NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Banks 2020: Jan Hendrix at Shirley Sherwood Gallery Kew

3/10/2019

2020 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Sir Joseph Banks on 19 June 1820. A number of events are planned to commemorate his contribution to science. One of these is an exhibition at Kew Gardens which will combine art with science.

Artwork by Jan Hendrix is based on the plants collected by Joseph Banks in Australia. This will feature in the major exhibition in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens between April and September 2020.

Sir Joseph Banks, Bt (1771-1773) by Sir Joshua Reynolds oil on canvas, 50 in. x 40 in. (1270 mm x 1015 mm) overall (Collection of the National Portrait Gallery)

About the 'Paradise Lost' Exhibition

Title: Paradise Lost
Venue: Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens
Dates: April – 20 September 2020
Admission: Free with admission to the gardens

The Paradise Lost exhibition will feature artwork based on the collection of cuttings made by Joseph Banks while travelling around the around the world with Captain James Cook on the voyage of exploration of HMS Endeavour(1768–71) via Brazil, Tahiti, and 6 months in New Zealand and Australia

At the time, James Banks was a relatively unknown figures in British science. However his activities on Captain Cook's first expedition - taking cuttings from more than 1,000 species of plant that were previously unknown to Europe - served as a launchpad for his subsequent career as a world-renowned botanist. Later in his life he became

Kew’s first unofficial director. Under his oversight Kew Gardens began to flourish as a centre of botanical research.
the president of the Royal Society (1778–1820). He sought to improve the position of science in Britain and cultivated interchange with scientists of other nations
a night of the realm - the order of Knight Commander of the Bath was bestowed upon him in 1795

The 124 plant specimens collected and preserved in 1770 by Banks and his colleagues at the Endeavour River in Queensland, and Botany Bay in Sydney, Australia, form the foundation of Hendrix’s exhibition at Kew. Carefully pressed at the time in a copy of the poet John Milton’s Paradise Lost, these collections are now held in the Natural History Museum, London.

Map of Botany Bay

Botany Bay was named by Captain Cook in honour of Banks and fellow botanist and crew member, Daniel Solander. However, since Australia’s colonisation, Botany Bay has been transformed by development and is now part of the southern part of the city of Sydney - with Sydney airport jutting out into the Bay.

Map of the Endeavour River

The Paradise Lost exhibition will recall the memory of the area as it was documented by Banks 250 years ago and its subsequent changes.

Following this theme, Hendrix will focus on these changing landscapes in Paradise Lost, the first being the landscape that Cook and Banks encountered when they arrived.

The second is the landscape transformed by man’s intervention.

The exhibition has been conceived of two elements engaged in a dialogue

the first is some related historical material from Banks’ expedition, and
the second is the contemporary pieces created by Hendrix, including exquisite enamel plates and contemporary drawings based on Banks’ herbarium sheets.

The centrepiece of the gallery will be a ‘folly’, the Mirror Palace Pavilion, the form of which is inspired by two plant species named after Banks and Daniel Solander, Banksia serrata and Banksia solandri

Jan Hendrix's current exhibition, Tierra Firme, at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City. Credit Oliver Santana

Jan Hendrix's current exhibition, Tierra Firme, at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City. Credit Jaime Navarro

The exhibition will also feature

a series of floating wall mounted bronzes representing seed and fern forms,
silk screens on silver leaf,
a series of glass pieces and
a moving image work created by Jan Hendrix in collaboration with filmmaker Michael Leggett specifically for the show at Kew.

A book to accompany the exhibition will also be published by Kew Publishing.

“We cannot think of anyone better to highlight Joseph Banks’ contribution to botanical science through the prism of contemporary art than Jan Hendrix. Jan’s long-standing interest in the life and work of Banks coupled with his passion for plants and nature lays the foundation for what promises to be a ground-breaking exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. The exhibition will offer an opportunity to bring to the attention of arts audiences the impact that we have as human beings on the planet, by using the example of Botany Bay and how it was irrevocably changed after 1770. We hope that our visitors will find it a thought provoking yet beautiful experience."
Maria Devaney, Galleries and Exhibitions Leader, RBG Kew

Note: None of the artwork featured above will be in the exhibition.

About Jan Hendrix

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ASBA 22nd Annual International - Awards

24/9/2019

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The American Society of Botanical Artists have now been announced the Awards for artwork in the 22nd Annual International Exhibition at the Marin Art & Garden Center in California.

