NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

ONLINE Botanical Art Exhibitions updated + new ARCHIVE page

4/1/2023

I've just completed a major update of Online Botanical Art Exhibitions listed on Botanical Art and Artists. You can find content on

the main page Online / Virtual Exhibitions of Botanical Art and Illustration
the NEW ARCHIVE PAGE - which contains links which enable access to past exhibitions which are still available online

I'm expecting these pages to become an increasingly important record of exhibitions of botanical art and illustration as more and more organisations examine how they can display artwork on an appropriate platform. I'm hoping to write further on this latter topic in a future blog post.

Online / Virtual Exhibitions of
Botanical Art and Illustration

This page details:

CURRENT/RECENT Exhibitions - Typically all exhibitions listed in the current calendar year
UPCOMING Online Exhibitions - if these are notified to me in advance of 'publication'. There is also a form which you can use to provide the information asked for a listing.
how to find the ARCHIVE LISTING - including exhibitions still available online
ADVICE & TIPS for organisations planning future online exhibitions - this provides
- information and advice about the relevant considerations and practical aspects related to online exhibitions
- rules associated with selling botanical art online - and then getting it safely to the buyer.
- I'm very happy to add in links to advice sheets or other information about how to make life simple for those creating online exhibitions. Do please contact me or use the form at the bottom of the page.

You can find this page listed as "Online Exhibitions" second from the top of the menu under Exhibitions in the top line menu of the Botanical Art and Artists website.

ARCHIVE 2018 - 2022:
Past Online / Virtual Botanical Art Exhibitions

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Two International Botanical Art Exhibitions

31/12/2022

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I've been remiss, for various reasons, in not highlighting two international exhibitions at the end of 2022 on this blog to date. These are:

ASBA: 25th International Exhibition - at Wave Hill (finished 30th December 2022)
SBA: Online Plantae 2022 (finishes 3rd January 2023)

One of the reasons is that they were held by two long standing and prestigious botanical art societies who do an excellent job of promoting their exhibitions, member artists and the artwork in an exhibition online via Facebook.

However to maintain a record, I'm writing this post to record those who participated.

25th International Exhibition
American Society of Botanical Artists

Website: 25th Annual International Exhibition (including The artwork)
Facebook Page: American Society of Botanical Artists
Facebook Group: ASBA Members

Some of the artwork from the 25th International exhibition displayed on the ASBA Facebook Page - in individual posts

44 artworks were selected from 200 entries submitted by ASBA botanical artist members from around the world. Artists in the exhibition are from the US, Canada, Czech Republic, France, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, and the UK. Eleven have never been in an ASBA International exhibition.

The Exhibition was held at Wave Hill between 19th November and 30th December 2022.

THE ARTISTS

Artists included are:

Aislinn Adams,
Anastasiya Arvest,
Margaret Best,
Claudia Campazzo,
Hyunjin Cho,
Mary Crabtree,
Jesssica Daigle,
Mary Dillon,
Crystal Driedger,
Jean Emmons,
Akiko Enokido,
Christiane Fashek,
Ingrid Finnan,
Jane Fisher,
Lara Gastinger,
Gaye Grossman,
Damodar Lal Gurjar,
Diane Harm,
Albina P. Herron,
Asuka Hishiki,
Wendy Hollender,
Vincent Jeannerot,
Katy Lyness,
Lucy Martin,
Angela Mirro,
Sandy Morrison,
Keiko Nibu Tarver,
An Suk Park,
Sengmany Phommachakr,
Dr. Dick Rauh,
Betsy Rogers-Knox,
Kathy Schermer-Gramm,
Kaori Shimura,
Liz Shippam,
Kim Spink,
Maryna Stasyuk,
Anna Suprunenko,
Faye Van Wert,
Catherine Watters,
Kerri Weller, and
Carol Woodin.

THE AWARDS

Wave Hill Best in Show Award $500
Mary Dillon Abundance Punica granatum ‘Nana’ Watercolor on paper

Eleanor Wunderlich Award $500
Damodar Lal Gurjar Papaya Tree Carica papaya (Tempera on paper)

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Award for a Print or Drawing $500
Kathy Schermer-Gramm Common Blue Violet Viola sororia (Graphite on paper)

Honorable Mentions

Jean Emmons: Full Tilt Boogie Iris, Iris “Full Tilt Boogie’ Watercolor on vellum
Lara Call Gastinger Winter Meadow Daucus carota, Rhus copallinum, Andropogon virginicus, Agrostis sp., Phragmites sp. Watercolor on vellum
Katy Lyness Oh! My Darlin’! Triptych Citrus x clementina Colored pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper
Lucy Martin Madrone Branch Arbutus menziesii Gouache and watercolor on paper
Liz Shippam Madresfield Court Grapes Vitis vinifera ‘Madresfield Court’ Watercolor on paper

THE JURY

Eileen Jeng Lynch, Curator of Visual Arts, Wave Hill,
Karen Kluglein, botanical artist, and
John Pastoriza-Piñol

The ASBA also organised a Virtual Artists Talk about works in the exhibition - which you can see on YouTube (see above)

The Catalog for the Exhibition is available from the ASBA website

Society of Botanical Artists

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Bryan Poole (1953-2022)

29/12/2022

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Bryan Poole has died age 69. He was one of those very rare people in the world of botanical art - a very fine printmaker and a renowned creator of contemporary aquatint etchings featuring botanical plants. He was a perennial and popular exhibitor of his prints at the RHS Chelsea Show.

