NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Review of 'Flora of South East Asia' Exhibition: Best in Show & Selected Artists

20/11/2022

The Flora of South East Asia Exhibition opened at the Gallery at the Singapore Botanic Garden on 15th November. It includes 120 artworks featuring 115 plant species by 85 artists. Botanical Artworks for this open exhibition were submitted by artists coming from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, UK, USA, Japan, Denmark, UAE, and Canada. The exhibition continues until 15 February 2023 and admission is free.

This post highlights the:

Scope and presentation of the exhibition
Best in Show Awards
List of all participating artists - by each of the four botanical art societies in South East Asia - in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand that have collaborated to mount this exhibition.
Events associated with the exhibition
The Botanic Art Gallery at Singapore Botanic Garden

I'd like to thank Dianne Sutherland for her help in compiling this post and giving me a flavour of what the exhibition and associated activities has been like. You can see more images of the exhibition in her post on Facebook

Presentation of the Exhibition

The aims of the exhibition are to increase awareness of the diversity of plants in South East Asia and to promote botanical art as an activity.

Flora of Southeast Asia is an international botanical art exhibition celebrating the diversity of the native plants of Southeast Asia. It is organised by the Botanical Art Society (Singapore) and Singapore Botanic Gardens, in their first-ever collaboration with the Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists, Thai Botanical Artists and the Philippine Botanical Art Society.

The first thing I want to say, from all the various photographs I've seen, is I'm incredibly impressed by the overall hanging, labelling and general presentation and display of the artwork at the Gallery at the Singapore Botanic Garden. I especially appreciate the inclusion of sketchbooks in the exhibition.

There is also a Web Gallery of all the individual botanical paintings by botanical artist by botanical artist in the exhibition.

Looking more closely at the images of the exhibition, I'm also extremely impressed by the very high standard of the artwork selected for the exhibition. It's clear to me that botanical artists belonging to the four societies clearly recognised this to be a landmark exhibition and submitted their very best artwork.

I gather the VIP event associated with the opening of the exhibition was attended by the Ambassadors from each participating country. Around 150 people - invited guests plus artists and their families and friends - attended the Opening Reception.

The exhibition was curated by Michele Rodda who is the Botanist and Art exhibition Curator. The Judging Panel included botanists and award-winning botanical artists from every country.

Dianne told me how very impressed she has been with every aspect of the exhibition.

For a first exhibition it's off to a really great start and has set a VERY high bar for all subsequent exhibitions - and I'm sure there will be many!

See also my previous post EXHIBITION: Flora of Southeast Asia

Best in Show

First, a big thanks to Dianne Sutherland who has allowed me to use her photographs in relation to the Best In Show Winners and who has been telling me about the exhibition.

BEST IN SHOW Paintings (Courtesy of Dianne Sutherland)

Three artworks have been awarded Best in Show. These are pictured above and listed below

Sterculia oblongata R.Br. The Blooming Fruit II: Beneath the Canopy - by Deinitisa Amarawi, Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists
Stelechocarpus burahol (Blume) Hook.f. & Thompson by Dianne Sutherland, Botanical Art Society (Singapore)
Hydnophytum formicarum Jack Ant Plant no. 1. Teo Nam Siang, Botanical Art Society (Singapore)

Below you can see each of the artists with their artwork.

Deinitisa Amarawi, Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists (Courtesy of Dianne Sutherland)

Dianne Sutherland, Botanical Art Society (Singapore) (Courtesy of Dianne Sutherland)

Teo Nam Siang, Botanical Art Society (Singapore) (Courtesy of Dianne Sutherland)

Flora of Southeast Asia Exhibition - Artists

The artists participating in Flora of South East Asia come from the four main Botanical Art Societies which are:

Botanical Art Society (Singapore) (BASS)
Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists (IDSBA)
Philippine Botanical Art Society (PhilBAS) and
Thai Botanical Artists (THBA).

I've listed the participating artists below - alphabetically by first name and by Society

The Listing of Participating Artists in Flora of South East Asia Exhibition 2022

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EXHIBITION: Flora of Southeast Asia

30/10/2022

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Flora of Southeast Asia is an International Botanical Art Exhibition which opens on 15th November at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

It is a regional juried exhibition and a unique collaboration between FOUR botanical art societies / groups in Southeast Asia. It has been co-organised by Botanical Art Society (Singapore) (BASS) and the Singapore Botanic Gardens, in their first-ever collaboration with:

Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists (IDSBA)
Philippine Botanical Art Society (PhilBAS) and
Thai Botanical Artists (THBA).

BOTANICAL ART SOCIETIES / GROUPS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

It struck me while writing this post that all these groups and societies have been set up in the last few years. It's an indication of how a much broader range of countries in Asia (beyond Japan, China and Korea) are now much more active in the creation of botanical art and associated exhibitions.

