NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Latin American Exhibit in 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew

18/12/2019

The exhibit of contemporary botanical art from Latin America can be seen in Gallery 2 within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. The exhibition continues until 15 March 2020.

It covers botanical art by contemporary botanical artists past and present working in Brazil and Mexico . You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists. They include Margaret Mee, who was born in England but did most of her work while living in Brazil.

BELOW you can see

photos of the paintings in the exhibition
with names of the plants, credits for the artists
plus explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists!

Three paintings using pencil and gouache by Margaret Mee occupy one wall. They demonstrate the variation in the paintings she produced. Her work is in included in the section due her dedication to painting the plants in the Amazon rainforest basin. Her work also stimulated the Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme at Kew.

Her paintings in the exhibition are:

Neoglaziovia variegate 1964;
Philodendron - pictured with the Amazon habitat where it was growing and
Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

Paintings by Margaret Mee | Left to right: Neoglaziovia variegate 1964; Philodendron and Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

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Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists

13/11/2019

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Today, I'm documenting information about the artists from North and Latin America who have artwork in the new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art - celebrating 30 years of the Shirley Sherwood Collection - which opens at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens on Saturday 16th November 2019 - until 15 March 2020. (note the opening and last entry times at the end)

The art work in the exhibition comes from entirely from the private collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood.

(Shirley Sherwood) became interested in plants and art as a young child and went on to study Botany at Oxford University before earning her D.Phil as part of the team that discovered the drug Tagamet.

She started the Shirley Sherwood Collection in 1990 and it now includes over 1,000 paintings and drawings representing the work of over 300 contemporary botanical artists from 36 countries around the world.

Cycad 1998 Female cones of Encephalartos ferox by Leslie Carol Berge (1959-2017)

This post has two parts relating to the botanical artists in the exhibition who come from

North America - specifically USA and Canada
Latin America - specifically Brazil and Mexico

Every day this week - including Saturday when the exhibition opens - I am documenting information about the artists whose artwork has been selected to hang in this major exhibition. I'm also including images of some of the artwork in the exhibition. This is one you will not want to miss.

Yesterday I published information about the Artists of the British Isles and Ireland
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
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.

The remaining posts concern the botanical artists

Thursday - from countries in Europe,
Friday - from countries in Asia and South Africa and
Saturday - from Australia and New Zealand.

I'm very much looking forward to the Private View which a lot of those artists will be attending. This is a very special group of artists!

NOTES:

If you don't want to miss one of my blog posts, I suggest you subscribe to this blog - see side column or subscription box later in this post
The images below have been featured in previous posts of mine about previous exhibitions at the Gallery or about the artists. Many thanks to Sophie Cooper, Personal Assistant to Shirley Sherwood for providing me with the lists of artists and to Maria and Victoria for providing updates for what is hung.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#2 (a): North American Artists

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Francesca Anderson GM FLS (1995, 99)
b. 1946. (BA. MA, MFA) A botanical artist who always works in pen and ink with 13 works in the Shirley Sherwood Collection. She has received two RHS gold medals (Amaryllis in 1995; Brassica series in 1999). She is a former President of the American Society of Botanical Artists, founder and president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society, a Fellow of the Linnean Society and and a Trustee of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She has had her work exhibited extensively and internationally in museums in Sweden, Scotland, London, South Africa, Australia, Berlin, and Japan and has works in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Hunt Institute, the RHS Lindley Library and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Scotland as well as other public and private collections.

Cyclamen 1992

Leslie Carol Berge (1959-2017) - see image at the top of the post
b. Massachusetts 1959. 8 works in the Shirley Sherwood Collection. Renowned for her paintings of cycads. Her painting of the female cones of the cycad, Encephalartos woodii (extinct in the wild) featured on the front cover of "A Passion for Plants" and was reproduced in the Washington Post. Graduated in Art History, Painting and Drawing from Bennington College, Vermont. MA in Illustration At Art Institute of Boston. Became a freelance artist in 1981. Participated in early botanical art courses organised by Dr Sherwood. Exhibited in the 7th International Exhibition at the Hunt in 1992.

Cycad 1998 Female cones of Encephalartos ferox
Bushman's Cycad 2001 Encephalartos trispinosus

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Artists exhibiting at the 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art at the Hunt Institute

22/5/2019

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The 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration at the Hunt Instutute of Botanical Documentation includes 41 artworks by 41 artists who are citizens of 14 countries.

Below you can find the names of the artists organised by country

links to their websites are embedded in their names
plus a brief comment about the artist.

