NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Bryan Poole (1953-2022)

29/12/2022

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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60th Anniversary of the Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library

27/10/2021

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On 10th October 1961, the Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library was dedicated in a new building on the campus of Carnegie University in Pittsburgh USA.

The penthouse gallery of the Hunt Library is where - every three years - one of the most prestigious exhibitions of botanical art in the world is held. You can read more about the International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration - which started in 1964 on:

Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation website
the dedicated page Hunt International Exhibitions of Botanical Art & Illustration on this website

I've only just found out that the anniversary - and all that went into it - is being recorded on the @HuntBotanical Twitter Account through various writings and photos associated with Rachel M M Hunt - some of which are reproduced below. Thank you to those associated with the Library for providing this insight into its development.

Below you can find a brief insight into:

the opening of the Hunt Botanical Library
the life of Rachel M M Hunt - and the development of the Hunt Botanical Library

60th Anniversary of the Hunt Library

My husband Roy and I are donating my botanical collection and a new library building to Carnegie Tech. The cornerstone will be laid tomorrow. I’m so excited! (18 October 1960) (6)

If you click the image below you will be taken to Twitter where if you click the pics you can see the full sized photographic record of the Dedication Day and Rachel McMaster Miller Hunt herself.

...Dozens, literally hundreds of people came for the occasion from far, near and abroad.”

12 Oct 1961: “I am so thankful that I have lived to see the fulfillment of my dream of the Botanical Library and that many, many years of collecting are going to mean something to Pittsburgh and, really, to the world.” (6)

She received a gift from her four sons on the occasion of the opening of the Library - a copy of Nikolas Joseph Jacquin's Icones Rariorum Plantorum.
(This description of the book from Christies indicates what a marvellous gift this was)

About Rachel McMaster Miller Hunt and the Hunt Library

This is a brief summary of her life - during which she had two main interests gardening and books - and the library she and her husband built for her collection of books and art in Pittsburgh.

It should be remembered that most images in the history of botanical art and illustration have usually been associated with the publication of books about plants and gardens. Most of those books are preserved today because of the great libraries developed by patrons and the major organisations associated with gardens and books.

A more complete biographical record of Rachel MM Hunt can be found on the Hunt website

30 June 1882: born in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, to Rachel Hughey McMasters Miller (1861–1940) and Mortimer Craig Miller (1856–1933), a Princeton-educated maritime lawyer.
I'm particularly struck how, like a number of others important in the field of botanical art, she began her love of plants by learning about wild flowers in her childhood and younger years

When I was a little girl, I lived on my Grandmother's [Margaret Anne Markle McMasters, 1836–1892] estate, in a large house on a hilltop, surrounded by great trees and many gardens. Perhaps I inherited from her my interest in gardening, for she loved every inch of her acres.... There were farms beyond the hill, and a deep valley below with a pond, where the wildflowers of Western Pennsylvania grew rampant—arbutus, hepatica, blood root, white and purple violets. I learned to know the wildflowers by name when a friend of my Mother's gave me a wildflower book--How to Know the Wild Flowers, by Mrs. William Starr Dana [Frances Theodora Smith Dana Parsons, 1861–1952]. It was my "Bible"—and in my Library today I have that same book (Quinby and Stevenson 1958–1961, 1:vii). (1)

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Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists

18/11/2019

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Find out about the Australasian artists - from Australia and New Zealand - whose artwork is now on display in Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art, the new exhibition at Kew Gardens celebrating 30 years of collecting 1,000+ artworks from all over the world for the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art is now open at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens and will be on display until 15th March 2020.

Below is one small gem which you can see in the exhibition.

One of the most beautiful small paintings you will ever see. Agapanthus by Susannah Blaxill painted on McEwen vellum for the McEwen exhibition at SSG in 2013

This post "Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists" is the sixth in my series of posts about the artists in the exhibition.

Previous posts have travelled around the world

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 (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain and Sweden)
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #4: Artists from Asia (China, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand)
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #5: South African Artists

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#5(a): Australian 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. Those who have achieved more get longer profiles!
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.

Also noted is the number of artworks each artist has in the collection.