IDSBA was officially founded at Bogor in June 2017 by Eunike Nugruho and Jenny Kartawinata
I think I'm right in saying Thai Botanic Artists formed as an informal group in response to the call for the Worldwide Exhibition of Botanical Art in 2018
BASS was founded in June 2019. The Society now has members from Singapore, across Asia and North America.
I'm not sure when the Philippine Botanical Art Society formed - but can see from their Facebook Page that they've been very active for three years - since September 2019.

SCOPE OF "FLORA OF SOUTHEAST ASIA" EXHIBITION

120 artworks featuring 115 plant species by 85 artists have been selected to be on display throughout SBG. (This was the very well organised Call for Entries website).

This exhibition showcases the native plant diversity of Southeast Asia with 80 original botanical artworks in the Botanical Art Gallery and 40 additional facsimiles in the People’s Gallery outdoor exhibit spaces of the gardens.
A wide variety of Southeast Asian native plants such as orchids, shrubs, trees, wetland species, epiphytes and fungi are depicted in watercolour, graphite, colour pencil, acrylic and ink.

The subject matter of "Flora of Southeast Asia is

Any flora native to Southeast Asia, including fungi, lichen and/or algae.
A plant is considered native if it has occurred naturally in the Southeast Asian region, ecosystem, or habitat without human introduction.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Venue: Singapore Botanic Gardens:

80 artworks at Botanical Art Gallery: House No. 7, Gallop Extension, Singapore Botanic Gardens
- Open daily 9am - 6pm (closed on last Thursday of the month)
40 Additional Artworks / Facsimile Prints can be found at: People's Gallery exhibit spaces of Singapore Botanic Gardens, at
- the Tanglin Gate,
- Nassim Gate,
- Bukit Timah Gate and
- the Green Pavilion at Botany Centre

Dates: 15 November 2022 – 15 February 2023
Admission: FREE

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Seasons Greetings and the story of the Poinsettia

24/12/2019

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My very best wishes in this Festive Season to all the very many botanical art fans, artists and readers of News about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists - especially you and yours.

Illustration of Poinsettia Pulcherrima 17 ( Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. Ex Klotzsch, poinsettia, poinsetta)

Below are two stories about the poinsettia plant often associated with Christmas. It involved two great travellers:

one is about a female botanical artist called Berthe Hoola van Nooten - who created the image you see above - along with a number of others which were published in her book about the flowers, fruit and leaves of Java.
the second is about how the Poinsettia got its common name.

Book Title: Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Choisis de L'Ile de Java, Peints d'après Nature by Berthe Hoola van Nooten
Published: Bruxelles : C. Muquardt, [1880]
Current name of the plant: Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd. ex Klotzsch
Common name: Poinsettia
The coloured bracts of the Poinsettia are often mistaken for flowers but are in fact leaves.

About Berthe Hoola van Nooten

It's interesting how many female botanical artists (Maria Sibylla Merian and Elizabeth Blackwell) have

undertaken significant projects associated with botanical art in the face of an economic (and other) challenges.
produced and arranged publications of the resulting botanical art - with associated botanical information about individual plants.

It's quite a significant contrast with some of their male counterparts!

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

24/11/2019

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The new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens is very definitely a LANDMARK exhibition of contemporary botanical art - and one woman's dedication and commitment. It's significant in size and scope and is very impressive to the point of being quite overwhelming.

I'm very happy to highly recommend it to all those interested in botanical art and/or watercolour painting and/or plants and nature in general.

The current exterior of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art

I think it's the first time in the 11 year history of the gallery that the entire gallery has been given over to paintings from The Shirley Sherwood Collection. Normally exhibitions on a theme have been a mix of artwork (and/or other items) from the Kew Collection and the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

However, this exhibition is rather different. It celebrates

30 years of collecting contemporary botanical art - via purchase from galleries, auction houses and direct from artists, commissions and gifts from some artists
more than 1,000 artworks collected - in what is now by far the largest private collection of botanical art in the world; and
a new book about the collection! (review to follow tomorrow)

As such this exhibition has a much more personal feel. It's also organised by geographical area - in terms of where the artists live rather than where the plant comes from - with notes from Dr Sherwood about how she met artists in the different countries - which provides insight into how the collection developed over time.

(Note: It struck me that it would be interesting to see another exhibition - with artwork organised by plant family. I don't think we've had one since The Art of Plant Evolution).

I've never ever seen so many artworks in the galleries - and one senses from the number of artworks in the exhibition that it's been very difficult to prune the list of artworks that Dr Sherwood wanted to include in the exhibition!

The net effect is that the exhibition is quite overwhelming - meaning it takes quite a long time to get round and do it justice!

