NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Botanical Art Exhibitions - October / November 2021

25/10/2021

This is a summary of the botanical art exhibitions open in London and Cambridge during October and November in London.

If your botanical art exhibition is not listed and should be please contact me and I will update.

Exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens

THREE new exhibitions opened on 16th October and run until 27 March 2022

Zadok Ben-David: Natural Reserve - The first UK-based solo exhibition to incorporate new and existing works by Zadok Ben-David since 2008. Brand new and extended artworks are featured, including the stunning 360-degree installation Blackfield which is made up of more than 17,000 etched, hand-painted flowers.
Elegant and Enchanting - an exhibition of artworks by renowned Japanese botanical artists who include Asuka Hishiki, Hideo Horikoshi, Mariko Ikeda, Mieko Ishikawa and Kimiyo Maruyama. The exhibition also includes artworks by artists from China and Thailand.

ReflectionS Show – No Plants, No Planet - This digital exhibit of artwork by members of the Association of British Botanical Artists - which aims to stimulate discussion about diversity and the impact of climate change - is available to view in the Shirley Sherwood Galleries as well as on the ABBA website.

Exhibition at the Garden Museum, Lambeth

Elizabeth Blackadder: Favourite Flowers (19 October - 21 November 2021)

The late Dame Elizabeth Blackadder was one of Scotland’s greatest artists, celebrated for her beguiling and lyrical paintings of flowers. A passionate plantswoman, Blackadder’s garden provided her with rich inspiration year-round, from daffodils to autumn leaves, tulips, iris and lilies.

This exhibition, curated with The Scottish Gallery, brings together a selection of her watercolours, etchings and screenprints from throughout her life in the theme of growth, looking ahead to the renewal of life that is always around the corner in the garden.

Exhibition at the Images of Nature Gallery,
Natural History Museum, South Kensington

The Artistic Legacy of Joseph Banks has two new displays installed in the Images of Nature Gallery - which run until 13 January 2022

Artworks by Johann Jacob Dillenius - a new display of early eighteenth-century depictions of plants by Johann Jacob Dillenius (1687-1747) who was appointed as the first Sherardian professor of botany at Oxford.
Items from Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage - An original artwork and a herbarium specimen from Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage of 1768-1771. You can see more of his drawings in Wikimedia Commons

Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

Scent from Nature: Beauty's Botanical Origins - to Sunday 31st October 2021
Booking required / Free Entry

The exhibition includes botanical watercolours of plants, from the permanent collection. It focuses on those used in the scent industry. These are displayed displayed alongside perfume vessels from ancient times to the 20th century.
Works include those by:

Pieter Withoos (1655-92),
Nicolas Robert (1614–85),
Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–70),
Joseph von Plenck (1735–1807),
Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) and
Henriette Knip (1783–1842)

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Botanical Art Exhibitions (Autumn 2021) in London

16/9/2021

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RHS | London Botanical Art and Photography Show

The RHS's London Botanical Art and Photography Show opens at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea on Saturday 18th September 2021.

This is the link to the exhibition page on the Saatchi Gallery website.

Features of this exhibition are that it

runs for two weeks for the first time
AND is on at the same time as the Chelsea Flower Show (21-26th September 2021)

I now understand why it was decided to try and hold it at the Saatchi Gallery. This is a hop skip and longish jump from the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea where the Chelsea Show is always held.

Participants in the 2021 show include portfolios exhibits by:

15 botanical artists and illustrators
19 botanical photographers portfolio collections

RHS Medals
The RHS medals awarded to each exhibitor - Gold, Silver Gilt, Silver or Bronze - have been announced today (Friday 17 September) and the award winners will be listed in a future blog post.

The Saatchi Gallery

Tickets

Details of booking and prices are on the Saatchi Gallery website
Admission to this ticketed show is free for Saatchi Gallery Members and RHS Members.
RHS Members only:
- Note that the code required which enables RHS members to enter for free is included in the notice about the exhibition in "Your Gardening" update from the RHS date 2nd September 2021.
- Note also that getting the code and including it your booking is NOT enough. You will also need to present your RHS membership card to gain entry.
- I found booking the ticket using the code to be confusing. You need to enter the code BEFORE you start to select date and time because the free RHS option is only generated when the code has been inserted. Be careful you select the right one!
- My recommendation - take it slow and if you need to try more than once I won't be surprised!