"Fading Beauty" by Vivienne Rew - Watercolour on Fabriano Artistico Extra White HP 300lb (the old stock) ; 45cm x 45cm

Exhibition

Venue: 5th floor of the Hunt Library building at Carnegie Mellon University
Dates: 17 September–18 December 2019 with a
Reception: 17 October (6–8 pm).
Opening Hours: Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–noon and 1–5 p.m.; Sunday, 1–4 p.m. (except 20 November and 24–27 November).
Admission: Free

Artists selected to exhibit at
16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art

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Margaret Mee 1909-1988: 30th Anniversary

30/11/2018

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Margaret Mee (1909 - 1988) the renowned painter of the flora of the Amazon Forest and dedicated environmental conservationist.

She and her husband had returned to England in November 1988 for a major exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew coupled with the launch of a book Margaret Mee in Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest (1988) based on Margaret's diaries - and discussion about the future of her paintings.

Very sadly she was killed at the age of 79 in a car crash in Leicester on 30 November 1988 a few months after her last expedition to the Amazon.

Those attending her memorial service, held at Kew on 16 January 1989, included representatives of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Brazilian government, and the world of botany.
In May 1989, her ashes were scattered in the Amazon Forest by her husband and close friends. A plaque was fixed to a tree to record her passing.

Paintings by Margaret Mee at the the "Brazil: a powerhouse of plants: Margaret Mee, pioneering artist and her legacy" Exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery (20 February 2016 to 29 August 2016)

About Margaret Mee

About Margaret Mee is my page about this remarkable and very petite woman, who was

a famous and important botanical artist, who specialised in painting the flora of the Amazon Forest. 
an ardent conservationist who highlighted the way in which the forest was being destroyed; and
a botanical painter who inspired a number of botanical artists around the world - notably a number of Brazilian botanical artists.

In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest

from Amazon UK

Her legacy includes

images from her 15 expeditions into the Amazon Rainforest
nine new plants - previously unknown to botanical record
400 folios of gouache illustrations, 40 sketchbooks and 15 diaries - many now archived at Kew Gardens
her diaries and three books about her work and her paintings
a heightened awareness of the importance of conservation of habitat in the Amazon rainforest.
inspiration for a number of Brazilian artists - notably the Demonte family, Marlena Baretto, Patricia Villela and Alvaro Nunes
The Margaret Mee Amazon Trust (closed 1996) followed by a Fellowship Programme which enables Brazilian artists to train at Kew Gardens
3,000 dancers paraded to a Margaret Mee theme at the Rio Carnival in 1994!

Plus a number of plants are named after her, including:

Heliconia chartacea var. meeana - which has vivid blue berries
Aechmea polyantha - a vaselike Bromeliad discovered by Margaret Mee

On About Margaret Mee you can find out about:

A Timeline of her life and work
Margaret Mee and the Amazon Flora
Margaret Mee's Paintings - and her approach to painting
Exhibitions of Margaret Mee's paintings - in the UK, USA and Brazil
The Margaret Mee Trust and Fellowship Programme

Videos and Slideshows of her work

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Scientific Illustration Instruction by Rogério Lupo

26/11/2018

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Rogério Lupo is a Brazilian scientific illustrator who 1st Prize in the Margaret Flockton Award in 2010 and 2013. He is also a teacher who has very generously provided a FREE guidebook and a FREE 48 minute video online providing pointers on how to draw scientific illustrations using graphite.

He also makes the effort to make sure his tuition is accessible to those who speak/read English rather than Portuguese.

This post is about:

his FREE 48 minute Video (with English subtitles) and Guidebook (translated into English) - about using Graphite for Scientific Illustration (I previously wrote about the Guidebook in Guide to Botanical Illustration using Pen and Ink - in Portuguese)
his work and artwork online
Rogério's Workshop Tour of the USA in 2019 - providing workshops in the use of graphite and pen and ink for botanical illustration.

The NEW Video

The 48 minute YouTube Video "Graphite for Scientific Illustrations - Supplement to the free Guidebook with English subtitles is a FREE lesson providing complementary demonstrations to support the study and practices of the Guidebook: Graphite and its Possibilities Applied to Scientific Illustrations. also FREE - SEE BELOW

It now has ENGLISH SUBTITLES which have been reviewed by Bobbi Angell, American Botanical Illustrator.

The YouTube icons bottom right of the video

To enable the subtitles follow the instructions below:

Select the captions icon in the bottom right hand corner . It's on the extreme left, to the left of the cog wheel icon.
Click the icon - so a red line appears beneath it
You have now switched on the subtitles
This will stay on for whatever video you watch next - until you switch it off.

You can also read the transcript for the video. If you select the three dots below the video - on the extreme right - and select "open transcript" - the transcript opens up in the top right of the screen and you can read what is being said continuously without referencing the screen. It's a long video and you might find this useful!

