NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Three New Exhibitions at Kew Gardens announced

22/3/2023

On the 1st April 2023, three new exhibitions open at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery in Kew Gardens:

The Wonderful World of Water Plants - botanical art and illustrations
Plants of the Qu'ran - a series of 25 botanical paintings by Sue Wickison
All the Flowers Are for Me - two installations by Anila Quayyum Agha

Brief descriptions of each are below.

The exhibitions are on from 1 April to Sunday 17 September 2023.

The Wonderful World of Water Plants

This exhibition in Galleries 5 and 6 comprises botanical art about plants that live their lives in water. It includes artwork from the Shirley Sherwood Collection about world-class water lilies, lavish lotuses, fascinating ferns and sensational sea grapes! ⁠

I'll be highlighting the botanical artists whose work is in this exhibition when I review it. I'm certainly expecting to see artwork by Beverley Allen, Pandora Sellars, Phansakdi Chakkaphak, Katherine Manisco and Lucy Smith.

Plants of the Qu'ran (Gallery 1 and 2)

The top half of my invitation to the Private View

sGalleries 1 and 2 will provide a world premiere of a newly completed series of 26 botanical paintings about the Plants of The Qur’an by Sue Wickison - plus a showcase of preliminary drawings and a video about the project (see below).

In search of accurate reference for the plants mentioned in the Holy Qur’ān, Sue has travelled to a number of countries including the UAE from the Empty Quarter in Abu Dhabi, into the deserts in Sharjah and to remote mountain farms in Oman to see heritage plants that have been grown for generations.

Developed in collaboration with Kew Botanist Dr Shahina Ghazanfar, this unique exhibition highlights the cultural, agricultural and botanical significance of a variety of plants referenced in the Qur’an.

Prior to moving to New Zealand, Sue Wickison was a botanical illustrator working for Kew for nine years on a variety of publications and has achieved a number of notable achievements - including this one.

Sue is also doing a talk about the project as part of Julia Tricket Talks on 27th April. I'm also personally looking forward to meeting up with Sue again very soon and having a long chat with her about this project and exhibition - and a few other things....

REFERENCE:

All the Flowers Are for Me

The large Gallery 3 has an exhibition of contemporary art which showcases two stunning pieces by the Pakistani-American contemporary artist Anila Quayyum Agha

Anila Quayyum Agha (b. Lahore, Pakistan) received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore and an MFA from the University of North Texas.

All the Flowers are for Me is a large, laser-cut steel cube suspended from the ceiling which is inspired by patterns used in Islamic art and architecture. This will fill the gallery space with elaborate floor-to-ceiling shadow patterns - as you can see if you click the link in the title of the piece.

Stealing Moments (After Morris and Dürer), I and II, is a new work. It is receiving its UK premiere at Kew Gardens. This wall-mounted piece, constructed from stainless steel, is inspired by Great Piece of Turf , a watercolour by the pioneering botanical artist Albrecht Dürer. It is intended to demonstrate the constant evolution of botanical art forms, and highlights how traditional botanical painting remains a source of inspiration for contemporary art.

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UPDATE: Young Botanical Artist Competition - deadline extended

26/11/2022

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This is a SUMMARY of the UPDATES relating to the Young Botanical Artist Competition introduced by Dr Shirley Sherwood in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. I've been getting quite a few queries from people interested in the competition and felt the need to summarise

the changes since the competition was first announced.
the frequently asked questions answered - and where to go if you have any other query

So this is an UPDATE about what's happened since the competition was introduced:

on this webpage Young Botanical Artist Competition on the Shirley Sherwood website
this blog post Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022: Call for Entries on the Botanical Art and Artists website.

What's changed?

Artwork: Jessica Shepherd, ‘Giant Leaf Poplar Tree’, 900 x 1260, Watercolour.

