NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Mrs Priscilla Susan Bury and a selection of hexandrian plants

2/6/2021

The feature image for the Botanical Art and Artists website and Facebook Page for Summer 2021 is this image of Crinium Augustum [Queen Emma] by Mrs Priscilla Bury (1799 - 1872)

This post is about Mrs Bury and her very impressive book about hexandrian plants i.e. plants with six stamens called "A selection of hexandrian plants, belonging to the natural orders Amaryllidæ and Liliacæ, from drawings by Mrs. Edward Bury, Liverpool"

Crinium Augustum [Queen Emma] by Mrs Priscilla Bury FROM "A selection of hexandrian plants, belonging to the natural orders Amaryllidæ and Liliacæ, from drawings by Mrs. Edward Bury, Liverpool"

About Mrs Priscilla Bury (1799-1872)

Priscilla Susan Falkner was born in Liverpool. She was the daughter of a rich Liverpool merchant whose estate outside the city at Fairfields 'boasted a garden with many rare and exotic plants' (Tomasi).

As a young woman she was an enthusiastic botanist and flower painter and was particularly interested in lilies and allied flowers. She had no pretensions as to scientific knowledge and, in effect, was a very talented amateur.

By 1829, (age 30) she had produced a number of paintings of hexandrian plants, which she wished to publish.

In 1830, Falkner married Edward Bury F.R.S. (1794-1858), a wealthy and ingenious railway engineer and she had three sons - and her paintings were transcribed by Robert Havell into engravings. (Havel was also responsible for his engravings for John James Audubon).

Following the publication of Hexandrian Plants, Priscilla Bury continued to contribute illustrations to botanical works including

producing eight plates for Maund's The Botanic Garden (London: 1825-1851) and
Maund and Henslow's The Botanist (London: 1836-1842).

Between 1852 and 1860 the family lived at Hillsborough Hall near Sheffield and later moved to Croft Lodge, Ambleside in the Lake District. By 1866 she was living at Fairfield, Thornton Heath, Croydon. She died at Fairfield on 8 March 1872 of bronchitis and cerebral congestion.

About "A Selection of Hexandrian Plants"

Crinum pedunculatum. [River lily] (1834) by Priscilla Susan Bury

Mrs Bury's place in botanical art history is due to her flower paintings which were published - as engravings - in A Selection of Hexandrian Plants, belonging to the Natural Orders Amaryllidae and Liliacae in London by Robert Havell the younger, [plates watermarked 1831-1834].

There were 79 subscribers to this book and hence this is now a rare book of some significance. A copy of her book was auctioned at Christies in 2001 and fetched £75,250. Wilfrid Blunt described it (in The Art of Botanical Illustration) as

"one of the most effective colour-plate folios of the period"

For me, I think her book is an excellent teaching aid in relation to those wanting to learn about composition. Note her technique - subsequently replicated by Pandora Sellars - of putting her light coloured blooms against the dark leaves of her hexaodrian plants so that they can be seen much more clearly.

All the good techniques are there in past paintings. You just need to study the past to learn a lot about what does and does not work in relation to telling the story of a plant within the context of botanical art and illustration.

How to see her book

You can see examples of the images from the book in various online collections of botanical images, namely:

Amaryllis fulgida by Priscilla Susan Bury

There are copies of the book in the libraries of:

National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum London, SW7 2RL
Natural History Museum London, SW7 5BD
Royal Botanic Gardens, KEW Richmond, TW9 3AB
Boston Athenaeum Boston, MA 02108 United States
Morgan Library & Museum Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, NY 10016 United States
New York Botanical Garden The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, Bronx, NY 10458 United States

REFERENCE:

Priscilla Susan Bury | Wikipedia
Mrs Edward Bury (nee Priscilla Susan Falkner), Botanical Artist | Archives of Natural History (Vol. 5 (1) | 71 - Sept 1, 1968
Bury, Priscilla Susan 1799 - 1872 | Science Museum Group
Mrs Edward Bury | The Art of Botanical Illustration (1955 - page 213) by Wilfrid Blunt
Mrs Edward Bury | Christies
Bury [née Falkner], Priscilla Susan (1799–1872) by D. J. Mabberley | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

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VIDEO: How to paint like a botanical artist

3/5/2021

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Lucy T Smith, one of the botanical artists at Kew Gardens, who both works with the botanists and also provides tuition in botanical illustration, has created a new video.

