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

About Mieko Ishikawa
​

Mieko Ishikawa with her fellow botanical artists from Japan - in the Flora Japonica preview at the Shirley Sherwood Gardens in September 2016

About The Shirley Sherwood Award for Botanical Art
​

Andrew Brown developed his skill in botanical illustration through his doctoral work on palynological vegetation history and during a career as an educator in the independent school sector. After retirement, he devoted himself to illustration fulltime. His detailed paintings of Alaskan wildflowers based on drawings done from life, have been exhibited at the Society and elsewhere. Other paintings have been selected for inclusion in limited edition botanical works, such as the Highgrove Florilegium. The black and white illustrations accompanying new species descriptions and floristic treatments demonstrate his skill in depicting detail, as well as the overall aspect of a plant, ensuring they are both faithful to the specimen from which they are drawn and aid in identification. He also contributes to the promotion of excellence in botanical illustration through his participation in societies and in botanical illustration workshops.
Citation for 2022 Jill Smythies Award

About Andrew Brown

Dr. Andrew Brown

RHS Judge Andrew Brown providing feedback to Jackie Isard on her RHS Gold Medal winning exhibit - at the RHS Botanical Art Show preview day earlier this month.

Dr Andrew Brown giving a talk - From Plant to Plate - at Kew about producing a scientific illustration on the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art 18th May 2018

Andrew Brown with his Voodoo Lily in the 'British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection' exhibition at Kew in 2016

About the Jill Smythies Prize - and the Linnean Society
​

The hanging format picture provided to RHS by Melinda Edstein for her exhibit "Red flowering, bird pollinated Australian flowers"

RHS Silver Gilt Medals for Botanical Art 2022
​

An exhibit is only as good as the weakest painting.

Two Western Australia Eucalypts by Andrew Carr

RHS Botanical Art Awards 2022
​

Tsunami plants by Mitsuko Kurashina - a very special exhibit which I've been looking forward to seeing for years!

"Wet Meadow Wildflowers - their pollinators and as food plants" by Jackie Isard

About the Finnis Scott Botanical Art Award
​

History of the Botanical Art Award
​

The Prize is to aid in the staging of an exhibition, ‘Botanical Treasures – inspiration from nature in porcelain and on paper’, in collaboration with the Royal Worcester Museum. This will be based on the work of Stuart Lafford, an artist working for the Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory who, as a practising botanical artist, had taught many of the Gloucestershire Society’s members. The exhibition will draw on original drawings, porcelain, and pattern books in the Factory’s archives, and will be staged at the Royal Worcester Museum.

Images associated with the exhibition sponsored by the GSBI/Museum of Worcester Exhibition associated with the Finnis Scott Foundation Botanical Art Award 2020

We held a joint exhibition at the Museum during the summer of 2021 which showed new works created in response to the beautiful, decorated porcelain and superb archive of the Museum.
We also celebrated the work of the late Stuart Lafford who was a designer at Royal Worcester in the 1980's and taught many of the Society's members. Stuart was very involved with Michael Hickey in the early days of the GSBI.

How to submit an entry for the 2022 Award
​

Major Botanical Art Awards
​

For the excellence of her depictions of plants for scientific use, including the detailed portrayal of their diagnostic characteristics, Alice Tangerini is our 2020 winner of the Jill Smythies Award. In addition to illustrating new species, Alice has illustrated multiple taxa from the same group for the same publication, such that the details of the drawings can be used to distinguish the species.

Since 1972, Alice has made diagnostic illustrations for over 1,000 plant species in pen and ink, graphite, and more recently in digital media, for a variety of publications. Using mainly herbarium specimens as her resource material, she has prepared these illustrations to portray the species in a realistic manner with necessary reconstruction to remove the artefacts of drying and physical damage. Significant taxonomic characters have been enlarged with the aid of a microscope to facilitate their use in species descriptions. 

Over the years, the detail and accuracy of her drawings and examinations of the specimens have resulted in authors changing descriptions, based on details observed by Alice that had escaped the botanists’ notice. For instance, her detailed examination of a proposed new species of bromeliad resulted in the production of a newly written, enhanced description. As a result, the authors, Lyman B. Smith and Harold Robinson, decided to name the new species Navia aliciae in her honour. Such collaboration with scientists in describing a taxon is the hallmark of exemplary botanical illustration.
The Jill Smythies Award 2020

​About The Jill Smythies Award
​

A medal and £1000 to a botanical artist for outstanding, diagnostically relevant, published illustrations.

Established in 1986 by the late Mr B E Smythies FLS, in honour of his wife, the late Florence Mary Smythies ("Jill"), whose career as a botanical artist was cut short by an accident to her right hand.

​Awarded to a botanical artist in recognition of excellence in published illustrations in aid of plant identification, with the emphasis on botanical accuracy and the accurate portrayal of diagnostic characteristics.

About Alice Tangerini
​