Sloane Square station top centre; Saatchi Gallery top left; RHS Chelsea Flower Show in the grounds of the Royal Hospital / Ranelagh Gardens bottom centre/right

The Highgrove Florilegium at The Guards Chapel, Chelsea

“The Highgrove Florilegium: Watercolours Depicting Plants Grown in The Garden at Highgrove” will also be on view to those attending the Chelsea Flower Show.

This is not an opportunity which comes along very often - so definitely one not to miss. It features:

original watercolours by Florilegium artists painted for The Highgrove Florilegium, a two-volume set of botanical prints depicting the plants, vegetables, fruit and trees grown in the garden at Highgrove.
work by 72 artists from around the world

Venue: The Garrison (Guards) Chapel, Chelsea Barracks (link to location on Google Maps)
Dates: 21st - 26th September 2021
Hours 11am - 4pm daily
Booking not required
Organisers: The Prince's Foundation
Below is a video of the gardens and the range of plants which can be found there.

Exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens

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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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NEW PAGE: Talks, Lectures and Tours about Botanical Art & Illustration

25/3/2021

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Today, I've published a new page about Talks, Lectures and Tours about Botanical Art and Illustration.

You can find it in the menu of the EDUCATION section of my Botanical Art and Artists website

The New Page has two halves

Online Talks and Lectures
In Person Talks, Lectures and Tours

This is content which does NOT form part of an educational course or workshop.

I've created the new page for two reasons

First, I think not everybody is aware of the free and paid opportunities to access experts talking about botanical art and illustration. Hence I aim for this page to be a place where all alks, lectures and tours can be listed.
Second, we've seen an increase in the number of people and organisations which are now routinely delivering online content as videos by Zoom.

Online Talks and Lectures

Find out more about the online talks, lectures and demos being delivered by:

The Shirley Sherwood Collection (FREE)
Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library Talks (FREE)
Linnean Society Talks and Tours (modest PAID)
Julia Trickey Talks (PAID)
ASBA Annual Conference (PAID)

In Person Talks, Lectures and Tours

I will be including the following in this section and provide indications of what has been provided to date

Kew Gardens "Ask the Expert" (FREE)
Kew Gardens Tours
Lectures in The Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens
Lectures at the Lindley Library, RHS HQ, London

NOTE: Most of the in person events are suspended at the moment due to the Pandemic (and lockdown in the UK). Some are limited to members of Kew or the RHS or other specific groups.

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VIDEO: "Paradise Lost" exhibition by Jan Hendrix

14/11/2020

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Today a video and virtual tour of the exhibition Paradise Lost by Jan Hendrix at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens was made available to view on the Facebook Page of the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

You can view that video below

I saw this video - which is very impressive - at a Virtual Private View for the Exhibition and have been waiting for this video to be made more widely available - but forgot to check when it finally reached YouTube!!

If you prefer to watch FULL SCREEN via YouTube (in 1080HD), this is the link to the same video

Below are links to the website page for the exhibition plus my previous post about this exhibition - which I've not yet seen (due to the fact I'm having to be careful and prefer my journeys on the London Underground to be as short as possible at the moment).

Exhibition: https://www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-on/paradise-lost-jan-hendrix-exhibition
My blog post: Banks 2020: Jan Hendrix at Shirley Sherwood Gallery Kew

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James Sherwood (1933-2020)

19/5/2020

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Other people will be writing about the amazing business career of James Sherwood who passed away peacefully last night.

I want instead to pay tribute to the man who supported his wife, Shirley Sherwood in her interest in and passion for botanical art - and who, with his family's support, gave us the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art.

Without the support of James Sherwood, we might not have had:

the patronage and support for the very many botanical artists around the world whose artwork is now part of The Shirley Sherwood Collection
the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens - which opened in April 2008
numerous fabulous exhibitions of botanical art - from all over the world - in the gallery as a result
the renaissance of botanical art around the world. That renaissance was greatly accelerated and promoted through the help and support offered by the Sherwood family.