BELOW you can click on:

the title of the artwork - to read the story behind its creation on the ASBA website
the artist's name - to go to her website - if one exists. (Plus Facebook Page if they have one)

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum by Linda Medved Lufkin

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum (Watercolor and gouache on paper, 28-1/2 X 20 inches) - copyright Linda Medved Lufkin 2018

Marin Art and Garden Center Best in Show Award ($500)

Sea Holly Eryngium alpinum
Linda Medved Lufkin
Facebook Page: Linda Medved Lufkin Botanical Art

I have to say I was hugely impressed by this painting when I saw it online for the first time and it seems a very worthy winner of Best in Show to me. I always think of this plant as a bit of a drama queen whenever I see it in gardens and Linda has caught that flavour and colour with her dynamic composition and very controlled colour palette. I also really loved her 'bad hair day' analogy about the complexity and structure of the leaves in her back story!

Her backstory provides a wonderful insight into how she approached painting a plant such as the Eryngium alpinum.

In 2018 I was shopping with Marilyn Garber at our flower wholesaler for the subject of the next class I was to teach at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art. It was entitled Enlarging Scale & Format. I was to teach my students to use a gridding system and enlarge a small subject by three times, which would use most of a full sheet of paper. I was looking for a plant that would offer my students enough complexity and detail that they would need to be very diligent in ‘mapping’ out the placement of their lines within each grid space and achieve a complex, but obtainable challenge. When I found the bouquets of Sea Holly, Eryngium alpinum, I knew that I found something that would work beautifully for our purposes. READ MORE

Linda uses the traditional technique of developing layers of transparent washes, then using a very small brush to develop detail, colour and form using the drybrush technique. She's been working as an Instructor at The Minnesota School of Botanical Art since 2016. Prior to this she worked for many years creating customised murals for clients. Linda has previously had work in and was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Portland School of Art, ME. in 1982. She has a strong exhibition record with ASBA in recent years.

ASBA's 19th and 20th International Annual Exhibitions
won The Richmond and Lili Bates Award in 2017 and The Helen Gray Garber Award in 2016
Also was selected for an exhibited in the Botanical Art World Wide: America’s Flora’ and ‘Out of the Woods: Trees in Public Gardens’ exhibitions.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Award for Print or Drawing ($500)

Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches) - copyright Patricia Luppino

Fascinator Paeonia lactiflora (Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19 inches)
Patricia Luppino

Born in Brooklyn, New York and a lifelong resident of Long Island. Now retired from a long career as an IT professional. She started studying botanical art in 2005 and earned the SBA Diploma in Botanical Painting with Distinction in 2008. Since then she's exhibited in various juried and group exhibitions of botanical art - including (prior to this exhibition) the 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 21st ASBA Annual International Botanical Art Exhibitions with the Horticultural Society of New York, the 1st Triennial Botanical Art Exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden. This year Patricia is also exhibiting in the 16th International Exhibition at the Hunt.

Patricia and I were emailing backwards and forwards yesterday about another matter and she never said a word about her award!

ASBA Eleanor Wunderlich Award ($500)

Physalis Physalis peruviana (Watercolor on paper, 11-5/8 x 8-3/8 inches)
Svetlana Lanse (Vinnikova) (
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/svetlanawatercolor

Svetlana Lanse is a professional artist and art teacher living in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Higher School of Folk Arts (institute) where she learned about botanical art by copying artwork by Pierre Joseph Redouté and Maria Sibylla Merian. She is currently trying to popularise botanical art in Russia using Instagram (@botanical_watercolor) and has more than 85,000 followers. In May 2018 she was juror of Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition (Russia) with Alexander Viazmensky, Natalia Alatortseva, Yaroslav Bazanova and Darya Fomicheva.

Richmond and Lili Bates Award for Excellence
in recognition of an Artist by a Fellow Artist ($300)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Samba Dancer' (Watercolor on paper, 15-1/2 x 11-½ inches)
Mitsuko Schultz (no website)

Mitsuko Schultz moved to Los Angeles from Kyoto, Japan in 1996. Her passion for plants and flowers saw her working at the UCLA Botanical Garden where she began her horticulture studies when then led to her becoming a floral designer in Los Angeles - and then eventually to her taking up botanical art.. Her work has been included in the Hunt's 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration, Filoli’s Annual Botanical Art Exhibitions (Roth Award recipient in 2018), ASBA Annual Internationals (received an Honorable mention in 2017, catalogue cover in 2018), Out of the Woods, Botanical Art Worldwide America’s Flora and numerous other shows in California since 2011. She is also a member of the Botanical Artist Guild of Southern California.

