NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Call for Entries: "The Art of Botanical Illustration" at RBG Victoria

20/5/2022

This year sees the 16th Biennial 'Art of Botanical Illustration' (TABI) Exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne.

This is one of the most prestigious botanical art exhibitions in Australia
Entry is open to international botanical artists.
It takes place at the same time as 7th Botanic Gardens Congress and will be an event which is part of the Friends 40th anniversary celebrations

Below you can find out more about the official Call for Entries for the Exhibition which will open on 16th September 2022. The deadline for entries is 1st August 2022.

My version reorganises the information for artists provided to make it rather easier to grasp some of the critical issues which will help you with decision-making about whether or not to enter. There's a little surprise about the cost for those not resident in Victoria...

Exhibition

The exhibition will take a hybrid format this year - with ALL artworks exhibited in both:

a physical exhibition held at Domain House, Melbourne
a virtual exhibition online.

It's considered that this hybrid approach will help capture a wide audience and in turn provide greater exposure to the artworks of nationally and internationally based botanical artists.

Venue: Domain House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria
Virtual: Exhibition: - link to be provided at a later date
Dates: 16 September through to 2 October 2022

TABI 2022 will coincide with the 7th Global Botanic Gardens Congress (26th – 30th September 2022), which will be hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria , RBGV, ( https://www.7gbgc.org/).

The theme of the Congress is Influence and Action: Botanic Gardens as Agents of Change with a particular focus on the response of Botanic Gardens to climate change, including plant conservation and climate resilience.

Call for Entries

The Friends of the Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria organise host the exhibition and organise the Call for Entries. They are inviting entries for the exhibition from all botanical artists.

You can find out more on:

the TABI 2022 page.
Information for Artists - which I'm summarising below.

The Selection Process will be based on DIGITAL images (i.e. no need to send your artwork to Melbourne) and the Information for Artists provides useful guidelines for how best to deliver these.

TABI 2022: Information for Artists

1. SELECTION CRITERIA

The artwork must adhere to the following selection criteria:

It must provide an accurate representation of the form and botany of the chosen subject.
The characteristics of the species or variety must be adequately conveyed.
The representation should be an artistically pleasing, balanced and a considered work of art.
It must be identified and named accurately according to standard botanical practices.
It must have been completed since TABI 2020.

The artworks selected for TABI 2022 must be both scientifically accurate and artistically pleasing. Each artwork is carefully selected against strict selection criteria by a panel of three professional judges, including a botanist and an experienced artist, to ensure the highest standards are met.
Information for Artists (Section 8: Selection process)

2. WHO CAN ENTER:

The Information for Artists could be less than somewhat opaque on this topic. Or maybe just a lot more transparent?

Essentially

anybody can submit entries
only those who are Friends of the Royal Botanic Garden Victoria - in a financial sense - can have their work hung in the exhibition. (See "Cost of Submission" below)

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Esmee Winkel wins Margaret Flockton Award 2021

7/6/2021

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Notoleptopus decaisnei, Esmee Winkel, The Netherlands

Esmee Somers Winkel has won the First Prize in the 17th Margaret Flockton Award 2021. The award comes with $5,000 but is most prized for its highly prestigious nature within the scientific botanical illustration community.

Esmee is a a professional scientific illustrator working in the Netherlands. This First prize follows on from

the Second Prize she won in 2017,
the Jill Smythies Award (2014) awarded by the Linnean Society and
her three RHS Gold Medals (2013, 2016 and 2018).

This post covers: (in order)

About the Award - why it is prestigiousâ€‹ and what's important in a winning illustration.
â€‹About the two prizewinners and three artists whose illustrations were highly commended PLUS Judges comments
About the Exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney
How you can see the images online - and view the video presentation.â€‹

The Margaret Flockton Award

Margaret Flockton Award is unique amongst international art awards, focusing exclusively on contemporary scientific botanical illustration, as distinct from botanical art RBG Sydney Flickr Album Margaret Flockton Award 2021

The Margaret Flockton Award is specifically about scientific botanical illustration. It's prestigious because it is the ONLY award dedicated to the excellence and expertise demonstrated by those who produce botanical illustrations to an exactly scientific standard for botany and botanists

As a result, entries are typically:

submitted by professional botanical illustrators - or those aspiring to be one.
related to plates produced for the record and for scientific botanical publications.

This competition and exhibition is International. Scientific botanical illustrators from around the world are invited by the curators of the exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney to:

digitally submit scientifically accurate taxonomic illustrations
i.e. highly detailed black and white drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil or digitally rendered.
that accompany a published taxonomic description of the plant,
with the drawing clearly highlighting all of the distinctive features of the species.