Strelitzia nicolai by Beverley Allen - photographed during the 'Down Under II' exhibition in 2018 at SSG

Beverly Allen GM (RHS 2007, NYBG 2010)
(6 works in the SS Collection)
b. 1945 in Sydney, Australia. BA in Fine Arts from Sydney University. A graphic designer who began studying botanical art in 1997, became a botanical artist in 1998 and now exhibits and teaches masterclasses internationally. Has exhibited annually at the RBG Sydney ‘Botanica’ Exhibition since 1999, and exhibits internationally. Exhibited at the 11th International exhibition at the Hunt in 2004. Won an RHS Gold in 2007 for eight watercolour paintings of Epiphyllum. In 2010, she was awarded the inaugural Gold Medal for Botanical Art by the New York Botanic Gardens. Her work is in many major collections including Kew, the RHS Lindley Library, the Hunt, Highgrove and Transylvania Florilegiums. and the Shirley Sherwood and Alisa and Isaac Sutton Collections. It can also be seen in a large number of publications. She is the Co-Founder and President of the Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Strelitzia 2003 Strelitzia nicolai (on the cover of the book about the exhibition)
Pomegranates and seed pods of Gloriosa 2011

Susannah Blaxill
b. 1954 in Armidale, New South Wales. She has been painting full time since 1985. She's recognised as being one of the world’s leading botanical artists specialising in watercolour (on white and black paper), pencil and recently in charcoal. A lot of people have seen her Beetroot and request to see it. I investigated why in my blog post Susannah Blaxill's beetroot and a magnifying glass (do read it to see why you MUST bring a magnifying glass to this exhibition!). This is an interview with Susannah Blaxill

Beetroot (Contemporary Botanical Artists)
Agapanthus 2012 (Painted especially for McEwen Exhibition SSG 2013) - see image at the top of this post

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Jessica Tcherepnine (1938-2018)

7/1/2019

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Jessica Tcherepnine GM was generally regarded as an outstanding botanical artist. She passed away, age 80, after a long illness on New Year's Eve.

'Her work is intense as well as being decorative and scientifically accurate"
James White - Past Curator of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Jessica Tcherepnine - at the Artists Reception for the 25th Anniversary Exhibition for the Shirley Sherwood Collection

Jessica Elizabeth Tcherepnine was English by birth but lived in the USA for 55 years.

She was born on 4th May 1938 in Sussex and was the daughter of William Barclay Harris and Elizabeth Milnes Coates. However she had lived and worked in New York for the last 50+ years. She met Peter Tcherepnine in New York and married him in 1973. They lived in their Manhattan apartment and their farm near Millbrook, NY, where she had her garden.

In terms of career, she started work at Christie's in London in the Furniture Department. She then moved to Christies in New York and worked with John Richardson. Latterly she worked mainly for its Oriental Department.

In 1982, she left Christies to start painting. In fact, she started painting flowers at her home in Sussex at a very young age. She was essentially self-taught, although her art education did include four months studying drawing in Florence under Signora Simi (1890-1987).

Her garden provided her with specimens for some of her watercolour paintings. Other paintings of exotic tropical plants were developed as a result of multiple visits to the island of Nevis in the West Indies.

Her artistic practice

Fortunately due to a couple of articles we have the artist's voice to speak as to her practice and approach to botanical art.

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Trees, Tropical Plants & Theatre in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art (October 2018 - March 2019)

12/10/2018

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On Monday I went to see the four new botanical art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens. I'll be reviewing them all individually on this blog in future but today I thought I'd give you a taster of what can be seen - so you start planning a visit!

The four new exhibitions run from 6 October 2018 – 17 March 2019 and have a couple of over-arching themes

Orchids and tropical plants

Orchids and tropical plants are featured in the first two exhibitions

Rankafu: Masterpieces of Japanese Woodblock Prints of Orchids (Galleries 1 and 2) - this is the first exhibition as you walk in through the main entrance
Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars (1936-2017) (Galleries 3 and 4) - This is very likely to be extremely popular with all experienced botanical artists and aspiring students. Her works features a lot of tropical plants and orchids (and cyclamens, lilies and arum) and a lot of foliage.

The Botanical Theatre of watercolour paintings by Pandora Sellars

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks (Gallery 5) 7 of the 20 oaks on display

Trees

The tree theme is particularly relevant to the Charter of the Forest in its 800th anniversary year.