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Honourable Mentions

This year there are two Honourable Mentions.

Karen Kluglein has a marvellous bunch of grapes - Joie de Vivre Vitis vinifera (Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches)
Tammy McEntee's very lovely coloured pencil drawing is of an Ornamental Gourd Cucurbita pepo (Colored pencil and graphite on paper, 12 x 12 inches)

The Back Stories

You can see the remaining artworks and read about their back stories by clicking the links on this list of artists selected for the exhibition (click the artists tab and then click the link in each artist's name to read the story)

The exhibition is at The Studio, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Frances Drake Blvd, Ross, CA 94957. It opened last Sunday and continues until 17th November 2019.

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RHS London Botanical Art Show 2019 - Awards and Medal Winners

24/7/2019

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This post is about who won which award and which colour of medal at the RHS London Botanical Art Show 2019.

Below you can read about

which artists won Awards for outstanding botanical artwork
the names of artists and exhibits which won different colour medals - and some images of the Gold Medal winners

There are:

10 Gold Medals ( UK x 5; Japan x 4; Russia x 1;)
8 Silver Gilt Medals
10 Silver Medals
2 Bronze Medals

Links in the names of artists are generally to their websites where you can see more about their botanical artwork.

If you'd like to read more bout the individual artists, please refer to Exhibiting artists at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2019

Awards for outstanding botanical artwork

There are three Awards this year - which were awarded as follows:

Best Botanical Painting 2019: Mariko Ikeda GM (2017-2019): P.Tectorius ‘En Khelen’ - Mariko is developing an excellent track record. She won Best Exhibit in her first exhibit and Best Painting this time.
Best Botanical Art Exhibit 2019: Naomi Gumma GM (2019): The Lifecycle of the Shimonita Welsh Onion Naomi's art extends well beyond her botanical painting - see the video below (in the Gold Medal section) of her dance associated with her exhibit.
Judges’ Special Award 2019: Betsy Rogers-Knox: Exploring the Seasons at Beckley Bog - This was awarded because of the significant educational value about plants growing in a specific environment of Betsy's images.

Best Botanical Painting 2019: Mariko Ikeda GM (2017-2019)

Best Botanical Art Exhibit 2019: Naomi Gumma GM (2019): The Lifecycle of the Shimonita Welsh Onion

Judges’ Special Award 2019: Betsy Rogers-Knox

RHS Gold Medals 2019

There are ten Gold Medals. It's important to also note that

Four previous GM winners repeated their GM from their last exhibition and
Four previous GM winners did not win a GM this time.

Just because you have won a GM before there is no guarantee you can repeat this. The medal is awarded for a specific exhibit not the botanical Artist per se.

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How RHS medals for Botanical Art are assessed

23/7/2019

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For those coming to the RHS London Botanical Art Show this week - and those watching social media and reading online - you may be interested in how a botanical art exhibit at an RHS Botanical Art Show is assessed for

whether it should receive a medal and
what sort of medal it should get.

Gold Medals are only given for exhibits of outstanding quality, whatever their diversity of approach, or visual impact
Gillian Barlow, Chair of the RHS Picture Panel (in RHS Botanical Illustration - the Gold Medal Winners)

Candidates who have been approved to exhibit must submit at least six works - preferably on a theme.

You can earn extra marks if you illustrate a plant family.

ASSESSMENT: KEY POINTS are:

very high standards are essential
the emphasis should be on botanical accuracy with aesthetic appeal

The Picture Panel Judges always:

assess as botanical illustration
review botanical content and accuracy
review artistic and aesthetic effect
assess overall impression and how this has been achieved
assess the whole exhibit; marks are awarded for presentation of the exhibit as well as accuracy and quality of the artwork

The best botanical illustration successfully combines scientific accuracy with visual appeal. It must portray a plant with the precision and level of detail for it to be recognised and distinguished from another species.

Two of the botanical illustrations by Hye Woo Shin (RHS Botanical Art Show 2018) - which resulted in a Judges’ Special Award 2018 for ‘ Plants in Dokdo Island’

As a technical discipline, botanical illustration emphasizes the depiction of accurate information, documenting the anatomical and functional aspect of a plant throughout its life cycle.

Judges want to see.....

My suggestions of things you need to do to deliver on what judges are looking for are indicated in bullet points below.

This summary is based on discussions over time with both Judges and artists who have had feedback from Judges - and highlights some of the frequent problem areas which I hear about again and again. (I'll be updating and amending after this week's show!)