REVIEW my dedicated page for The Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Illustration

The Criteria used to judge the Award are listed below:

Accurate interpretation and portrayal of the plant characters and diagnostic features highlighted in the botanical description
Technical merit
Artistic merit
Composition
Reproducibility

See A Guide to Scientific Illustration (on the Margaret Flockton Award page on the RBG website - at the bottom) for more information on judging criteria.

Reproducability is extremely important, because the nature of our work is that it is reproduced so anything too delicate can be lost on reduction.
â€‹Composition will usually be the thing that wins a work. If you can make a composition sing in terms of the way it tells the story of the plant you're doing well.
Comments by Lesley Elkan from the Facebook Live Event

While other awards will look for accurate interpretation and portrayal plus technical and artistic merit, this is the only award which specifically considers illustration from the perspective of the scope for reproduction in scientific publications (i.e. the whole purpose of the illustration is to communicate to a wide community of interest via printed or digital matter).

The Judges for the 2020 Award were all from the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.

Catherine Wardrop - RBG&CP Botanical Illustrator and Margaret Flockton Award Curator
Lesley Elkan - Botanical Illustrator
Dr Kerry Gibbons, RBG&DT Flora Botanistâ€‹

Apparently they had 25 illustrations two days before the deadline and on the Monday morning they had 103! Next year the Judges would appreciate receiving illustrations earlier if that's at all possible! :)

About the Prizewinners

I photographed Esmee Winkel with her RHS Gold Medal scientific botanical illustrations in 2016 - just after she'd given me her best tips for cleaning Rotring technical pens!

FIRST PRIZE ($5,000) Esmee Winkel, The Netherlands - for Notoleptopus decaisnei (ink)
(see illustration at the top of this post)

Esmee's illustrated has been awarded the First Prize for its exacting skilful technique and perfectly balanced composition. The clarity of the strong line is complemented by the perfectly rendered elements, with a concise stipple techniques used only where required to convincglu describe form. Line weight is also used to describe shadows and depth. The illustration reveals the life cycle and key features of
â€‹Judge's Comments

My commentary: I'm reading that as a lot of appreciation and applause for

a "less is more" approach to botanical illustration and
demonstrable and refined expertise in the full range of available techniques!

â€‹Plus note the smart move of illustrating an Australian plant!

Esmee Winkel is a professional scientific illustrator who specialises in botanical illustration and works as a Scientific illustrator and Botanical artist for the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden and at the Hortus Botanicus, Leiden in the Netherlands.

She has previously won second prize in the Margaret Flockton Award 2017.

Other prizes she has won include

2016: the Botanical Illustrator Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Art from the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA)
2016: a second RHS Gold Medal for her display of drawings of rare and endangered orchids in 2016 (see Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists - from the UK and Europe - and video below)
2014: the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in botanical illustration by the Linnean Society
2013: an RHS Gold Medal in 2013 for a set of meticulous and well-designed pen and ink drawings of Leguminosae (see Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medal Winners)
2012 - a BISCOT Gold Medal in 2012

You can read more about her in About Esmee Winkel, botanical illustrator at Naturalis

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Margaret Flockton Award 2021: Call for Entries

16/2/2021

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Last year, the Margaret Flockton Award had the most entries ever for this prestigious award for contemporary scientific botanical illustration.

This year, the organisers are expecting a repeat - and lots and lots of entries. So you need to make sure you enter your very best work!

46 artists from 21 countries submitted works in a time before the world paused.

Astoundingly, the total number of entries in 2020 reflected as a 50% increase on previous averages, with countries Bulgaria, Switzerland and Norway represented for the first time. Ink was far and away the most favoured medium for illustrating, with pencil a distant second of the traditional forms, while digital and mixed media continue their slow rise in the ranks.
Round Up of the entries received for the 2020 Award

Who can enter the Margaret Flockton Award?

Entries are welcomed from all those who generate scientific illustrations of plants.

All previous winners of the Margaret Flockton Award are eligible to enter, excluding the 2018, 2019 and 2020 first prize winning artists.

Typically, the people who submit illustrations for this award - and win awards - are professional botanical illustrators / people who produce scientific botanical illustrations for botanical gardens and botanists on a regular basis. However they' are NOT the only people who enter.

Enthusiastic botanical illustrators make up at least half the entries and this competition is NOT limited to those who generate income producing scientific botanical illustrations - and scientific illustration entries from a wider group are always welcomed.

Some of the illustrations from the Margaret Flockton Award 2020 - Flickr Gallery - click the pic to see more

What can you submit?

The page relating to the Award includes a Guide to Scientific Botanical Illustrations - which I recommend you read before processing any further.