How to paint like a botanical artist is a simple introduction to the process of botanical painting using watercolour. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to paint the perfect Primula flower.

Find out what equipment you’ll need, how to highlight the important details of your flower, and tips for bringing a botanical painting to life.

The painting is on YouTube and lasts just under 30 minutes
RBG Kew has very helpfully supplied indicators as to what comes up when in the video.

Timecodes:

00:00 - 00:20 - Intro
00:20 - 00:31 - What you'll need
00:31 - 02:25 - Preparation
02:25 - 03:55 - Painting the outline
03:55 - 04:54 - Adding initial details
04:54 - 07:55 - Laying down washes
07:55 - 09:56 - Mixing & painting the yellows
09:56 - 11:07 - Mixing & adding the orange details
11:07 - 12:21 - Mixing & painting the green stigma
12:21 - 13:18 - Building the colour using a dry brush technique
13:18 - 14:16 - Adding in another wash
14:16 - 15:27 - Mixing & painting darker colours
15:27 - 18:29 - Adding fine details
18:29 - 18:51 - The finished painting
18:51 - 19:20 - Why botanical art is important
19:20 - 19:29 - Outro

More about Lucy T Smith, her artwork and videos

Lucy T Smith tlking about creating botanical art - including botanical watercolours - at the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens in May 2018

Lucy T Smith is a highly regarded botanical illustrator who has won a number of international awards.

She has been Freelance botanical illustrator at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for the last 20 years.
She also works on commission.

You can see. more of her videos in my blog posts as follows

VIDEO: Watercolour painting of a pomegranate by Lucy T Smith (January 2021)
Kew Video: What is Botanical Art? (April 2019)
Lucy Smith filmed by BBC News (2018)

You can see more of her artwork on the following websites:

website http://www.lucytsmith.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/palmsmithy/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Palmsmithy/
Kew Gardens - Meet Lucy T Smith, award-winning botanical illustrator | Kew - Lucy is one of a number of highly skilled freelance botanical illustrators working at Kew to produce line drawings for scientific plant publications.

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Spring 2021 Banner: Citrus limon from the Gottorfer Codex

1/3/2021

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Citrus limon (gouache on vellum) published by Johannes Simon Holtzbecker in the Gottorfer Codex (4 volumes published 1649-1659)

A Citrus lemon painted in gouache on vellum is the Spring 2021 banner image for Botanical Art and Artists on this website's home page and Facebook Page. The image is cropped to create the banner image as per the image below.

This post is about that painting and the Gottorfer Codex which it is part of.

Spring 2021 Banner Image - for the website and facebook page

The Gottorfer Codex

The Gottorfer Codex can be summarised as follows:

It is a florilegium i.e. a record of the very wide assortment of plants that grew in the ducal gardens at Schloss Gottorf (Gottorp) in the duchy of Schleswig. (See the engraving of the castle and garden below)
It comprises four volumes of botanical paintings
It contains images of 1,180 plants over 350 pages of vellum
by Johannes (Hans) Simon Holtzbecker (1610-1671) - a German artist and flower painter who lived in Hamburg. He was responsible for
- the Gottorfer Codex and
- the Moller Florilegium
- the Green Florilegium
Commissioned by Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp
Published between between 1649 and 1659
The Gottorfer Codex is now the property of Denmark
- It is part of the Royal Collection of Graphic Art, a part of the National Gallery of Denmark.
- ownership of the Codex transferred after the Great Northern War (1700-1721) when Gottorf Castle and the duke's portion of the duchy of Schleswig were annexed to the Danish crown.
It's been restored in recent years - so that all the vellum is flat and all the paint is securely attached - and can be photographed more easily.