In summary, the CHANGES are as follows :

the deadline for entries from Young Artists has been EXTENDED to April 30th 2023
those artists whose work is selected for the exhibition will now be notified by 30th June 2023
40 selected artworks will be displayed in an exhibition in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery from October 2023.

This is what it says in the announcement on the Shirley Sherwood Collection Facebook Page.

In collaboration with Kew Gardens, we’ve decided to dedicate an entire wing of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery to our #YoungBotanicalArtist competition. More space means more artworks so we’ve extended our deadline to April 30th, 2023. Shortlisted artists will be informed by June 30th and 40 selected artworks will be displayed in the gallery from October onwards.

This is a unique opportunity to make your mark as a botanical artist and we encourage you to be as creative as you can within our theme of ‘TREES’. Check out our website for inspiration – you’ll find over 1,000 of the world’s best artworks all in one place.

We’re inviting young artists from the ages of 16-18 and 19-25 to enter our competition. If you turned 26 between our original deadline of November 30th, 2022 and our new deadline, your application will still be eligible.

The winning artist from each age group will receive £750 and the two runners-up £250 along with an art supplies bundle donated by Seawhite of Brighton.
To read more about the competition and apply, visit our website: https://shirleysherwood.com/YoungBotanicalArtist

Please also note

The artist's age on the deadline date - April 30th 2023 - should determine which age category they submit within. Artists who turned 26 between November 30th 2022 (our original competition deadline) and April 30th 2023 are still eligible to apply.

Do you have a further query?

I want to emphasise all further queries about the competition should be directed to the Shirley Sherwood website - see the bottom of the page for how to do this (see below). Plus there is a FAQs section which provides responses to frequently asked questions

Do you have a question not covered above?, please contact us.

The queries answered in the FAQs section currently cover:

Who can enter the competition?
Can I enter a piece that is off-theme?
Does it matter if I am an artist living outside the UK?
Can I use digital media?
Can I submit more than one artwork?
Will I make profit from sales if my work is printed on to merchandise?

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Video: Illustrating the night time blooming water lilies

5/7/2022

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Lucy Smith at her desk in Kew - with a giant water lily bud she's just dissected

(below) Further to yesterday's post A NEW Giant Water Lily - discovered and illustrated by Lucy Smith, some of you may be interested in video of some of the challenges of illustrating water lilies

Channel 5 have been collaborating with Kew Gardens to create an excellent series called Kew Gardens - A Year in Bloom which aired for the first time last year 2021. It's about the work of the gardens - and the people who work within it - who of course include botanical illustrators.

Episode 3 included a section on the work of Lucy Smith, one of Kew's freelance botanical illustrators, and the challenges she has faced when trying to get specimens of giant water lilies to draw and then paint.

This YouTube video (below) - posted by Channel 5, is has been compiled from extracts from Episode 3 of their series and is called "Trying to catch the night-time bloom of the Waterlilies"

In it you see:

the Waterlily House at Kew Gardens - completed in 1852 and designed specifically to showcase the giant Amazon waterlily (Victoria amazonica)
the Kew Herbarium (where seven million preserved vascular plant specimens are kept) and the Library
Lucy Smith at her desk in the building dissecting a very fresh giant water lily bud - being careful to avoid the prickles - and then explaining how it works for the purposes of reproduction

and here's the bud - and you can see how big it is from Lucy's hand behind it!

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A NEW Giant Water Lily - discovered and illustrated by Lucy Smith

4/7/2022

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The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have today announced the publication of a paper about the discovery of Victoria boliviana a brand NEW Giant Water Lily. Moreover it is now officially recognised to be the LARGEST in the world.

Oddly, the newly-named Victoria boliviana has actually been sitting in Kew’s Herbarium for 177 years - alongside Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziania..

A multi-disciplinary team of Kew experts - spearheaded by botanical illustrator Lucy T. Smith and Kew's tropical horticulturist Carlos Magdalena - have now revealed the plant to be new to science – the first giant water lily "discovery" in more than a century..