All quotes in green (except for the first above) are drawn from the Exhibitor Fact Sheet

Artwork should be life size and if not, a scale must be evident.

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BISCOT 2019 & RBGE Florilegium at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

13/6/2019

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In this post I'm sharing photos of:

BISCOT medal winning artists with their paintings - at the BISCOT Exhibition at Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh (RBGE)
paintings for the NEW RBGE Florilegium

You can see the exhibition of paintings

AT: The John Hope Gateway, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Arboretum Place, EH3 5NZ
UNTIL: 20 June 2019

About Botanical Images Scotia (BISCOT)

BISCOT is an acronym for "Botanical Images Scotia". It's an annual international exhibition in Scotland of contemporary botanical illustration which

promotes excellence in botanical painting and illustration.
gives both national and international artists an opportunity to exhibit in Edinburgh and presents new and original botanical work.

Each exhibitor creates a display of SIX artworks - and the exhibition is open to and attracts international entrants. In this respect BISCOT is the Scottish equivalent of the RHS Botanical Art Show in London - and is regarded as the top show in Scotland in terms of awards and prestige.

Below are photos of artists with their paintings after the exhibition transferred from Gardening Scotland to the RBGE John Hope Gateway last week.

Gold Medals

Fran Thomas (Scotland, UK) - Scottish Native Cladonia Lichens
Sansanee Deekrajang (Thailand) - Tropical Palm Trees
Marianne Hazlewood (Scotland, UK) - Arisaema biseasonal
Simonetta Occhipinti (Italy) - The Golden Fruits

Fran Thomas (Scotland, UK) - Scottish Native Cladonia Lichens (GOLD Medal)

Fran Thomas GM (Biscot) - Fran paints native Scottish plants. In 2017 she also won a Gold Medal at BISCOT 2017 and the Mary Mendum Medal for the Best Exhibit - for her watercolour paintings of "Native plants of the coasts and islands of the Firth of Forth". She also has two RHS Silver Gilt Medals.

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Certificates - Society of Botanical Artists Annual Exhibition 2019

8/6/2019

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This is about all the botanical artwork and botanical artists and illustrators who received on of the two types of Certificates awarded at Plantae, the 2019 Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists 2019. These were:

a Certificate of Botanical Merit
a Certificate of Exhibiting Excellence

This is the third of four posts about the Plantae exhibition - see the end for more details of the exhibiting artists and who won the main awards and prizes.

About the Certificates of Botanical Merit

Ficus carica ‘White Marseilles’ – Cardinal Pole’s White Fig by Sandra Doyle (watercolour on vellum £900)

The annual exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists is not a "strictly botanical" show in the same way that the RHS botanical art shows are.

This is because the SBA's founder Suzanne Lucas MBE FLS HPRMS PPRMS FPSBA HonSWA HSF BMS (1915-2008) believed very strongly that the portrayal of plants need not always be highly scientific and illustrative.

“To incorporate more recent techniques and styles in a broader interpretation; combining the scientific and representational, giving a rich and varied view of the wonderful world of plants.”

Consequently the SBA created the award of a Certificate of Botanical Merit in order to:

highlight the importance of drawings and paintings which are created in a botanical style - including some which observe the very precise niceties of scientific botanical illustration
for those botanical artworks in the exhibition which are particularly noteworthy in this respect.

The recipients of a Certificate of Botanical Merit are also chosen every year by a wholly independent Judge who is well qualified in terms of their botanical / horticultural knowledge.
were selected by Kew Gardens' botanical illustrator Lucy T Smith - twice winner of the Margaret Flockton Award

In recent years that person has been Lucy T. Smith GM BVA MVA . Lucy is a very experienced and multi award-winning professional botanical illustrator who produces botanical illustrations for publication by the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. She won the very prestigious Margaret Flockton Award in 2014 and 2017 (see Second Margaret Flockton Award win for Lucy T. Smith) and the Jill Smythies Award for Botanical Illustration, awarded by the Linnean Society of London in 2004 . Her work has been published in numerous scientific publications. She also works as a botanical art tutor at Kew (including the Certificate of Botanical Illustration at Kew) and the Chelsea School of Botanical Art.

When judging the artwork for CBMs, Lucy is not looking for a presentation along the lines of a strict scientific botanical illustration brief - but rather one she is looking for whether an image fulfils the brief of describing the plant accurately and well.

The CBMs in 2019

The artworks and their artists receiving CBMs in 2017 are listed below - followed by images of their work. The artworks also list the media and the price of the work in the image caption.