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks (Gallery 5) - in the large square central gallery
Trees: Delight in the Detail (Gallery 6) - the first exhibition you encounter when approaching from the Marianne North Gallery.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: This is one of the best combination of exhibitions that I've seen here. There's a lot of excellent quality art to look at - I found it quite overwhelming - and it's really difficult to take it all in on one visit. So think very seriously about:

planning enough time for your visit
or maybe even planning more than one visit!

I know one artist who has already visited twice on one day and wants to go again!

PS You will need a magnifier or a loupe to properly appreciate some of the paintings in these exhibitions. If you forget yours, you can borrow one from reception.

Rankafu: Masterpieces of Japanese Woodblock Prints of Orchids

View of the exhibition of Rankafu wood block prints of orchids

These impressive and very beautiful woodblock prints of orchids are based on the watercolours of Zuigetsu Ikeda. They were first published in 1946.

Rankafu means as ‘Orchid Flower Album’. These prints are on loan from the Collection of Stephen Kirby and this is first major exhibition of the Rankafu woodblock colour prints outside of Japan.

Woodblock printing of this quality is technically demanding and the exhibition includes a display explaining how they are produced.

Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - This is an exhibition NOT TO BE MISSED.
It's unlikely you'll ever see its like again.

Many experienced botanical artists will need no introduction to the late Pandora Sellars. She has been described by Shirley Sherwood as “One of the most important botanical artists of all time[1]” and “the best leaf painter ever”. Others would characterise her as being one of the best botanical artists when it comes to tackling a complex composition which shows off the botanical features of a plant to best effect.

However very few will have ever seen more than a few examples of her artwork in person.

This exhibition is unique and a wonderful opportunity to

view a retrospective of c. 50 artworks and items produced from her art - just a small percentage of the artwork she produced over a period of nearly 40 years.
note how her artwork developed over the years - between 1972 and 2007
see the scope of her work - from botanical illustration commissions for Kew and other publishers to botanical artworks produced for her own pleasure.

Those who do not know about Pandora Sellars can read all about her and her botanical artwork in About Pandora Sellars (1936-2017) my dedicated page on this website.

The artwork is on loan from:

Kew Collection (17 works)
Shirley Sherwood Collection (8 works)
RHS Lindley Library (1 work)
Cyclamen Society (7 works)
Postal Museum (5 works)
Private Collections (12 works - plus her painting materials
Plus a selection of books containing botanical illustrations by Pandora Sellars

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Oaks

Six of the Veteran Oaks drawn by Mark Frith - in Gallery 5

This is an exhibition of a series of 20 highly intricate, large-scale graphite drawings of Britain’s most characterful veteran oaks, many of which are more than 1,000 years. The trees are shown in winter - devoid of all leaves and new growth.

They were drawn by Mark Frith who studied Fine Art at Bristol before becoming a BAFTA award-winning filmmaker before starting to draw his first tree in 2011.

The series were commissioned by publisher, poet, and philanthropist, Felix Dennis. After he died, ten trees were gifted to the Kew Collection and ten are now owned by the Heart of England Forest - founded by Felix Dennis.

Trees: Delight in the Detail

View of "Palms" - one small section of "Trees: Delight in Detail"

This exhibition leans very much towards looking at the details of trees rather than the tree as a whole - and different approaches used to paint the details of trees.

The artwork represents trees from all over the world - from temperate areas and the tropics - and the detail of their leaves, cones, flowers, fruits, seeds and nuts.

Sizes vary enormously according to real life but also due to enlargement employed to show the detail of a particular aspect.