The Guidebook

Graphite and its Possibilities Applied to Scientific Illustrations is a FREE Guidebook with English subtitles. Please note that Rogério Lupo has asserted his copyright and any SALE of this Guidebook is strictly prohibited

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More from Brazil and New Zealand re. the Worldwide Exhibition of Botanical Art

8/11/2018

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Catalogue cover: Expomundial Brasil

Today I added two more items to my page about the Worldwide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018. Each was added to their country's section of the webpage (which is organised alphabetically in continents and then countries)

an onscreen link to the Issuu version of the Catalogue for the Brazil exhibition - Expomundial Brasil - which was published today. You can view it full screen by clicking the full screen icon bottom right.
a video of 'Ngai Tipu Taketake - Indigenous Flora' - the New Zealand exhibition - which has now been uploaded to YouTube (see below)

This was the message from the Brazilian team

Here's our e-book finally completed.
We could not allow such an important event to be just a good memory. So we decided to take another step and face another challenge. It seemed simple, but it was months of work and patience of luiz berri, adjustments, wait, doubts and a lot of message exchange, e-mail, watsapp and everything else that could help get the material and information we needed.
But now we have here an important record not only of a remarkable and special moment that was the Brazil, but an overview of the current wealth of botanical illustration in Brazil. Thank you all for participation and trust.
Enjoy to inspire even more

and the message from New Zealand is

This video of New Zealand's 'Ngai Tipu Taketake - Indigenous Flora' exhibition showcases our diverse and unique flora as seen by the best of New Zealand's botanical artists.

If any other country has information or catalogues or videos that need to be added please let me know using the FORM at the bottom of the Worldwide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018 page

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Notable Botanical Artists of the 20th Century

12/8/2018

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The page 20th century Botanical Artists on my website is about those botanical artists who are more associated with the 20th century than either the 19th or the 21 centuries.

Some were born before 1900 and
some died after 2000
they did most of their work in the 20th century
however they are all now deceased

Below is a list of names of the artists who are highlighted on this page - with a summary of their dates and achievements. Please note: the page essentially works on the same basis as those for contemporary botanical artists on my website

If you have suggestions for other names who should be on this list please let me know.

At the end, there are links to the other pages containing listings of famous and/or notable botanical artists past and present.

Convolvulus Family by Mrs H. Isabel Adams - for Wild Flowers of the British Isles

UK

British Botanical Artists

Mrs Harriet Isabel Adams FLS (1863-1952)
Raymond Booth (1929-2015)
Elizabeth Cameron GM (1915-2009)
Arthur Harry Church (1865-1937)
Stella Ross Craig (1906 - 2006)
Sally Crosthwaite GM SBA SFP (?-2017)
Jeannie Foord (dates ? 19th/20th century)
Mary Anderson Grierson GM (1912 - 2012)
Sally Keir GM SBA (1938-2007)
Suzanne Lucas MBE GM (1915-2008)
Margaret Mee (1909-1988)
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864-1933)
Rory McEwen (1932-1982)
John Northcote Nash CBE, RA (1893 – 1977)
Catherine Nicholson (1958-2011)
Pandora Sellars GM (1936 - 2017)
Lillian Snelling MBE VMH (1879-1972)

EUROPE

German Botanical Artists

Claus Caspari (1911–1980)

Irish Botanical Artists

Wendy Walsh (1915 - 2014)

Italian Botanical Artists

Anna Paoletto (1946–2016)

BRITTON AND ROSE, VOL. II M. E. Eaton del 1. Fruit of Hylocereus trigonus. 2. Flower of Selenicereus boeckmannii 3. Fruit of Selenicereus boeckmannii. (All natural size.)

NORTH AMERICA

USA

Mary Emily Eaton (1873-1961)
Lee Adams (1922-1971)
Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden (1907–2007)
Priscilla K S Fawcett (1932-2012)
Janice Glimn Lacy (1935-2013)
Maud Purdy (1873 - 1965)

SOUTH AMERICA

Brazil

Etienne Demonte (1931-2004)

AUSTRALASIA

Australian Botanical Artists

Margaret Flockton (1861-1953)
Paul Jones OBE (1921 - 1997)
Emily Pelloe (1878 – 1941)

Artwork by Paul Jones - Magnolia grandiflora; Sunflower: Helianthus annuus; and the book "Flora Magnifica" paintings by Paul Jones; text by Wilfrid Blunt

AFRICA

South African Botanical Artists

Dr Auriol Batten (1918-2015)
Barbara Jeppe (1921-1999)
Cythna Letty (1895 - 1985)
Ann Schweizer (1930-2014)

Zimbabwean Botanical Artists

Margaret Tredgold (1910 - 2012)

ASIA

Chinese Botanical Artists

Chengru Feng (1896–1968)

Japanese Botanical Artists

Yoshio Futakushi (1900-1997)

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More about Botanical Artists

BOTANICAL ARTISTS IN HISTORY

Past Masters of Botanical Art (1500-1900) - organised by countries and timeline plus individual pages for leading botanical artists of the past
Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600-1900)

CONTEMPORARY BOTANICAL ARTISTS
Criteria for inclusion on this website are listed on Contemporary botanical artists and illustrators around the world.

The links below are to lists of the top contemporary botanical artists and illustrators:

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