects Botanical Art'.
Venue: Strawberry Hill House, 268 Waldegrave Road,
Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, TW1 4ST
Dates: Tuesday 1st March - Tuesday 31 May 2016
This exhibition was part of a theme of "Botanicals" a programme of garden and botanical themed events at the House. ​The paintings included in the exhibition were selected by Dr Sherwood to represent plants either selected by Horace Walpole for his garden at Strawberry Hill or ones that other fashionable gardens of the time would have grown.