Gallery 1: Australasia - Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton

This is only an overview. As I was walking around I very quickly decided that it would be absolutely impossible to do it justice in one blog post/review. Over lunch at the Pavilion Restaurant I tried to work out what to do. I've decided to repeat what I did with the lists of the artists whose work is on display - and do each gallery and geographical area in turn.

As a minimum (i.e. there may be more!), I will review each gallery exhibition in turn - one country or continent each week. I'm not quite sure of the order yet - maybe the one I followed as I viewed the exhibition late last week. For the record:

Gallery 1 - Australasia
Gallery 2 - Europe
Gallery 3 - North America
Gallery 4 - Latin America
Gallery 5 - Britain
Gallery 6 - South Africa and Asia

I hope to be able to add into these reviews some photos of the artists who will be at the private view evening next week.

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Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #4: Artists from Asia

16/11/2019

This is the fourth in my series of posts about artists who have artwork in the new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens relates to Asia. The artists are from China, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and Thailand

Three posts in my series of SIX posts about the artists in the exhibition have been published previously:

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists (USA, Canada Brazil and Mexico)
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #3: European Artists

Two more posts (to come) relate to:

#5 artists from South Africa
#6 artists from Australia and New Zealand

Mieko Ishikawa GM (2006) with her very famous painting of "Acorns from Brunei" and Flowering Cherries Prunus Pendula" owned by Shirley Sherwood. (Pictured in the Flora Japonica exhibition in 2016)

The exhibition celebrates 30 years of the Shirley Sherwood Collection - and is being exhibited in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens - which opened 11 years ago and has now received well over 1 million visitors.

The exhibition opened today and continues until until 15 March 2020. (note the opening and last entry times at the end)

I'm expecting it will get a lot more visitors with this new exhibition which comprises artwork from Shirley Sherwood's Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art which is the largest private collection in the world - with more than 1,000 artworks.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#4: Asian Artists

Below you can find:
the names of artists whose work is displayed - with a link to their website embedded in their name (or a link to a dedicated page on my website for some of the deceased artists)
a short profile of each artist - focusing on their achievements
the names of the plants in their artwork which has been selected for the exhibition. Where plants have been featured in previous books by Dr Sherwood this is noted next to the name.

CHINA

Jinyong Feng
b.1925. Taught most of the contemporary botanical illustrators in China. He has also exhibited widely including at the Hunt and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. He is retired from a senior position at the Botanical Institute in Beijing.

Camellia chekiangoleosa 1994 (Contemporary Botanical Artists)
Camellia chrysantha (The Art of Plant Evolution)

Tai-li Zhang
b.1938. Worked as a botanical artist all her life. She trained at the School of Botanical Painting, Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica in Beijing from 1958-1960. She then worked for the next 35 years at the department of plant taxonomy in the Institute of Botany. She has exhibited her work in many exhibitions in China and also in Australia, the Missouri Botanical Gardens in the USA and the Everard Read Gallery in South Africa. She also exhibited in the 6th International Exhibition at the Hunt Institute. Over 1,000 of her drawings were reproduced in Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinae.

Paulownia elongata (Contemporary Botanical Artists)
Maidenhair Tree 1994 (Contemporary Botanical Artists)

INDIA

Damodar Lal Gurjar
b. 1958. Graduated from Rajasthan School of Arts, Jaipur in 1981. His botanical artwork featured in a solo exhibition, Enduring Perfection: Paintings by Damodar Lal Gurjar, at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in 2001. He has work included in A Passion for Plants: Contemporary Botanical Masterworks.

Nasturtium Tropaeolum (A Passion for Plants, pg 93)

Thakur Ganga (Rai Sahib) Singh (1895-1970)
Born in India. He joined the Dehra Dun Forest Institute in 1911 and served as a Senior Artist for 30 years until his retirement in 1945. In 1931 he took long leave for a year and travelled to London for formal training as an artist at the Slade School of Art. He was made Rai Sahib ( a title of honour) for his contribution to art. Court painter to Yadhavindra Singh, Maharajah of Patiala. Ganga Singh was engaged by the Maharajah in 1942 to reproduce his collected flora in watercolour drawings. He became a permanent member of His Highness' staff and painted over four hundred watercolours over a period of twenty years.

Tiger Lily Lilium lancifolium (A Passion for Plants, pg 212)

When I was a schoolgirl I visited Pakistan just after partition and spent some wonderful months exploring the Himalayas of the North West Frontier Province, close to the border with Kashmir, I will never forget the spectaucyalr drifts of delphiniums flowing down the mountains, the alpine streams and high valleys dotted with orchids and lilies. As a budding botanist I scrambled up the mountains with my pony, collecting and pressing plants, which I eventually took to Kew.
Shirley Sherwood - in her profile of Thakur (Rai Sahib) Singh in "A Passion for Plants"

Notable Botanical Artists of the 20th Century

12/8/2018

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The page 20th century Botanical Artists on my website is about those botanical artists who are more associated with the 20th century than either the 19th or the 21 centuries.