The last time I saw him - in late November at the opening of Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at Kew - I made a point of thanking him for everything he had done to support botanical art. He seemed somewhat surprised at the time - but I emphasised that I knew that his support had been absolutely vital to what has been achieved in the last 30 years.

James Sherwood attended all the Private Views for exhibitions of botanical art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art - this is the one for the British Artists in the Collection in 2017

I learned of his passing on the Facebook Page dedicated to the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

We're so sad to say that Shirley's husband James B. Sherwood passed away peacefully last night. He'd been in hospital for the past few months after a major operation and we hoped he'd pull through but it was all just too much of a fight, even for someone as mighty as Jim.

You might have known him as the founder of shipping empire Sea Containers. Or the man who brought the Orient Express train back to life and built an entire luxury hotel brand around it. Or perhaps the consummate entrepreneur who always had projects in the pipeline. We just knew him as Jim - always on the move with a razor-sharp mind, a passion for Bridge, a loyal group of friends and colleagues all over the world and a family who loved and admired him.

James Blair Sherwood was an American who was based in Britain. He was

the founder of Belmond Ltd. (formerly Orient-Express Hotels Ltd) and
the founder and former president and CEO of Sea Containers Ltd.

Jim understood the passion of the true collector. He liked to collect classic trains and luxury hotels while Shirley preferred collecting botanical art.

However, many of the stories I have heard Shirley tell of how she found an artist or acquired a painting arose because of her travels with Jim to different parts of the world while he collected more hotels and oversaw those already in the portfolio. He went about his business while she found about the botanical artists in the area and met them and saw their art.

I'm very sure the Orient-Express Hotels company he founded and developed was one of the main reasons why the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Botanical Art is now a truly great international art collection which includes so much art (1000+ artworks) from over 300 botanical artists from 36 countries around the world.

This is a family legacy - it was a joint effort.

James Sherwood (with stick) in discussion with Bryan Poole a fine art printmaker of botanical art - at the Private View for British Botanical Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection

James Sherwood was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1933 and grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. He studied at Yale University and earned a degree in economics in 1955, before starting his career in marine transport, trains and hotels and founding and running two major businesses. He has also been

a Trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation;
a Member of the Executive Committee of the Advisory Board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection;
Vice President of the Transport Trust;
a Member of the Advisory Committee of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England;
a Member of the Board of Save Venice, Inc.;
a Member of the International Council of Yale University;
a Trustee of the World Monuments Fund in Britain; and
a Trustee of Oxford Philomusica.

In 1994, James was made the 15th honorary citizen of Venice since the founding of the Italian Republic in 1867, in recognition of his support of the arts and culture of Venice.

REFERENCE:

James Sherwood interview: the man who relaunched the Orient-Express | The Telegraph
Belmond’s founder deserves his place in its history | The Financial Times
James Sherwood talks trains, hotels, ships, and true luxury | Octavian Report
James Sherwood | The British Travel and Hospitality Hall of Fame

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Ask an expert: botanical art surgery - with Deborah Lambkin at Kew Gardens on 1st March

23/2/2020

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Next Sunday there's another Botanical Art Surgery with an expert at Kew Gardens - and the expert this time is Deborah Lambkin - winner of the prestigious Jill Smythies Award in 2019.

Expert: Deborah Lambkin
Venue: Main Gallery of the Shirley Sherwood Art Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Date: Sunday 1st March 2020
Time: 11am - 3pm

I’m doing the next Botanical Art Surgery in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery @kewgardens next Sunday 1st March. I’ll be painting a bit and chatting about botanical art mostly. Will show a few bits and pieces that I am working on too. 11 til 3. pic.twitter.com/uvymD9HoU2
— Deborah Lambkin (@DeborahLambkin) February 22, 2020

About Deborah Lambkin

Deborah Lambkin after being presented with the Jill Smythies Award 2019 | Permission of The Linnean Society of London

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
winner of the Linnean Society's Jill Smythies Award in 2019
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

Social Media Accounts

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