In 2009, a digital version of the codex was created by the National Gallery of Denmark.
VIEW a digitised version of the Gottorfer Codex on Issuu

In 2014, there was an exhibition Der Gottorfer Codex. Flowers and worldview at Gottorf Castle between 25th May and 26th October 26, 2014.

The image is of a lemon tree in blossom. The treatment of the leaves and variety of greens is sophisticated.

An engraving (1745) of the Castle and Garden in 1745 - some 75 years after the publication of the Gottorfer Codex

Neither the Gottorfer Codex nor Holtzbecker are referenced in any of the standard reference books about botanical illustration - which is interesting. It occurs to me that the fact that the only books which do reference it are in German might account for this. It's also very early. However, the current theory is that most of his work was largely unrecognised because - until relatively recently - most of it was attributed to Maria Sibylla Merian.

Holtzbecker is now regarded as one of the finest German botanical artists of the 17th century.

The Gottorfer Codex is also very definitely a real book of splendid botanical illustrations. Below are two videos about the restoration of the Gottorfer Codex by the National Archives in Denmark - in which you can see the book and original paintings and the methods used to restore the paintings, pages, binder and book covers.

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Jenny Brasier (1936 - 2020)

6/1/2021

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It's been announced that Jenny Brasier GM passed away at the end of December 2020.

Her achievements in the botanical art world included:

Five Gold Medals (1982, 1988 1989, 1994, 2000) from the Royal Horticultural Society
The Linnean Society gave her the Jill Smythies Award in 2002
Her artwork is included in the collections of the Natural History Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Horticultural Society and the Shirley Sherwood Collection
She was one of two contemporary botanical artists whose work was included in the 'Picturing Plants' Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1995.
Her small paintings on vellum appeared in a number of exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery.
She exhibited internationally as well as in the UK - including at the Smithsonian Museum and the Hunt Institute in the USA
Jenny was one of the botanical artist who contributed to the Highgrove Florilegium for the 60th Birthday of HRH Prince of Wales
Past Chair of the Eden Florilegium Society
Founder member of the Society of Botanical Artists in the UK.

Cyclamen intaminatum by Jenny Brasier (Cyclamen intaminatum) Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum

A study by Jenny Braiser in the collection of the V&A Museum.
"This is a preparatory study for an illustration showing different examples of the cyclamen species painted for publication in the Cyclamen Society Journal. Having produced several working drawings towards the finished plate, the artist decided to record this process by transferring the original work relating to the colour forms of one species--the Cyclamen intaminatum--to a single sheet."
Study Room resource: Botanical illustration | V&A

Jenny Brasier was born on 9th August 1936 in Alvechurch, England and died on 28th December 2020 in East Sussex.

She had no formal training in botanical art. However no less a person than Wilfrid Blunt encouraged her to start painting plants and flowers in her later years and became known for her small jewel like watercolour paintings on vellum.

Her artwork was published in The Art of Botanical Illustration' by Wilfrid Blunt and William Stearn (1994 version):

her pencil drawing of a leaf of Hosta tardiflora faces the Introduction to the 1994 edition and
her small watercolours on vellum of a leaf and an acorn appear below the dedication.
her painting of a Tulip Tree can be found on page 298

"Jenny Brasier is not a professional artist but was encouraged by Wilfrid Blunt and John Whitehead to draw and paint plants (Colour Plate 112); she excels at the portrayal of leaves (see the preliminary pages of this book)."
The Art of Botanical Illustration - page 300

In addition she was well known for her horticultural endeavours and she illustrated Hosta: the flowering foliage plant by Diana Grenfell (1990).

Exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens include:

'British Artists in Shirley Sherwood Collection' (2017/18)
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art (2019/20) - see Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists

"Jenny Brasier’s work is highly versatile and very beautiful with some of her brilliant, jewel-like watercolours on vellum having the intense quality of medieval illuminated manuscripts."
Shirley Sherwood

Cyclamen pseudibericum 1993 by Jenny Brasier - on a sheet of Rory McEwen's Vellum - exhibited at the Modern Masterpieces exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew in 2019

I've moved my summary about Jenny Brasier from the Botanical Artists in the UK page to the 20th and 21st Century Artists page in the History Section.

NOTE: A Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of Jenny Brasier will be held in Cornwall later in the year "when life will hopefully be a little more normal...."

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Marianne Hazlewood: Fine Hair, Soft Nibs - Depictions from a Shady Bed

23/10/2020

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Tomorrow is the last day of Marianne Hazlewood: Fine Hair, Soft Nibs - Depictions from a Shady Bed exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery, 34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE.

It's just made the "hot list" Guide in The Times printed in Scotland - in the visual arts category.

This is a solo exhibition by Marianne Hazlewood of

one plant - Ariseamas - and
- 6 botanical watercolour paintings - a series which won an RHS Gold Medal in 2019.
- 12 Japanese ink paste drawings - botanically correct illustrations with a distinctly abstract and contemporary quality; and
- 5 screenprints - exploring a third medium for her passion for Arisaemas.

plus

6 watercolour paintings of ferns (Dryopterus, Asplenium, Phlebodium and Platycerium)

You need to book to gain access to the exhibition. The exhibition is open until 5pm tonight and then from 11am to 4pm tomorrow.

In addition the online exhibition is also comprehensive and provides excellent thumbnails and (if clicked) larger images of her artwork. It will also remain online under previous exhibitions after it closes in the Gallery.

READ Fine hair, Soft Nibs, depictions from a shady bed by mariannehazlewood to find out more about the exhibition. The link embedded in the title shows you the virtual exhibition - with details of titles, media, sizes and prices.

The exhibition arises out of having Marianne having won the VAS 2019 Open Eye Gallery award in 2019 - see Marianne Hazlewood wins award at Visual Arts Scotland - Alight 2019

Marianne Hazlewood with her series of six watercolour paintings of Arisaemas - at the RHS Botanical Art Show in 2019 when this exhibit won a Gold Medal.

More about Marianne Hazlewood

Website https://www.mariannehazlewood.co.uk/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mariannehazlewood/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Marianne.E.Hazlewood/
My blog posts
- RHS London Botanical Art Show 2019 - Awards and Medal Winners (July 2019) - when Marianne won her first Gold Medal (I'm sure there will be more)
- Marianne Hazlewood wins award at Visual Arts Scotland - Alight 2019 (February 2019)
- Marianne Hazlewood in Society of Scottish Artists Exhibition - opens TODAY! (December 2018) - one of a very few botanical artists who exhibits in the annual exhibitions of national art societies which show a range of fine artwork.
- Marianne Hazlewood - first solo exhibition (August 2018) - at the Pittenweem Festival on the coast of Fife in Scotland.
- RBGE Diploma Graduation Show 2017 - where Marianne won the the Eve Bennett Award for Botanical Illustration (September 2017)

PS With profuse apologies to Marianne for not posting this earlier!

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NEW: Shirley Sherwood video profiles the paintings in her botanical art collection

5/5/2020

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Yesterday I was really pleased to see that Shirley Sherwood has started a NEW project to talk about the botanical paintings in her collection - on video!

You can find the video on her Facebook Page The Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Below is the very first video where Shirley is talking about the Chinese Elm Bonsai painted by Jeannetta Van Raalte. (The link is to the page about the painting on the new website for the Shirley Sherwood Collection and this is the link to the page profiling Jeanetta Van Raalte)

It's just like being with her in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew when she is doing one of her tours about the new exhibition and is talking about individual paintings. What's great is that she combines:

appreciation and knowledge about the plant
stories about the individual painting and/or plant
explanations about why she particularly likes the painting

Here's how it all came about.

