NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Ask an Expert - the next 3 Botanical Art Surgeries at Kew Gardens

11/7/2019

The dates of the next "Ask an Expert - Botanical Art Surgeries" with botanical illustrators who work with the botanists at Kew Gardens (and other clients) in the Art Galleries at Kew are as follows:

Venue: Marianne North Gallery

Venue: Shirley Sherwood Gallery

19th January 2020 - Lucy Smith and Hazel Wilks (link to the website for more info will be available nearer the date)

The botanical art surgeries are FREE with admission to Kew Gardens.
Each workshop will last from 11am to 3pm.

About Christobel King

Christobel King - pictured with some of her artwork at the "Brazil - A Powerhouse of Plants" exhibition at Kew in 2016

Christabel King graduated in botany and then studied scientific illustration, before she began working as a botanical illustrator with the botanists at Kew Gardens and became one of the world’s top botanical illustrators. She started producing plates for Kew's Curtis's Botanical Magazine in 1975 and has now spent over 40 years working at Kew (although I gather this is part-time these days as she has now officially retired!)

In 1989 she was awarded the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in botanical illustration by the Linnean Society. She also has the RHS Grenfell Gold Medal,

Christabel is the author of The Kew Book of Botanical Illustration - the first art instruction book by the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew - which also shares some of her wealth of experience, expertise and tips.

You can read an interview with her In the Studio: Christabel King about her techniques and art materials -

About Rachel Pedder Smith

Home Page graphic for Rache Pedder Smith's website

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Talk about Marianne North at Kew Gardens

18/6/2019

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There is a talk - an Introduction to Marianne North - in the Marianne North Gallery in Kew Gardens this coming Saturday 22nd June - starting at 1pm.

Learn more about the the nineteenth century traveller and painter of plants Marianne North - her background, explorations and her paintings of plants which she created on her travels around the world - from Philip Kerrigan from the University of York.

Philip Kerrigan has a PhD from the Research Centre for Social Sciences at the University of York, and has undertaken research into how Marianne North’s paintings reflect the ideas of Charles Darwin and other scientific views of the late 19th century. He researched and wrote the article Marianne North: Painting a Darwinian Vision

View of the interior of the Marianne North Gallery where the talk will take place

If anyone wants to book a place please

EITHER email shirleysherwoodgallery@kew.org
OR ring 0208 332 3622.

A ticket for the event is included with the price of admission to Kew Gardens..

If you can't make it to the incredible Marianne North Gallery (once seen, never ever forgotten!), and want to know more about her, why not take a look at my web page about her About Marianne North (1830-1890).

However I shall be trying to get to the talk this Saturday!

The exterior of the Marianne North Gallery - next to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery

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Kew Video: What is Botanical Art?

25/4/2019

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The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have published a new video about 'What is Botanical Art'.

Botanical art plays an important role in Kew’s scientific work. Find out how Kew’s botanical artists reconstruct specimens, and how their drawings help our botanists study plants.

It features somebody I know well - Lucy T. Smith - who is one of the botanical illustrators who work at Kew. She produces assignments for the botanists and for publication in Curtis Botanical Magazine and other botanical publications - as well as teaching students of botanical illustration.

Also involved is Dr Maria Vorontsova FLS who explains why botanical illustration is still superior to photography in terms of recording what's important and helping scientists differentiate between plants - and why she finds Lucy's illustrations of her plants so valuable.

Botanical illustrations aren't just art. They communicate precisely what's needed for the taxonomic science.
Maria Vorontsova, Research Leader

Lucy T Smith working on a botanical illustration at Kew

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those needing a two minute introduction to precisely why botanical illustration is needed and how it is produced.

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A retrospective perspective on recent exhibitions at Kew

17/3/2019

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Today was the last day of four exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Galleru of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens.

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks 
Trees: Delight in the Detail
Rankafu: Masterpieces of Japanese Woodblock Prints of Orchids
Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars (1936-2017)

This post reflects on my impressions and some of what I learned over what I think were seven visits to the exhibitions in total. (Note: I wrote about what they covered in Four new botanical art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery.)

I'm writing today essentially as a record of the exhibitions

of what was there to be seen and
about the impact that each made on me.

It's also a record of why only seeing an exhibition once doesn't always give full value - whereas multiple visits (for those fortunate to be able to do) pays dividends and enables you to realise which paintings you look forward to coming back to see.

I'm also going to confess to the fact that I've found it very difficult to write about Pandora. Multiple viewings following by viewing with other friends finally enabled me to articulate the impact of that exhibition - but verbally rather than in writing.

I'm also very grateful that Kew now allows photographs of artwork during exhibitions - and I can continue to view and review the exhibitions in the months and years to come.