Each artist may submit up to two illustrations. If you'd like to see the standard of work submitted you can view the 2020 Flickr Gallery for the Margaret Flockton Award 2020
Only full plate illustrations will be accepted (inclusive of habit study and diagnostic features of the species).
- Inclusion of scale bars, whilst not compulsory, is highly recommended.
Illustrations MUST be MONOCHROMATIC (i.e. not coloured - see above)
- EITHER black and white illustrations (for example created using pen and ink, graphite or scraperboard)
- AND/OR monochromatic, digitally rendered illustrations
- either published or unpublished
All illustrations MUST have been have been produced in the last two years i.e. after February 2019
There are very precise dimensions for the images you can submit
ONLY high resolution digital tiff or psd scans of the illustrations being entered will be considered. (Original artworks and paperwork sent via the postal system will no longer be accepted.)
There are no entry fees for the Margaret Flockton Award and Exhibition.
NOTE: Jpg or coloured file formats will not be accepted.

How to submit an entry

ALL the specific details regarding submission of artwork and paperwork can be found at https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/Science/Botanical-Illustration/The-Margaret-Flockton-Award - scroll down to ‘Entry Requirements’.

All illustrations and paperwork must be submitted digitally. One high resolution digital image per illustration. The file size should not exceed 200MB

High resolution for judging and exhibiting:
- No photos of artworks will be accepted - scanned original works or digitally created images only.
- Ink line and stipple - Bitmap tiff @ 1200dpi
- Pencil or Continuous tone - Greyscale tiff or psd (NOT jpg)
(Colour files will NOT be accepted, please convert to greyscale) @ 600dpi (minimum).

You also need to submit a
- entry form
- labels
- biography
DEADLINE for submission of images: 12 March 2021 EST. (I think maybe the organisers need to identify a precise time and the time zone. If you want to be safe assume the day before as your deadline!)
How to submit your digital image(s) and entry form / labels / biography:
- via Dropbox (use Dropbox Basic for free access)
- upload your tiff or psd files to a shared folder
- label your folder YOURSURNAME MFA 2021
- make it shared by inviting botanical.illustration@rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au to View AND Edit files in the shared folder where you have uploaded your image files.
The Margaret Flockton Award Committee will contact you to confirm your image files have been received.

Note: Those who have already submitted images need to note that these will be processed along with all of the other entries after the deadline of March 12.

Judging

All entries will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Accurate interpretation and portrayal of plant characters and diagnostic features noted in the botanical description
Technical merit
Reproducibility
Composition
Artistic merit

Margaret Flockton Award 2021 Exhibition

NEW Venue: The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney
Exhibition Dates: Monday 7 June - 20 June 2021
Admission: Free

The exhibition will also be seen - on dates to be advised - at two additional venues within the Royal Botanic Gardens i.e.

Australian PlantBank, The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.
Dates TBC 2021, Visitor Centre at The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah

For all those who cannot get to Australia, the entries will also be available to view online in the Margaret Flockton Flickr Gallery which will be published on Friday 11 June, 2021

Ready, set & away we go. An operation in the heart of beautiful Sydney. The Calyx at the Botanic Garden is truely a site to check out. pic.twitter.com/ggT8EF7VA8
— Helivision Solutions (@DronesInOz) November 14, 2016

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The 15th Biennial Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibition at RBG Melbourne

26/9/2020

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The 15th Biennial Exhibition of The Art of Botanical Illustration 2020 (TABI) is presented by The Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

This year for the first time it is a Virtual ONLINE Exhibition. I guess, whichever country we live in we're now getting used to these in the age of the Pandemic.

The Friends are to be congratulated on producing a well constructed and beautiful online exhibition. I particularly like the fact that we get a profile for each artist included in the exhibition. It not only helps the artist with raising their profile - it also helps the buyers who often want to know more about "who painted this?"

About the 15th Biennial TABI Exhibition

The Virtual Exhibition is online from 19 September – 31 December 2020. All artworks are for sale and all profits from this exhibition assist the Friends to support the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

You can:

download the catalogue to see the full list of artwork selected for the exhibition. (Vicki Philipson painted the Agapanthus Seed Head used for the front cover)
view the exhibition online
review artists profiles and artwork per artist
purchase artwork in the exhibition
read about the History of the Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibitions

If you click the image of the artwork it takes you to a seperate page which lists more details about the artwork and includes the price. Postage is not included - but a link provides more information. All transactions are between the artist and the art collector.

Selection, Participating Artists and Prizes

SELECTION

Artwork is selected for the exhibition by a panel which includes a botanist, an artist and the head librarian at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne to ensure that the highest standards are met.