Some were born before 1900 and
some died after 2000
they did most of their work in the 20th century
however they are all now deceased

Below is a list of names of the artists who are highlighted on this page - with a summary of their dates and achievements. Please note: the page essentially works on the same basis as those for contemporary botanical artists on my website

If you have suggestions for other names who should be on this list please let me know.

At the end, there are links to the other pages containing listings of famous and/or notable botanical artists past and present.

Convolvulus Family by Mrs H. Isabel Adams - for Wild Flowers of the British Isles

UK

British Botanical Artists

Mrs Harriet Isabel Adams FLS (1863-1952)
Raymond Booth (1929-2015)
Elizabeth Cameron GM (1915-2009)
Arthur Harry Church (1865-1937)
Stella Ross Craig (1906 - 2006)
Sally Crosthwaite GM SBA SFP (?-2017)
Jeannie Foord (dates ? 19th/20th century)
Mary Anderson Grierson GM (1912 - 2012)
Sally Keir GM SBA (1938-2007)
Suzanne Lucas MBE GM (1915-2008)
Margaret Mee (1909-1988)
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864-1933)
Rory McEwen (1932-1982)
John Northcote Nash CBE, RA (1893 – 1977)
Catherine Nicholson (1958-2011)
Pandora Sellars GM (1936 - 2017)
Lillian Snelling MBE VMH (1879-1972)

EUROPE

German Botanical Artists

Claus Caspari (1911–1980)

Irish Botanical Artists

Wendy Walsh (1915 - 2014)

Italian Botanical Artists

Anna Paoletto (1946–2016)

BRITTON AND ROSE, VOL. II M. E. Eaton del 1. Fruit of Hylocereus trigonus. 2. Flower of Selenicereus boeckmannii 3. Fruit of Selenicereus boeckmannii. (All natural size.)

NORTH AMERICA

USA

Mary Emily Eaton (1873-1961)
Lee Adams (1922-1971)
Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden (1907–2007)
Priscilla K S Fawcett (1932-2012)
Janice Glimn Lacy (1935-2013)
Maud Purdy (1873 - 1965)

SOUTH AMERICA

Brazil

Etienne Demonte (1931-2004)

AUSTRALASIA

Australian Botanical Artists

Margaret Flockton (1861-1953)
Paul Jones OBE (1921 - 1997)
Emily Pelloe (1878 – 1941)

Artwork by Paul Jones - Magnolia grandiflora; Sunflower: Helianthus annuus; and the book "Flora Magnifica" paintings by Paul Jones; text by Wilfrid Blunt

AFRICA

South African Botanical Artists

Dr Auriol Batten (1918-2015)
Barbara Jeppe (1921-1999)
Cythna Letty (1895 - 1985)
Ann Schweizer (1930-2014)

Zimbabwean Botanical Artists

Margaret Tredgold (1910 - 2012)

ASIA

Chinese Botanical Artists

Chengru Feng (1896–1968)

Japanese Botanical Artists

Yoshio Futakushi (1900-1997)

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More about Botanical Artists

BOTANICAL ARTISTS IN HISTORY

Past Masters of Botanical Art (1500-1900) - organised by countries and timeline plus individual pages for leading botanical artists of the past
Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600-1900)

CONTEMPORARY BOTANICAL ARTISTS
Criteria for inclusion on this website are listed on Contemporary botanical artists and illustrators around the world.

The links below are to lists of the top contemporary botanical artists and illustrators:

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TODAY is the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art 2018

18/5/2018

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You can see where all the exhibitions of botanical art are In 25 countries on six continents - together with any links I have to the activities today - the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art 2018 - all on one page on this website.

The page is organised by continents and countries as listed below.

If there are more flyers and/or videos out there which need to be added in please send them to me.

AFRICA

Southern Africa

ASIA

China
Indonesia
Japan
Republic of Korea
Thailand

AUSTRALASIA

Australia
New Zealand

EUROPE (Western)

France
Germany

EUROPE (Eastern)

Russia
Ukraine

THE AMERICAS - Central America and the Caribbean

Bermuda
Costa Rica
Mexico

THE AMERICAS - North America

THE AMERICAS - South America

Brazil
Chile
Colombia

For more about the Botanical Art Worldwide initiative you should view

EITHER the dedicated Official Website which has comprehensive information about the purpose of the exhibition and exhibitions in other countries
OR the official Facebook Page
OR the World Wide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018 page - on this website - which has brief details about all the exhibitions on ONE page

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