Shirley Sherwood has been in lockdown in her Oxfordshire home for 6 weeks so the family have started a project to keep her busy ?
We're going to video her telling stories about all 1,020 paintings in the Shirley Sherwood Collection so it's going to take quite a while! The stories will be posted to this page, one day at a time, and will be going on the Shirley Sherwood Collection website alongside the description of each painting.

What you need to do to see the videos

This is a wonderful opportunity to hear a VERY knowledgeable botanical art collector talk about her botanical paintings and what made them collectable! You may learn a lot!

In order to view the videos you should:
EITHER

BOOKMARK The Shirley Sherwood Collection Facebook page - which is a public page and you can see whether or not you are a member of Facebook
Like and follow the page if you are a member of Facebook.
Leave a comment - The way Facebook works is that liking/following does not seem to be enough to generate am alert in your new feed. However if you check in every day AND LEAVE A COMMENT, this should then mean that you'll get alerted when a new video appears! :)

Take a look at the Facebook Page every so often - and have a BOTANICAL ART BINGE FEST of videos about the paintings! This too is a good way to consume right now! :)

Indue course - check out my Archive Page about the Shirley Sherwood Exhibitions. I'll be creating something to:
- EITHER link to where the video links are listed on the Collection website - each one is apparently going on the page with the painting
- OR list the artists and paintings on my website and provide a link to the Collection website. BUT I'll probably wait a while to see what materialises as the project gets underway

Blog posts are emailed to you when you
Subscribe to Botanical Art & Artists - News by Email
Emails are only sent to you AFTER you have activated the link you will receive.

Lockdown Projects

If you too have a Lockdown Botanical Art Project which you think other people will be interested in do - and would like to share - please get in touch and tell me about it.
Don't forget to send me images and/or a link to where I can read about it and/or an explanation as to why other botanical artists might be interested.

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Call for Entries: Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition 2020

16/12/2019

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The Call for Entries for Plantae 2020 - the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists has been published. Below you will find a summary of:

what you need to know if you want to enter
the deadline for entries
how to enter
the exhibition - venue and dates

plus pics from last year's exhibition

Call for Entries

You can find the details of how to enter on the dedicated website https://soc-botanical-artists.oess1.uk/

The SBA invites you to submit your best work!

Exhibiting excellence in every botanical art form

In summary:

Eligible media (2D): paintings and drawings in watercolour, oils, gouache, graphite, colour pencil, pen & ink and hand-pulled fine art prints,
Eligible Media (3D): ceramics, metalwork and glass
Ineligible media: giclee reproductions; photography; digital art.
Eligible artists: botanical illustrator, fine art printmaker, sculptor, ceramic artist, glass artist and jeweller
Size: Maximum dimension is 120cm on the longest side.
Content Criteria: Wholly original artwork with strong "wall appeal" which must have predominantly botanical content which is accurately represented.
For Sale: all artwork must be for sale.

You can view my photos of previous Society of Botanical Art Exhibitions on this page

Submissions of work are invited from visual artists working in any two or three-dimensional artwork except for photography, digital artwork or giclee printing (or similar).

View of part of the 2019 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries

You need to consult the Entry Requirements and the timeline for entries. (Comments in italics inside brackets are my additions!)

Submission is by online entry only. You need to read the Entry requirements first.

Timeline

Deadline for Entries: 29 February 2020 Midnight
Notification of selection decision: 17 March 2020 by artist logging in to website
Delivery of artwork: 18 April 2020 from 10am to 5pm (to Carlton House Terrace in London)
Collection of unsold artwork: Thursday, 11 June 2020 from 11am to 5pm

Selection

All artwork is work is pre-selected based on a voting system
8 people on the selection panel voting independently of one another
No correspondence will be entered into in relation to feedback and the selection process decisions are final.

In essence the pre-selected artworks are those which achieved the highest number of votes from the panel members, who vote independently of one another and who cannot see the scores of the other panel members.

All pre-selected works are ALSO subject to physical selection on hand in day.
Work may be rejected at physical selection stage (after delivery) due to the quality of the work, presentation or if the work does not represent or match the digital image.

How to enter

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