NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Jessica Tcherepnine (1938-2018)

7/1/2019

Jessica Tcherepnine GM was generally regarded as an outstanding botanical artist. She passed away, age 80, after a long illness on New Year's Eve.

'Her work is intense as well as being decorative and scientifically accurate"
James White - Past Curator of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Jessica Tcherepnine - at the Artists Reception for the 25th Anniversary Exhibition for the Shirley Sherwood Collection

Jessica Elizabeth Tcherepnine was English by birth but lived in the USA for 55 years.

She was born on 4th May 1938 in Sussex and was the daughter of William Barclay Harris and Elizabeth Milnes Coates. However she had lived and worked in New York for the last 50+ years. She met Peter Tcherepnine in New York and married him in 1973. They lived in their Manhattan apartment and their farm near Millbrook, NY, where she had her garden.

In terms of career, she started work at Christie's in London in the Furniture Department. She then moved to Christies in New York and worked with John Richardson. Latterly she worked mainly for its Oriental Department.

In 1982, she left Christies to start painting. In fact, she started painting flowers at her home in Sussex at a very young age. She was essentially self-taught, although her art education did include four months studying drawing in Florence under Signora Simi (1890-1987).

Her garden provided her with specimens for some of her watercolour paintings. Other paintings of exotic tropical plants were developed as a result of multiple visits to the island of Nevis in the West Indies.

Her artistic practice

Fortunately due to a couple of articles we have the artist's voice to speak as to her practice and approach to botanical art.

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RIP Margaret Stones and Jessica Tcherepnine

6/1/2019

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This is way of a notice, to those who have not already heard, that we lost two outstanding botanical artists at the turn of the year.

Margaret Stones AM MBE GM passed away on 26th December in Epworth, Australia
Jessica Tcherepnine GM died on New Year's Eve in New York.

I'm doing a brief biography/appreciation of Margaret Stones today (see below)
I'm also in the process of constructing a web page for Margaret Stones for my section about Famous and/or Notable Botanical Artists in the 20th Century - chronicling her artwork and significant contribution to botanical illustration and will be highlighting this at a later date

Tomorrow I have a post about Jessica Tcherepnine.

Margaret Stones AM OBE GM (1920-2018)

Margaret Stones is a Botanical Artist renowned for her taxonomical accuracy.
Encyclopedia of Australian Science

Margaret Stones has died, age 98, in Australia, on 26 December 2018.
She was a very distinguished Australian botanical artist who provided a significant contribution to botanical art and illustration during the 20th century.

Some highlights of career included

one of the longest serving botanical illustrators for the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Working on a freelance basis, she produced over 400 watercolour drawings of plants for Curtis's Botanical Magazine over a period of 25 years between 1958 and 1983
participated in some major projects - providing 254 drawings for a six-volume work (1967-78) for The Endemic Flora of Tasmania, and also illustrating the Flora of Louisiana commissioned in 1976 - which grew to over 200 exquisite watercolor drawings
received very many awards recognising her distinction in her field - including the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and the Order of Australia (AM) plus a Gold and Silver Veitch Memorial Medals and Gold Medals from the Royal Horticultural Society. She also held honorary degrees from both the University of Melbourne and Louisiana State University
taught and inspired very many botanical artists and talent spotted others - including Pandora Sellars.

Pandora enjoyed a great relationship with her and shared with me how incredible she was. An inspiration to botanical artists everywhere.
Margaret Best

Margaret Stones - pictured on 13 March 2003 at the "Imperial Honours" Exhibition at Melbourne University, just after her return to Australia | Courtesy of The Australian Women's Register

Early life in Australia

She was born at Colac, Australia, southwest of Melbourne, on August 28, 1920. Her father was a farmer and her early years were blighted by the difficulties associated with the aftermath of the Great War and the Depression.

Her artistic talents were evident early on and her family supported her in her endeavours to train in art.

She attended Swinburne Girls Junior Technical School (the first Technical School for Girls in Victoria) where she obtained a three-year scholarship to study industrial art at Swinburne Technical College, Victoria (1936-1938). Unfortunately her parents were unable to keep her on for the fourth year which would have given her a Diploma. However she did attend night classes at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School for 18 months during 1940-41, while earning a living doing commercial art jobs during the day.

War work then interrupted her work as a commercial artist and she trained and worked as a nurse during the Second World War.

Her real involvement in botanical illustration began after she contracted pulmonary tuberculosis shortly after she completed her final nursing exams. She was hospitalised and confined to bed for 18 months - at Epworth to begin with and then later at Glenelg Hospital at Box Hill.

What might seem like a turn for the worse, in fact influenced her career for the rest of her life.

After complaining of going mad with the sheer boredom of enforced recuperation associated with her stay in hospital, she started to spend her time drawing .wild flowers. These were brought to her by her friends - some of whom brought plants to her from the Grampians, a range of mountains in western Victoria.

After she recovered from tuberculosis, she was invited to join the University of Melbourne Botany school summer expeditions to the Bogong High Plains, Victoria.

In 1951 she left Australia for London to further her botanical knowledge.

A new career and a new life at Kew Gardens

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