Dr Shirley Sherwood at the PC with artists, curators and artists involved with the exhibition

People love trees

Four walls like this

The exhibition of the graphite drawings of heritage oaks across the UK by Mark Frith has been an enormous success. It has had lots of visitors many of whom lingered long at the different heritage oaks drawn in graphite. They also bought lots of the book about the exhibition and lots of prints (some of which sold out).

Maybe it's because trees are more accessible and people understand trees? Maybe it's because more of us live in towns and never seem to see enough trees? Maybe it's because in this instance it's rare to see trees which are so old and so big and create such a massive impact.

It reminded me in some ways of the way the public responded to the trees in David Hockney's 2012 exhibition of landscapes at the Royal Academy which also included very many paintings of trees (see my Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture).

If you wait until the end of the afternoon there are fewer people!

Looking back
This exhibition for me was all about the overall impact. Each drawing measured 1.7 m wide. I didn't spend time looking at how he drew although I did spend one visit going round looking closely at the labels as well as the trees and was fascinated to learn about their height and girth, how old they are and where each was located. It grounded what seem at times to be fantasy drawings of trees.

What I didn't quite appreciate when this exhibition opened was the extent to which this exhibition of ancient oaks without leaves would resonate more with the gardens around and about over time - as the deciduous trees outside first lost and then stood without leaves. Consequently there was a connection between the two.

I know that for me, every time I looked at the exhibition, it was the overall impact which grabbed me every time. It was almost impossible to look at each tree in the same amount of depth. I found I started to look at parts of the trees - and took a series of photos of the base of the trunk - which helped me appreciate the variation between them even better.

For those unable to see the exhibition

I can recommend the very good book about the development of the series of trees A Legacy of Ancient Oaks which has been selling strongly throughout the exhibition.
Some of the prints have sold out but are due back in stock in April and are available from the Kew Shop.
I don't think there will be another opportunity to see the stubbs of the pencils used to draw the trees.

Trees: Delight in the Detail

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Ask an expert: botanical art surgery - with Deborah Lambkin

11/2/2019

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Don't forget - next Sunday is the third and final botanical art surgery with an expert in botanical illustration at Kew Gardens.

Expert: Deborah Lambkin
Venue: Main Gallery of the Shirley Sherwood Art Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Date: Sunday 17th February 2019
Time: 11am - 3pm

It's a great way of being able to ask questions about your own work and also about life as a professional botanical illustrator.

About Deborah Lambkin

Come and see me paint in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery @kewgardens on 17 Feb. I will be there to answer questions and to chat about my favourite subject- botanical illustration! #botanicalillustration #botanicaldrawing #art pic.twitter.com/3bZfzQD48j
— Deborah Lambkin (@DeborahLambkin) February 7, 2019

Some facts about Deborah Lambkin:

born in Ireland but now lives in London
trained at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin
official orchid artist for the RHS Orchid Committee since 2005 - and has painted over 200 different orchids
an artist member of the RHS Picture Panel which judges exhibits at the RHS Botanical Art Shows
One of only two Irish artists (to date) to win a gold medal at the RHS exhibition, the other being Wendy F. Walsh. She won an RHS Gold Medal for her collection of eight paintings of nerines in 1999.
Contributes paintings to Curtis's Botanical Magazine regularly.
This is an article she wrote about Dealing with plant specimens – Deborah Lambkin

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Lucy Smith filmed by BBC News

22/12/2018

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Botanical Illustrator Lucy Smith was telling me earlier in the week about how exciting it was to be filmed creating one of her botanical illustrations for the Kew Herbarium Archive by a BBC News crew who came to Kew Gardens. (This is part of a wider filming project by the BBC at Kew)>

Her item was due to run on yesterday's news.

...and so:

the good news - the title given to the piece is The woman who draws the world's plants
the good news - you can still see the video on the BBC website - just click the blue link above. In it she describes how she draws a NEW species and what she has to do to dry botanical material in order to see its features properly - and how long it takes her to produce an illustration
the bad news - the piece about her got bumped by a drone! BBC News needed extra time for the impact caused by the awful men who closed down Gatwick by flying drones with a view to causing maximum disruption!

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Do take a look at the video - it's only short but packed full of information!

There's also an article about Lucy Smith on the Kew Gardens website
RECOMMENDED READ: Meet award-winning botanical illustrator Lucy Smith & discover her line drawings

You can also read more about Lucy and what she does on:

her website http://www.lucytsmith.com
her Facebook Page - Lucy T Smith Botanical Artist
her Twitter account - Lucy Smith at https://twitter.com/palmsmithy

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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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