Lucy and Carlos with Victoria boliviana in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens

The paper’s authors decided to name the species in honour of Bolivian partners and the South American home of the waterlily where it grows in the aquatic ecosystems of Llanos de Moxos.
With flowers that turn from white to pink and bearing spiny petioles, V. boliviana is now the largest waterlily in the world, with leaves growing as wide as 3 metres in the wild.
The current record for the largest species is held by La Rinconada Gardens in Bolivia where leaves reached 3.2 metres.

The announcement is of particular interest to botanical illustrators for two reasons:

the discovery was stimulated by Lucy Smith's major personal project to illustrate the giant water lilies at Kew - after she had illustrated the smallest waterlily in the world.
Lucy provided the initial important evidence to prompt a major scientific investigation by a team of people after she demonstrated that one of the waterlilies she was investigating, documenting and recording was actually different to the two known giant waterlilies, as illustrated by Walter Hood Fitch in the 19th century.

You can read Lucy's account of the project in her new blog post on the topic - which she has been writing for the last four years - and provides the botanical illustrator's perspective on this amazing story of plant discovery - see Victoria boliviana - a new species of Giant Waterlily | Lucy Smith Blog (4th July 2022)

Delimitation of the Giant Water Lily Victoria:
the Scientific Project and Article

The title and authors of the original research article "Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation"

So it came to pass that, this morning at 5am, a new scientific paper Revised Species Delimitation in the Giant Water Lily Genus Victoria (Nymphaeaceae) Confirms a New Species and Has Implications for Its Conservation was published in the journal "Frontiers in Plant Science".

This paper lays out the evidence for:

the discovery of the first giant waterlily of the Victoria species in over a century - to be called Victoria boliviana
the declaration of a NEW largest waterlily in the world.

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Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022: Call for Entries

30/6/2022

There's a NEW Botanical Artist Competition for Young Botanical Artists - and this is about the Call for Entries.

The Young Botanical Artist Competition 2022 is being sponsored by Dr Shirley Sherwood in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

We believe there is significant talent among the 16-25 age group with a wealth of exciting work to be uncovered. This is a crucial moment to engage with the ever-growing genre of botanical art – the scientific capacity of botanical paintings and drawings to document plants and fungi is particularly vital in contemporary society as we work to preserve our planet’s biodiversity.

[ UPDATE: The Deadline for Entries has been extended to 30 April 2023 - see my UPDATE post UPDATE: Young Botanical Artist Competition - deadline extended ]

Summary of who/what/how to enter

Below is a summary of the "need to know" facts about the competition for those interested in entering. This covers:

Details of who can enter and what they can enter
Selection and judging
Prizes

PLUS Resources on this website

There are a few very relevant matters which are missing at the moment (eg entry form) - but I'm sure this will be fixed quickly.

Summer 2022 Banner: Victoria regia - the Royal Water Lily

1/6/2022

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Tomorrow is the Platinum Jubilee - the 70th anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

As today is the day I change the seasonal banner on this website - and linked sites - I thought it might be appropriate if I could find an image with a Royal link.

Which is why the new image is of one of my favourite botanical illustrations - the illustration of Victoria regia - the Royal Waterlily at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - by Walter Hood Fitch.

"Victoria regia" (1851) by Walter Hood Fitch - an Illustration of a specimen of the Royal water-lily, flowering at Kew.

About Victoria regia / Victoria amazonica

Victoria regia / amazonica is a member of the genus Victoria. It is the largest waterlily species (of the family Nymphaeaceae) in the world due to its enormous lily pads (leaves).

On its classification by John Lindley in 1837, the plant was originally named Victoria regia in honour of Queen Victoria, who had recently ascended to the throne. It's still known by this name in Guyana, where it is the national flower.

Since then it has been renamed Victoria amazonica. This is because it is a native of the shallow waters of the Amazon River.

TIMELINE:

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Botanical Art Exhibitions - October / November 2021

25/10/2021

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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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