All artwork exhibited must adhere to the following criteria:

it must provide an accurate representation of the form and botany of the chosen subject;
the characteristics of the species or variety must be adequately conveyed;
the representation should be an artistically pleasing, balanced and a considered work of art;
it must be identified and named accurately according to standard botanical practices; and
it must have been completed within the previous two years.

Below is a video of the opening of the exhibition and the announcement of the awards.
The awards and the artworks purchased for the State Botanical Art Collection are detailed below - against the artists name.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

The artists whose artwork was selected for the exhibition are as follows. Links in their name got to the exhibition website.

Amanda Ahmed
Haya Alketbi - Celia Rosser Honourable Mention for Pyrus sp
Beverly Allen - Celia Rosser Honourable Mention for Corymbia ficifolia cv.
Sally Armfield
Kelly Bassett
Amanda Blake-Sutterby Amyema linophylla - Buloke Mistletoe - purchased by the RBG Victoria for the State Botanical collection
Ila Blyth
Marie Bogoyevitch
Helen Burrows
Lucy Chapman
Brian Cheung
Deb Chirnside
Pratistha Chitrakar
Thea Clark
Niki Coates
Simon Deere
Sue Dixon
Rosemary Donnelly
Dianne Emery - Celia Rosser Award Winner for Amanita muscaria - fly agaric (SEE BELOW)

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Deborah Lambkin wins Margaret Flockton Award 2020

8/5/2020

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Irish botanical illustrator Deborah Lambkin, who works in the UK as the RHS Orchid Artist, has won the Margaret Flockton Award 2020 for the scientific botanical illustration of a new orchid.

Unusually this year the announcement of the prizewinners was made by Denise Ora, the Executive Director of the Royal Botanic Sydney via video (see below).

Below the video is:

a short narrative about the purpose of the award and how it works
an explanation of why the first two exhibitions have cancelled and details of the third which may still go ahead
narratives about the first and second prizewinners
then details of the four botanical illustrators who have been highly commended

I'll also be doing another blog post (shortly) about the botanical illustrators who had work selected for this (online) exhibition in 2020.

IMAGES
Crops of the images are included in this post. You can see much better images in the Flickr Album Margaret Flockton Award 2020 - which also contains all 63 artworks selected "for exhibition"

Margaret Flockton Award 2020
for Scientific Botanical Illustration Prizewinners

â€‹The Margaret Flockton Award is specifically about scientific botanical illustration.
Entries are typically:

submitted by professional botanical illustrators
related to plates produced for the record and for scientific botanical publications.

Scientific botanical illustrators from around the world are invited by the curators of the exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney to:

digitally submit scientifically accurate taxonomic illustrations
i.e. highly detailed black and white drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil or digitally rendered.
that accompany a published taxonomic description of the plant,
with the drawing clearly highlighting all of the distinctive features of the species.

The Criteria used to judge the Award are listed below:

Accurate interpretation and portrayal of the plant characters and diagnostic features highlighted in the botanical description
Technical merit
Artistic merit
Composition
Reproducibility

See A Guide to Scientific Illustration (on the Margaret Flockton Award page on the RBG website - at the bottom) for more information on judging criteria.

The Judges for the 2020 Award were all from the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.

Catherine Wardrop - RBG&CP Botanical Illustrator and Margaret Flockton Award Curator
Lesley Elkan - Botanical Illustrator
Karen Wilson, Honorary Research Associate.â€‹

You can see what they were faced with below.........

View this post on Instagram

The entries are in! Thanks to the amazing artists who have entered the 2020 Flockton Award. 63 entries from 46 artists from every corner of the globe! Good luck to all. #penandink #blackandwhiteinkdrawing #botanicalillustrationpenandink #scientificillustration #botanicalillustration #botanyart

A post shared by Catherine W & Lesley E (@rbg_illustration) on Mar 9, 2020 at 11:59pm PDT

PRIZEWINNERS

I think I'm right in saying all six botanical illustrators have been honoured with prizes or commendations by the Margaret Flockton Award for the first time (I'll be checking!)
â€‹
1st Prize ($5,000 AUS): Deborah Lambkin

Crop of part of the illustrationof crop of Gastrodia sp. nov. by Deborah Lambkin - view the full image by clicking the pic

Deborah Lambkin (Ireland / United Kingdom) has won the First Prize of AUS$5,000 for her depiction of Gastrodia sp. nov. - a new orchid species from Madagascar.

Deborah has been a Scientific Botanical illustrator over 30 years. Currently she is the RHS Orchid Artist working for the Royal Horticultural Society and the Eric Young Orchid Foundation, She also creates scientific botanical illustrations for botanists working at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew.