The name of the work is listed first followed by an alphabetical listing by surname of the artist - with a link to their website embedded in their name if they have one.

Ficus carica’ White Marseilles by Sandra Doyle - this is Cardinal Pole’s White Fig, which grows in the garden of Lambeth Palace. Originally planted by the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole, in 1556 and still thriving today. (for image see the top of this post)
Aloe arborescent by Angie Gray SBA Fellow
Horned Melon by Agita Keiri
Winter Cardoons by Maryna Kyselyova
Iris pseudacorus by Nina Mayes
Monkey Puzzle by Michelle Eun Young Song SBA Fellow
Calypso bulbosa by Anna Suprunenko
The Hawthorn at Gilfach by Claire Ward SBA Fellow

Now for the images of the artwork which merited a CBM.....

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Awards - Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition 2019

6/6/2019

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This post is the second of four about the annual exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists:

today's post is about the botanical artists receiving awards at "Plantae" the 2019 Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists. It includes images of the artwork receiving awards and more information about the artists (links to their websites are embedded in their names).
yesterday's post Plantae: SBA Annual Exhibition 2019 - Selected Artists was about the artists whose work was selected for the exhibition
the next post is about those artists who were awarded a Certificate of Botanical Merit - which was judged by Lucy T Smith, who illustrates plants for Kew Gardens or the NEW Certificate of Exhibiting Excellence
finally, the fourth post will be a review of the exhibition as a whole - with notes of the artwork I liked and a commentary on its move to the Mall Galleries. I've been asking people what they think about the new environment.

The show is on at the Mall Galleries in London until 1pm on 9th June 2019. Admission is free

The awards are split into two categories:

the SBA Awards - awarded by the SBA Council
The Prizes awarded by the Exhibition's Sponsors.

NOTE: The quotations below come from the Society of Botanical Artists Instagram account.

SBA Award Winners

The Joyce Cuming Presentation Award
This is probably one of the most prized awards and is a sterling silver Almoner’s plate which is a legacy from Joyce Cuming. The winner also receives a certificate.

The winner was Lidiya Doukhnevitch who is based in Minsk in Belarus.

For me this was one of the best - if not the best - paintings in the competition. My eye kept being drawn back to it. That's because it has a great subject treated in an unusual way. It kept reminding me of alien monsters in sci-fi movies - and yet's it just what potatoes do if you leave them alone! The tonal range was great (which helped it to bounce off the walls in the gallery and make you want to go and look at it again) and the colour handling is impeccable.

The Secret World of Potatoes by Lidiya Doukhnevitch (watercolour £1,500)

Botanical art is not just about pretty flowers! This painting ‘The Secret World of Potatoes’ by Lidiya Doukhnevitch @lida_duhnevich is a stunning example of how even the simplest of plants can be intriguing and exciting!

I asked Lidiya why she chose a potato and she replied as follows

“It’s not difficult to create something beautiful from something beautiful. And when you start a new picture, you involuntarily set yourself a task higher and more difficult. So I decided to look at something at first glance unattractive in a new way and look at it from the inside. To tell the story of life. I even tried to grow it. But the potato itself found me. I love the sunlight very much, how it creates the world around us for our eyes. Therefore, I always build the lighting in the artwork. " Lidiya Doukhnevitch

The Margaret Granger Memorial Silver Bowl
This award is given in memory of Margaret Granger for the best picture by a member elected in the last two years. As a prize it's an excellent incentive for a new member to create a memorable impression.

The award winner was Jackie Isard SBA Fellow who was a graphic designer prior to becoming a botanical artist. I very much liked all the works she entered this year and recommend you look out for them.

Faded Protea neriifolia ‘Snowcrest’ by Jackie Isard (watercolour, £1,450)

Joanne Craig McFeely Rose Bowl
This is a Silver Rose Bowl awarded (for a year) for a true botanical work - judged by an external Judge (although NOT in this case Lucy Smith who judged the Certificates of Botanical Merit - not quite sure what happened there).

The winner was an American artist Charlotte Ricker who teaches "Botanical Illustration in Pencil II" at the School of Botanical Art & Illustration | Denver Botanic Gardens. Bear in mind this work was completed using watercolour pencils!

I really loved this work. This excellent contemporary interpretation of the sequencing of the bud through to bloom and then seed head reminded me very much of Georg Ehret's own magnificent painting of Magnifolia grandiflora with growth sequence. It's similar enough to tip its head to the master and different enough to be unique. (See my page About Georg Dionysius Ehret for a comparison)

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