NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

RHS Lindley Library: Digital Exhibitions of the Art Collection

14/9/2020

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

Keep up to date with Botanical Art Exhibitions
Blog posts are emailed to you when you
Subscribe to Botanical Art & Artists - News by Email

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!

0 Comments

Ask an expert: botanical art surgery - with Deborah Lambkin

11/2/2019

0 Comments

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

Social Media Accounts

0 Comments

Four new botanical art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery

23/8/2018

0 Comments

This autumn and winter there will be four new exhibitions of botanical art in four quite distinct styles at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 

Opening to the public on 6th October are:

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)

Gloriosa rothchildsiana (the glory lily) by Pandora Sellars

READ ON to find out more about each of these exhibitions and see some of the images which will be included in the four exhibitions.

0 Comments

'The Beauty of Orchids' exhibition in China

8/8/2016

0 Comments

The Beauty of Orchids exhibition came about because of a collaborative conservation project between

Xishaungbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) in China; and
the Conservation Science department of the School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography at Bangor University in North Wales - led by Dr Sophie Williams.

The art side of the project

aims to protect endangered orchid species in China
focuses on orchid conservation by using art to communicate science
generated over 40 botanical illustrations of endangered orchids in China
led to an exhibition and a book about the project and exhibition.

Exhibition

The exhibition is currently travelling around botanical gardens in China. It has already visited Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS, Wuhan Botanical Garden, CAS and South China Botanical Garden at Guangzhou.

The next two exhibitions are:

August 13-21 Xiamen Botanical Garden
August 27 –Sep. 4 Beijing Botanical Garden

Botanical Illustrators

The botanical illustrators participating in the project are:

Ms Isik Guner, a botanical artist from Turkey,
Ms Yan Lan of China and Mr He Ruihua (何瑞华) of Xishaungbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG)

You can see images of the artwork contributed by Isik Guner in 'The Beauty of Orchids' Gallery on her website.

You can also see images (below) of the contribution of Chinese botanical illustrator He Ruihua 何瑞华 who prepared 20 illustrations for the exhibition 'The Beauty of Orchids'. Isik has included these in The Beauty of Orchids album on her Facebook Page Işık Güner - Botanical Art and Such.

It's interesting to compare the two different styles of botanical illustration.

Botanical illustrations of endangered orchids by He Ruihua (何瑞华) of Xishaungbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG)

A booklet for the exhibition has been published. Contact Isik for further details about this.

0 Comments