The artwork comes from the Shirley Sherwood Collection - collected from artists from all over the world. Artists include:

UK: Jenny Brasier, Brigid Edwards, Annie Farrer (2 works), Flappy Lane Fox, Katherine Manisco, Rory McEwen (2 works), Margaret Mee (2 works), Barbara Oozerally, Jess Shepherd, Julie Small (2 works)
Australia: Jenny Phillips
Austria: Jakob Demus
Brazil: Maria Alice de Rezende, Alvaro Nunes (7 works)
Germany: Regine Hagedorn,
India: Arundhati Vartak
Japan: Mariko Ikeda, Mieko Ishikawa, Kimuyo Maruyama (2 works), Michiko Toyota
Philippines: Emmanuel Cordova
Russia: Olga Makrushenko
South Africa: Gill Condy, Ann Schweizer, Vicki Thomas
Thailand: Phansakdi Chakkaphak
USA: Monika de Vries Gohlke; Anne Ophelia Dowden, Ingrid Finnan, Hillary Parker,

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List of artists exhibited in "Down Under II: Works from the Shirley Sherwood Collection"

27/8/2018

View of Down Under II in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery

This post puts on record all those artists who have artwork in Down Under II: Works from the Shirley Sherwood Collection at the The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens.

It also provides views of artwork in the exhibition for those who have been unable to attend - or need an incentive to visit before it ends on Sunday 16th September 2018!

The exhibition contains a mix of works by Australian and New Zealand artists based combined with studies of some remarkable Australasian native plants, created by artists from other parts of the world. All were collected since 1990.

All the artwork comes from the Shirley Sherwood Botanical Art Collection.

Some of the artists included in the exhibition Susannah Blaxill, Paul Jones, Celia Rosser and Margaret Stones were well established botanical artists when Dr Sherwood started collecting.

However, her first exhibition of botanical art in Sydney in 1998 triggered an interest in botanical art which led to

the first Down Under II exhibition ten years ago at Kew and
the formation of the Florilegium Group at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney and the current major exhibition in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery - see "The Florilegium: The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney" exhibition at Kew Gardens

The Banksia Corner in the Down Underr II exhibition

The list of artists and the 43 artworks included in the exhibition works as follows:

The list is alphabetical based on (1) the country they come from and (2) the surname of the artist.
A link to their website (if they have one) is embedded in their name. Alternatively another page has been linked to if this tells you about an artist who doesn't have a website.
an asterisk * after their name indicates they are included in my current summary of artists for the country they live in - where you can read more about them. If the artist is deceased they will be listed in 20th century Botanical Artists in the history section. Those without an asterisk will be added soon!
The name is followed by basic bio data which indicates where they were born and live
This is then followed by the title of the work. The common vernacular name is very often followed by the correct latin name in italics, (for more about naming plants see Plant Names and Botanical Latin in the Botany section on this website)
Media: All paintings are watercolour on paper unless otherwise stated.
Artwork which has been published in one of Dr Sherwood's books includes the title of the book and page number (in green) after the title
Those who have more than one artwork in the exhibition have the titles of the works bullet pointed below their names.

Some of the plants have interesting stories or names and these are also highlighted

Paintings by Noboru Isogai. Betty Hinton, Bronwyn Van de Graaff and Gill Condy

Names of the Artists / Titles of the Artwork

Australia

Beverly Allen* GM (RHS 2007, NYBG 2010) - b. 1945 in Sydney, Australia.

Strelitzia nicolai 2003 Watercolour on paper

Laurie Andrews born Melbourne, Australia 1936

Maidenhair Fern: Adiantum aethiopicum (2001) Watercolour on paper - the plant can be found over a wide area including Australia
Strap Water Fern: Blechnum patersonii (2001) Watercolour on paper - an Australian native

Susannah Blaxill * b. 1954 in Armidale, New South Wales.This artist is featured in Contemporary Botanical Artists

Seaweed: Laminaria sp. (2002) Watercolour on paper - Kelp found on a Sydney beach
Agapanthus africanus (2012) Watercolour on vellum - Her first painting on vellum.

I've spend a long time with a magnifier looking at her brushstrokes in the agapanthus. It's almost unbelievable that this is her FIRST painting on vellum. I seem to recall she had the additional stress of painting on a sheet of vellum from the Hunt which had belonged to Rory McEwen

Agapanthus africanus and Laminaria by Susannah Blaxill

Betty Hinton born Gin Gin, Queensland, Australia 1935. This artist is featured in A Passion for Plants

Idiot Fruit: Idiospermum australiense 2000 Watercolour on paper - also known as Also known as the 'Green Dinosaur' A Passion for Plants page 107

This very ancient and primitive plant has huge and heavy seeds. It's endemic in the Daintree National Park, NE Queensland, Australia. It was first discovered in the nineteenth century and then "lost" again as land was cleared. The fruit is classed as very poisonous by the Aborigines. If eaten by cattle they go mad. The tree is 15 metres tall and the flowers can only be retrieved by somebody climbing the tree to the top to cut off flowering branches - which is what happened in relation to this painting.

