NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

RHS Botanical Art Show 2024: Awards and Medals

17/6/2024

This is about who was awarded what - in terms of awards and medals - at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024 - which opened to the public at the Saatchi Gallery in London on Friday 14th July 2023.

The exhibition continues until 7th July 2024 and I highly recommend you pay it a visit if you have any aspirations to being a better botanical artist.

The Three Award Winners at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024

This is a VERY, VERY LONG post - with lots of images and lots of useful information and tips.

Below is a list of all the 22 botanical artists and illustrators whose exhibits were

assessed by the RHS Picture Panel for Botanical Art and
awarded an RHS medal - PLUS an award for some.

My write up

starts with who won the three major Awards
then covers all the Gold Medallists I focus in particular on the exhibits by the Gold Medallists and Award Winners - with photographs of both exhibit and artist where possible.
followed by the rest of the medals - in order

You can find the profiles of ALL the other artists in my previous post Artists exhibiting at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024. There is also a link to an artist's home site in their name.

At the end, I highlight

how artwork is assessed and medals awarded
the profiles of the Judges
how to see the exhibition

My next post (this week) will focus on key themes around

what makes a difference - why people win Gold i.e. the strengths exhibited by the best exhibits and
areas for improvement - aspects relating to the different criteria used for judging and areas of weakness where artists could improve.

Both will hopefully be helpful.

I'll use examples from the Gold Medallists to demonstrate important points
but will NOT reference individuals where I am focusing on aspects where artists can do better.

Awards for Outstanding Botanical Artwork

There are three awards which, in the context of the show, are all of relatively recent origin. However as the numbers of exhibitors have grown and the standard of art exhibited has improved significantly, it was felt that there was a need to recognise all those who had particularly impressed the Judges. (More about the Judges at the end!)

It's notable that all three Gold Medal winners - who also won an Award - are ALL First Time Exhibitors. This is VERY impressive - but it must be acknowledged that it is actually becoming more normal. That's because very many artists, after becoming approved to exhibit, do not apply to exhibit at a specific exhibition UNTIL they have an excellent exhibit to submit.

Best Botanical Art Exhibit
LYNNE UPTIN The Genus Richea: A Relic of Gondwana.

The Genus Richea: A Relic of Gondwana

This is a classic example of an artist who chose to do a very unusual and highly scientific project - and then produced paintings which are very complex and yet explain everything and are also very attractive. A number of them were painted from herbaria specimens - and we see examples of these in the slideshow in the gallery.

Lynne has been painting the Genus Richea since 2020. Richea is a genus of 11 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. Nine of the species are endemic to Tasmania - where she lives - and the other two are endemic to the south-east of the Australian mainland. It's also associated with the split up of the supercontinent of Gondwana as Tasmania was the last region of the continental plates to split from Antartica.

I think we can expect a second exhibit of Genus Richea from Lynne!

In 2023/24 Lynne has focussed on developing a body of works for this exhibition which is a study of 6 of the species of the genus Richea, a plant with ancient and fascinating origins. The majority of the species are endemic to Tasmania’s World Heritage temperate rainforests.

Charlotte Brooks (left) presents Lynne Uptin with her Crystal Vase for Best Exhibit

Lynne Uptin was the Director of Arts Tasmania for 20 years. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2010 for her services to arts administration. Prior to that she worked as an illustrator and owned two art galleries.

What's really interesting is that Lynne is relatively new to botanical art. However she has started exhibiting, became a Fellow of SBA and has won awards for her artwork.

Her first exhibition in 2022 at a prestigious gallery was a sell out.
She received an Award of Merit in Botanical Art for her painting of a Kangaroo Paw in the SBA exhibition Plantae 2024

Judge’s Special Award
There's a second award for an entire exhibit called the Judges Special Award which was introduced in 2018. This was after Dr. Hye Woo Shin GM (2013,2014,2018,2022) came back for the third time to win another Gold Medal, after she had also previously won the Best Exhibit (2013 and 2014). It's not an award which automatically goes to a Gold Medal Winner. However it is an award which is often more related to new ideas or subjects for botanical art and/or the scale of the endeavour - and exhibits which the Judges really like!

SUNANDA VERMA WIDEL Ornamental Bananas from Southeast Asia.

Ornamental bananas are very much associated with South East Asia and these particular bananas grow in Singapore Botanical Gardens which is a UNESCO Heritage Site. Her exhibit demonstrates the morphological diversity found in the Musaceae genus in Singapore.

