Australasian Exhibit in 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew

The Australasian exhibit within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art is the first one you come to as you go through the double doors from the reception area of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. into Gallery 1.

It covers contemporary botanical art by both Australian and New Zealand artists past and present. You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists

Below you can see photos of the paintings in the exhibition - with names of the plants, credits for the artists and explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists!

Australia and New Zealand have strong artists traditions with flourishing art and conservation societies. We had a botanical exhibition here... of a Florilegium of contemporary plant portraits demo Sydney's three botanical gardens, as well as two smaller 'Down Under' shows with paintings by Australian and New Zealand.
​Introduction to the Australasian Gallery

Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton

The first paintings you see on your left as you walk through the door contain some stunners.  

• The small gem-like painting of Agapanthus is by Susannah Blaxill. It's painted in watercolour and gouache on (if I recall correctly) some Rory McEwen vellum which she painted for the Rory McEwen exhibition in the gallery in 2013. I seem to recall there's a story that she had never painted on vellum before and was petrified of making a mistake. As you can clearly see she didn't - and if you take a very big magnifier and look very carefully you can see the tiny hatching strokes she used. It's an absolutely beautiful painting - a real gem!
• Above it is a small painting of Violas, painted in acrylic by Paul Jones. It's been in quite a few exhibitions including "A new Flowering" exhibition at the Ashmolean in 2005
• The large painting of an enlarged white Camellia japonica 'Elegans champagne' on white paper (800mm x 760mm) is by Annie Hughes GM (RHS: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017). Annie won her first RHS Gold Medal for a suite of eight paintings of Camellias in 2011 and the painting was acquired from the exhibition at the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney in March 2012.
• The painting on the right is of Styphelia triflora by Julie Nettleton who won an RHS Gold Medal and 'Best Painting in Show' for an exhibit of Grass Trees in 2016. It has an amazing full page image in the book which allows you to see properly all the paintings of parts. 

Paintings by Bronwyn van de Graaff , Celia Rosser and Beverly Allen.

The next three paintings speak Australia to me.

• The Xanthorrhoea johnsonii Grass Tree is by Bronwyn van de Graaff which has a great composition.
• The Banksia serrata Saw Banksia (1995) is by Celia Rosser OAM PhD (Hon.) who one is of the world's finest living botanical artists. She dedicated herself to producing watercolour paintings of every Banksia species every known Banksiaover 25 years. These were published as The Banksias, a three-volume series of monographs (1981, 1988 and 2000). This banksia requires you to take a magnifier with you if you want to see the level of detail she has achieved. It gets a full page in the book - but you need to get up close and personal with this painting! (You can see why in this blog post)
• The Strelitzia nicolai by Beverly Allen GM (RHS 2007, NYBG 2010)  is amazing and is the feature image of the exhibition. It's also used on the cover of the book produced in association with the exhibition.

Beverly Allen with her Strelitzia Nicolai

Paintings by Sue Wickison (2), Paul Jones and Susannah Blaxill

Next up- and continuing the Strelitizia theme, are some paintings of by New Zealand painter Sue Wickison GM (2008) which have been previously exhibited in the gallery. These are:

• The Traveller's Palm' - (Strelitzeraceae) Ravenala madagascerensis - which has blue posts which are dispersed by the ruffled lemurs who co-evolved with the Traveller's palm on the island of Madagascar. Apparently they can see blue and green but not red and hence these seeds look very attractive to them - whereas the red reds of the next plant would not appeal!
• Strelizia reginae pods Seed study, Bird of Paradise Plant​

This is followed by:

• Magnolia grandiflora (acrylic) by Paul Jones - using a graded background
• Beetroot by Susannah Blaxill - which I remember Shirley Sherwood once saying is the most requested painting in terms of the international exhibitions of the collection around the globe. You can read more about it in Susannah Blaxill's beetroot and a magnifying glass.

Paintings of Papaver (2) by Denise Ramsay and Viburnum rhytidophyllum by Margaret Stones

The end wall of Gallery 1 has two paintings in Denise Ramsay's RHS Gold Medal (2014) winning series of Papaver orientale 'Brilliant'. The one at the top is 'Fragility' and the one at the bottom is 'Perfection'. 

On the right is Viburnum rhytidophyllum by Margaret Stones AM OBE GM (1920-2018) who died last year age 98.  This particular painting is included in Dr Sherwood's first botanical art book about 'Contemporary Botanical Artists' and has been exhibited around the world in New Orleans, Sydney, Tokyo, Cape Town and Stockholm as well as at Kew.

The painting above the display case are as follows

• Corymbia ficifolia by Jenny Phillips - which has a series of dissections and parts in a row along the bottom
• Sterculia quadrifida Peanut Tree by Margaret Ann Saul - painted in Watercolour with colour pencil & gouache on ‘Arches’ watercoolour paper
•  a large painting of Eucalyptus macrocarpa subsp. elachantha by David Mackay who was a botanical illustrator at RBG Sydney for 16 years.
• an etching on copper of Cyathea dealbata Silver tree fern by Bryan Poole - who comes from New Zealand but actually has his studio in Hackney in East London.  I first met him selling his prints like hot cakes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show over a decade ago!

Paintings by Beverly Allen, Jenny Phillips and Celia Rosser

In the case are some smaller works. 

• Pomegranates and seed pods of Gloriosa by Beverley Allen - which reminds me of the small compendium paintings by some of the painters of the Dutch Golden Age
• 'Ageing and looking silky' by Jenny Phillips
• Banksia rosserae by Celia Rosser

The last one is named after Celia Rosser - in honour of work recording the Banksias, as it was discovered after she had completed her three volumes of Banksias.  It's a very special painting!

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​The next review
​

You will recall I said that in order to do justice to each exhibit within the overall exhibition I was going to do the galleries one by one. 

I'm doing the outside galleries first before moving onto the big Gallery 3 which has all the British Artists

The next one is about the Latin American Gallery - with paintings by artists from Brazil and Mexico - plus Margaret Mee.

​More details about exhibition and book
​

​REFERENCE:

• Review: 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew Gardens

EXHIBITING ARTISTS - by country

• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists​
• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists
• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #3: European Artists
• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #4: Artists from Asia
• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #5: South African Artists
• Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists

Exhibition Venue (and Shop): Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, 
​Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Admission: Free with entrance to Kew Gardens
Dates: 16 November 2019 – 15 March 2020
Hours: Note that the Gardens open at 10am every day. 
Closing times for the Gallery vary throughout the autumn / winter / early spring season. Typically 30 minutes before those for the garden. 
At present the Gallery is closing at 3pm so ring and check if you want to be sure.

Below are the closing times and last entry times for the GARDEN.

• 27 October – 19 November 2019: 3.45pm (last entry 3.15pm)
• 20 November 2019 – 23 December 2019: 3.30pm (last entry 3.00pm)
• 24 & 25 December 2019: Closed
• 26 December 2019 – 5 January 2020 3.30pm (last entry 3pm)
• 6 – 31 January 2020: 4.15pm (last entry 3.15pm)
• 1 – 29 February 2020: 5pm (last entry 4pm)
• 1 – 29 March 2020: 6pm (last entry 5pm) ​

THE BOOK

You can buy or order the exhibition book from the Kew Shop - currently listed at a special price of £25. Alternatively, the book is also available from Amazon.

• ​The Shirley Sherwood Collection - from Amazon UK
• The Shirley Sherwood Collection - from Amazon.com