Below you can find an appreciation of his timeline and records of his background, career development, techniques used to produce his fine art prints, exhibitions, awards, commissions and collections.

My photo of Bryan Poole with his aquatint etching of "Cynara cardunculus - Cardoon" at a Private View at the Jonathan Cooper Gallery in Chelsea (21 April 2015)

Biography

Born in New Zealand on 2nd December 1953, he passed away on 19th December 2022, just after his 69th birthday, at his London home after a long battle with cancer. (See Death Notice at the end of this post)

It's been announced that a Memorial Service is planned to celebrate his life and achievements.

"Bryan Poole follows in a long line of fine botanical illustrators. Unusually, he has the gift to be able to combine traditional methods of illustration and reproduction with a very modern approach to botanical art and design. His appealing and distinctive work adds hugely to the wide range of talent found amongst botanical artists today."
Dr Christopher Grey-Wilson

Despite his New Zealand heritage, after graduating in Politics and Economics at the University of Otago and with absolutely no training in art, Bryan came to London in the early 1980s and became a freelance botanical illustrator and printmaker in 1981. Latterly he lived in Hackney in East London where he had his print studio in a converted air raid shelter

Bryan Poole in his studio

When he came to London, he trained and worked (1980-1986) in the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, under Dr Christopher Grey-Wilson, former editor of The Kew Magazine.

Subsequently he worked on commissions with a number of different people and bodies - including Dr John Kress, a botanist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

He produced his contemporary botanical aquatint etchings using copperplates and the painstaking and meticulous intaglio ("in the cut") technique developed in Europe in the 16th century and "spit bite" aquatint techniques (see Techniques below for an explanation of how he did this).

"I lived my life, independently, overseas and sang my own song . . . It is not that I've neglected New Zealand in any shape, way or form but it is just that I can make a living in London. I could never have done international work, gone to Dominican Republic, met (Smithsonian botanist and curator) John Kress, gone to Nepal . . . I am in the centre of things in London."
Botanical artist Bryan Poole home for Central Otago exhibition

Exhibitions

My first meeting with Bryan Poole - who was exhibiting his aquatint etchings at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2008

Bryan was probably best known to most people as a perennial exhibitor of his fine art botanical prints on a stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It's where I first met him - and became a big fan of his work.

An article by Ursula Buchan (Daily Telegraph 21 May 2008) identifies the print which can be seen on the bottom right of my photograph of him above.

Poole always shows his hand-coloured etchings at Chelsea and this year he has two pictures on display that are likely to cause something of a sensation. Each portrays the flower of a tropical heliconia species - just visible inside the enormous, gaudy, orange-red bracts - and the gorgeous purple-throated carib hummingbird (Eulampsis jugularis ). In one, the male bird is visiting Heliconia caribaea, in the other the female is buzzing round H. bihai. These pictures tell an amazing tale of co-evolution - or what scientists call "ecological causation of sexual dimorphism and co-adaptation
from Chelsea Flower Show 2008: A cut above the competition by Ursula Buchan, Daily Telegraph (21 May 2008)

Other achievements included

He had a one person exhibition of his work at the Herbarium Library at Kew in 2000
He exhibited in the 10th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration (28th October 2001 - 28th February 2002) at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh.
He received a prestigious Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in 2007
He was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 2002 and promoted to Fellow in 2006.

He was also a regular exhibitor at specific Print Fairs and Shows in London.

Recently Bryan exhibited his botanical etchings

at Jonathan Cooper Gallery in 2015 - see the Catalogue of Work from Botanical Artists in the Collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE
in Central Otago in 2016 - See Botanical artist Bryan Poole home for Central Otago exhibition
as part of Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art (2019-20) the exhibition at Kew Gardens to celebrate the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art and 30 years of collecting 1,000+ artworks from all over the world - see Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists
various other exhibitions of the Shirley Sherwood Collection at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens (e.g. see Curtain Call for "Exotica" at Kew - list of art and artists exhibited in 2019)
a retrospective exhibition at the London Sketch Club - in association with a book about his work

In recent years, he and I both had problems with walking and standing. When meeting at Private Views at Kew, we used to shuffle around the exhibition using our walking sticks and often laid claim to the benches and sat next to one another during the speeches at the PVs.

I will miss him and his work. It was exceptional.