Deborah was born in Ireland and lives in London. She trained at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin.

In 1999, she won an RHS Gold Medal for her collection of eight paintings of Nerines
In 2001, she exhibited at the 10th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, USA
In 2005, she was appointed as the official 'Orchid Artist' to the Royal Horticultural Society Orchid Committee. To date she has contributed nearly 500 orchid paintings to the Royal Horticultural Society's Orchid Painting Collection.
In 2014 she joined RHS Picture Advisory Panel and is involved with judging at the RHS Botanical Art shows. She also exhibited at the World Orchid Conference Botanical Art Exhibition 2014.
In 2019 she was awarded the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in published botanical illustrations.
Her scientific illustrations have been published in Curtis Botanical Magazine and she has work in the collection of the Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin in Dublin, Ireland.

Deborah is a member of the Irish Society of Botanical Artists and the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society. "Beauty at a brush stroke" (Twitter) is an Irish Times article about Deborah and her work.

All in all, Deborah is a professional botanical illustrator who both draws and paints and has now had her work recognised by all the top exhibitions, competitions, awards and prizes for botanical art and Illustration. The Margaret Flockton Award now gives her "the full set" and she now moves into the illustrious company of those very few botanical illustrators who have achieved the same. (I'm off to count them - I know there's not a lot!)

You can follow Deborah Lambkin on Twitter and Instagram

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Call for Entries - Margaret Flockton Award 2020

19/2/2020

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Entries are now being accepted for the Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Illustration 2020.

Illustrators from around the world are asked to submit:

original scientifically accurate taxonomic illustrations completed since March 2018
These are highly detailed monochrome (black and white) drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil or rendered using digital software.
They must clearly highlight all of the distinctive features of the species - as highlighted in the published taxonomic description of the plant .

All submissions must be in a digital format.
The deadline for digital online entry is Monday 2nd March 2020 (EST)

You can read more about it on:

the Margaret Flockton Award page on the RBGS website
the page about The Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Illustration on this website - where I break out and summarise all the important things you need to know if you want to enter - on one page

Crop of one small part (less than 25%) of the scientific botanical illustration which won first prize in 2019

The Margaret Flockton Award is unique amongst international art awards. This is because it

focuses exclusively on contemporary scientific botanical illustration (as distinct from botanical art) - which must be monochrome and 2D
commemorates the contribution Margaret Flockton made to Australian scientific botanical illustration.

The award is sponsored by The Maple Brown Family and the Foundation & Friends of the Botanic Gardens.
â€‹

Margaret Flockton Award Prizes 2020

Most taxonomic botanical illustrators enter this award competition because of the credibility "awarded" to those selected for the exhibition. This is, of course, enhanced for all those who win the award or come second or get a "highly commended"

However the cash award for this international botanical illustration competition are significant.

First prize: AU$5,000;
Second prize: AU$2,000;
3 x Highly Commended.

In addition this Award brings additional benefits. First it is low cost

entry is free and
there are no costs involved in submitting your illustrations because it is all digital!

Plus you can also sell a print of your illustration direct to interested parties with no commission deducted. Those selected for the exhibition can sell prints of their work direct from their websites or email addresses to the public and collectors (meaning no commission is deducted by RBGS).

Overall it's a "win win" award for all concerned!

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Margaret Flockton Award 2020 - Exhibitions

The exhibition will be held in the three different gardens which make up the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

Royal Botanic Garden Sydney - Joseph Maiden Theatre (Saturday 9 May - Sunday 24 May 2020, daily 10am - 4pm) enter via Woolloomooloo Gate on Mrs Macquaries Road
The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan - The Australian PlantBank (Tuesday 2 June - Friday 31 July 2020, weekdays 10am - 4pm)
The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah - Visitor Centre (Tuesday 3 November - Sunday 13 December 2020, daily 10am - 4pm)

I'll be doing further blog posts about the artists selected for the exhibition and the prizewinners.

You can follow the two botanical illustrators who administer this Award on their Instagram Page https://www.instagram.com/rbg_illustration/

View this post on Instagram

Last stop for the 2019 Margaret Flockton Award Exhibition @bluemountainsbotanicgarden, Mount Tomah. 9 August to 15 September. Enjoying the view whilst bumping in, but not the tangled nylon cords!! #scientificillustration #bluemountainsbotanicgarden #margaretflocktonaward #botanicalillustrationpenandink #botanicalillustration

A post shared by Catherine W & Lesley E (@rbg_illustration) on Aug 7, 2019 at 9:03pm PDT

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

10/12/2019

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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.

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