This was a project which clearly exemplified the scale of her endeavour to record this genus. Her aim was to demonstrate their upright habit and the variety of the flower forms, the fruit and the amazing array of colours of different species. Her artwork also includes a neat row of dissections to illustrate parts of the plant. Overall she has more than succeeded, as her exhibit has great impact within the Gallery.

Her fieldwork, over several years, involved making accurate measurements, detailed drawings and colour swatches throughout the year - all while sat in the tropical heat of Singapore - and there are photographs of her doing this in the slideshow opposite her exhibit in the gallery.

Sunanda Verma Widel - with three of the paintings in her exhibit

Sunanda, who lives in Singapore, only took up botanical art after she retired from her teaching career in international schools around the world. She has a background in art and a degree in Printmaking.

On retirement from teaching, she began to study botanical art with the Society of Botanical Art's 2-year Distance Learning Diploma Course (DLDC). In 2018, she graduated with distinction. Sunanda is a Fellow of the SBA and a member of the ASBA and a founder member of the Botanical Art Society of Singapore (BASS). She has exhibited internationally and her artwork is held in the archive collections at both the RBG Edinburgh and the SBG. She will also be exhibiting in the 17th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration at the Hunt Institute in Pittsburgh this autumn. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of Sunada's artwork in future!

Best Botanical Artwork
DALEEN ROODT Eulophia horsfallii & Dissotis princeps with carpenter bees (Xylocopa flavorufa).

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RHS Lindley Library: Digital Exhibitions of the Art Collection

14/9/2020

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The RHS Lindley Library remains closed for the time being - but has started having exhibitions again!

The exhibitions are online and include:

two exhibitions accessible by the public:
- Enduring Beauty: Orchid Portraits of the RHS
- Healing Garden: A History of Medicinal Plants
one which is a RHS Member only exhibitions: Worth a Thousand Words. I have to say I like that idea of giving us members a bit of a perk!

Just click the links and you can view both the images and the narrative text to go with them

Enduring Beauty: Orchid Portraits of the RHS

The RHS has employed an official artist to paint beautiful life-size portraits of orchids for over 120 years.

This exhibition opened in the Library just before lockdown started. It was going to provide a spectacular display of recent RHS orchid portraits - including the latest portraits by current RHS Orchid Artist, Deborah Lambkin.

Deborah is the ninth official RHS orchid painter since the first postholder was appointed in 1897

The digital exhibition:

introduces both Deborah Lambkin and Nellie Roberts, the first of the RHS Orchid Artists who held the role for nearly 60 years and painted over 4000 of the 7000 orchid portraits now in the Lindley Library Collection.
provides large images of some of her paintings of orchids since she took on the role of Official Orchid Artist

reviews the role of the orchid breeders and RHS Orchid Committee - which has been judging and giving awards to new orchids since 1889!
reviews how the orchids get judged
then the process used by Deborah to paint the 30 or so new orchids she is given to record every year

READ MORE about Deborah Lambkin in my blog posts:

Healing Garden: A History of Medicinal Plants

This exhibition reviews:

the work of the herbalists
what is a herbal - and "simples"
what the early printed herbals contained
what the illustrations looked like in the early herbals
the role of science and superstition in relation to plants and herbals
the role of herbals in relation to modern science
the remedies associated with specific plants eg peonies, foxglove, rosemary, lemon balm, mugwort, honeysuckle, jasmine, valerian, hyacinth, dandelion, mint, lungwort, marjoram , thyme, primrose, white nettle and daffodil bulbs,

You can also READ MORE about Herbals on this website

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Worth a Thousand Words

Worth a Thousand Words - for RHS members ONLY

This digital exhibition is the equivalent of the exhibition held in the Lindley Library during the RHS Botanical Art Show in 2018.

"Worth a Thousand Words" is about the RHS Gold Medal winning paintings in the botanical art collection.You can see:

artwork in a variety of media
a selection of recent acquisitions and some of the finest contemporary botanical artworks in the RHS Lindley Collections
the very different ways that contemporary artists portray plants and flowers while raising the standards and pushing the boundaries of botanical illustration.

In this instance, the digital exhibition is for RHS Members only - or rather those who have got an online RHS account (like me!)

However everybody can read more about that exhibition - and see some of the images - in my blog post Worth a Thousand Words - exhibition at the RHS.

However you can see much larger images of the work in the online exhibition.

So if you're an RHS member and have not got your online account sorted yet, now's the time to do it!

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