Bryan Poole at the Otago Exhibition in 2016

Technique

Poole's technique was described in detail in The Telegraph article in 2008. Although Bryan describes 'The Etching Process' on his website, I'm reproducing it below for posterity as it appears to be the only place where his approach to his work has ever been described in such detail.

Essentially it's the same process used by the famous botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) when he created fine art prints from his watercolours.

Poole is also notable for making a number of artworks using a landscape format - in order to capture the growth habit of a plant.

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UPDATE: Young Botanical Artist Competition - deadline extended

26/11/2022

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This is a SUMMARY of the UPDATES relating to the Young Botanical Artist Competition introduced by Dr Shirley Sherwood in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. I've been getting quite a few queries from people interested in the competition and felt the need to summarise

the changes since the competition was first announced.
the frequently asked questions answered - and where to go if you have any other query

So this is an UPDATE about what's happened since the competition was introduced:

on this webpage Young Botanical Artist Competition on the Shirley Sherwood website
this blog post Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022: Call for Entries on the Botanical Art and Artists website.

What's changed?

Artwork: Jessica Shepherd, ‘Giant Leaf Poplar Tree’, 900 x 1260, Watercolour.

In summary, the CHANGES are as follows :

the deadline for entries from Young Artists has been EXTENDED to April 30th 2023
those artists whose work is selected for the exhibition will now be notified by 30th June 2023
40 selected artworks will be displayed in an exhibition in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery from October 2023.

This is what it says in the announcement on the Shirley Sherwood Collection Facebook Page.

In collaboration with Kew Gardens, we’ve decided to dedicate an entire wing of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery to our #YoungBotanicalArtist competition. More space means more artworks so we’ve extended our deadline to April 30th, 2023. Shortlisted artists will be informed by June 30th and 40 selected artworks will be displayed in the gallery from October onwards.

This is a unique opportunity to make your mark as a botanical artist and we encourage you to be as creative as you can within our theme of ‘TREES’. Check out our website for inspiration – you’ll find over 1,000 of the world’s best artworks all in one place.

We’re inviting young artists from the ages of 16-18 and 19-25 to enter our competition. If you turned 26 between our original deadline of November 30th, 2022 and our new deadline, your application will still be eligible.

The winning artist from each age group will receive £750 and the two runners-up £250 along with an art supplies bundle donated by Seawhite of Brighton.
To read more about the competition and apply, visit our website: https://shirleysherwood.com/YoungBotanicalArtist

Please also note

The artist's age on the deadline date - April 30th 2023 - should determine which age category they submit within. Artists who turned 26 between November 30th 2022 (our original competition deadline) and April 30th 2023 are still eligible to apply.

Do you have a further query?

I want to emphasise all further queries about the competition should be directed to the Shirley Sherwood website - see the bottom of the page for how to do this (see below). Plus there is a FAQs section which provides responses to frequently asked questions

Do you have a question not covered above?, please contact us.

The queries answered in the FAQs section currently cover:

Who can enter the competition?
Can I enter a piece that is off-theme?
Does it matter if I am an artist living outside the UK?
Can I use digital media?
Can I submit more than one artwork?
Will I make profit from sales if my work is printed on to merchandise?

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

20/11/2022

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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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The 16th Biennial Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibition at RBG Victoria

18/9/2022

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Yesterday the 16th Biennial Exhibition of The Art of Botanical Illustration (TABI 2022) opened in Melbourne, Australia.

Venue: Domain House galleries, Dallas Brooks Drive, Melbourne
Dates: Saturday 17th September and Sunday 2nd October 2022
Hours: 10am - 4pm daily
The exhibition is organised and presented by the Friends of the Royal Botanic Garden Victoria.

Below you can find out more about:

the exhibition
how to view the artwork and videos online
history of the exhibition
the awards for artwork
an associated exhibition - in a blog post later this week.

The hero image for the 16th Biennial (in the publicity images) is a beautiful and delicate painting of Grevillea rosmarinifolia, painted by Lioudmila Volodina. (At TABI 2020, her artwork Vaccinium corymbosum was purchased for The State Botanical Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.)

The Art of Botanical Illustration (16th Biennial)

The Art of Botanical Illustration exhibition is one of Australia’s leading and most prestigious botanical illustration exhibitions - and is held on a biennial basis.

It's been four years since the last exhibition - due to its biennial nature combined with the pandemic. The last exhibition - as highlighted in The 15th Biennial Art of Botanical Illustration Exhibition at RBG Melbourne was Online Only .)

All artworks are for sale and funds raised are used to support the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

TABI this year is being held for the first time as a hybrid exhibition with

a physical exhibition at the Domain Galleries. This prestigious exhibition of native and exotic species is open daily (including public holidays). (see above for details)
You can also view the artwork ONLINE via https://tabi.rbgfriendsmelbourne.org/ - specifically:
- Gallery of Artwork in the TABI Exhibition - in alphabetical order of the artists' surnames
- Names of the participating artists and links to their artwork and profiles
- Vimeo Videos of artists and others talking about TABI stories the exhibition.

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