Annie Hughes * GM (RHS: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017) born Australia 1948

Camellia japonica ‘Elegance champagne’ 2011/2012 Watercolour on paper - The camellia flower has been dramatically enlarged

Paul Jones * OBE (1921 - 1997) Australia. This artist is featured in Contemporary Botanical Artists and A Passion for Plants

Camellia ‘Paul Jones Supreme’ 1977 - Acrylic on paper Contemporary Botanical Artists page 105
Sunflower: Helianthus annuus Acrylic on paper A New Flowering page 155
Magnolia grandiflora Acrylic on paper A New Flowering page 101; A Passion for Plants page 131

Sydney became the centre of Australian camellia breeding led by Prof E. G. Waterhouse at Eryldene House in the 1970s. Paul Jones had this camellia named after him in 1958 in recognition of his iconic camellia portraits. There are 5 camellia studies in the 16 paintings in the Shirley Sherwood Collection, mostly acquired from the artist in Sydney before 1997. He used a graded background for some paintings after a visit to Japan

Botanical art at Jonathan Cooper: 30 years exhibition - opens 12 July 2018

5/7/2018

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If you're coming up to London for the RHS Botanical Art Show, why not grab a taxi or catch a bus to Chelsea - and see some more incredible artwork!

The Jonathan Cooper 30 Years Exhibition opens a week today (12 - 21 July 2018) at 'Jonathan Cooper', his Park Walk Gallery in Chelsea to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the gallery - established in 1988.

You can review the catalogue for the exhibition online.

Fiona Strickland, Celebration Papaver, Watercolour on Kelmscott vellum, 42.2 x 42.5cm

Over 30 years, Jonathan Cooper has played an important role in developing the careers of many of today’s figurative greats. His passion is to discover and promote artists demonstrating a new viewpoint within the genres of botanical, wildlife, landscape and still life.

The gallery has also been host to some major exhibitions, including; Work from botanical artists in the collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood in 2015, an exhibition in conjunction with Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE, which drew together works by contemporary botanical artists held in Dr Sherwood’s comprehensive botanical collection, the largest in the world.

This group exhibition aims to celebrate the very best of contemporary figurative painting, drawing and sculpture through the artwork of every genre by his 'gallery artists' including leading botanical artists and still life painters who paint flowers (see below)

This post contains my 72dpi web-level versions of the high resolution images of their artwork sent to me. You will only get a small insight into how impressive these works are - and why it is so much better to see them in person!

Botanical Art

The four botanical artists (in alphabetical order) are:

Beverley Allen
Kate Nessler
Rosie Sanders
Fiona Strickland

Beverly Allen, White batflower - ‘Tacca integrifolia’, Watercolour, 62cm x 57cm

Rosie Sanders 'It was the time of roses' watercolour on Arches 640gsm paper, 102 x 124cm

Still Life - with flowers

Two of the still life artists paint flowers are:

Ben Henriques
Susan Angharad Williams - who he discovered after I introduced her to him - after she won the ING Discerning Eye Prize in 2007! ;)

Ben Henriques, Potted Flower, oil on canvas, 39.4 x 52.1cm

Susan Angharad Williams, Poppies, (detail), oil on linen, 63 x 56cm

Information about the Gallery

Address: Jonathan Cooper Gallery, 20 Park Walk, Chelsea, London, SW10 0AQ
Gallery Opening Times: Mon – Fri (10 – 6.30pm); Sat (11 – 4pm) Closed Bank Holidays
Free Admission
Website: jonathancooper.co.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7351 0410
Social #jonathancooper30years
Instagram: @jonathancoopergallery
Twitter: @JCooperGallery
Facebook: @jonathancooperparkwalkgallery
The gallery is a member of SLAD (The Society of London Art Dealers), BADA (The British Antique Dealers Association) and LAPADA (The Association of Art & Antique Dealers), and regularly exhibits at international art fairs including Masterpiece, London.

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