NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Exploring Botany - in Kraków

18/2/2021

The exhibition "Exploring Botany - Botanical Art in the 21st Century" opened at the Manggha Museum in Kraków, Poland on 2nd February and continues until 30th June 2021.

I'm sure many of you will have seen some details about this online - but for those who haven't this blog post aims to fill in the gaps. (Dates on the poster and flyers relate to the original planned dates - but the exhibition was postponed due to the pandemic)

The exhibition features

over 30 invited contemporary botanical artists from Japan and Europe producing a variety of botanical art in the 21st century
works by old masters and patrons of botanical art from Japan and the western world.

Exploring Botany. Botanical Art in the 21st Century is Poland’s first exhibition showcasing the phenomenon of today’s botanical art, both European and Japanese. We are showing works by modern-day artists in the context of the oeuvres of old masters of botanical illustration, Basilius Besler, Crispijn van de Passe the Younger, Jacob Hoefnagel, Emanuel Sweert, Elizabeth Blackwell, and above all Maria Sibylla Merian. These are complemented by Hiroshige’s and Watanabe Seitei’s ‘pictures of flowers and birds’, which engage in surprising visual and narrative dialogue with the European works.
Exploring Botany

The artwork in the poster for the exhibition is by Robert McNeill

The artists whose work has been selected for the exhibition are listed below
I made this into a bit of a test for myself to see if I could separate artists into Past Masters and Contemporary Artists - which was easy. Then I listed them by country without checking online and on this website - and I got most of them right (i.e. all the ones I knew!)

Links in their names below are to their websites or pages on this website. Those with an asterisk are featured on one of the Contemporary Artists pages on this website.

Past Masters & Patrons

GERMANY

Jacob Hoefnagel (1573-1632) - a Flemish painter, printmaker, miniaturist, draftsman, art dealer, diplomat, merchant and politician. Became a court painter to Rudolf II and to the Swedish court. Noted for his illustrations of natural history subjects
Basilius Besler (1561-1629) - strictly speaking not a botanical artist but rather an apothecary and a patron of botanical art and the man who created the first florilegium - the "Hortus Eystettensis". You can read more about him and his book on my page dedicated to him - see About Basilius Besler
Johann Theodor de Bry (1561 -1623) - an engraver based in Frankfurt (and not somebody I associate with botanical illustration- so I'm curious as to the reason for his inclusion)
Dr. Christoph Trew (1695-1769) - a wealthy German physician and botanist lived and practised medicine in Nuremberg and became the lifelong patron and friend of Georg Dionysius Ehret from whom he commissioned drawings and paintings. Author of Plantae Selectae and other publications. He also produced a second and larger edition of Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal (see below)

JAPAN

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) - a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. (See images of his large flowers and small flowers and sparrows)
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) - a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. See also my blog post about The Art of Hiroshige
Utamaro Kitagawa (1754-1806) - a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. Although best known for his illustrations of people, he also produced kachō-e "flower-and-bird pictures"

NETHERLANDS

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) - a Swiss Naturalist, an Entomologist and a Botanical Illustrator who worked mostly in the Netherlands and Ditch territories eg Surinam. She is rated as being one of the greatest ever botanical artists. See About Maria Sibylla Merian on this website.
- The Manggha Museum is also hosting an exhibition of the work of Maria Sibylla Merian until 3rd May 2021 - so two great reasons to visit - if you can!
Cryspijn van de Passe the Elder (1564-1637) and Crispin Van de Passe (the Younger) (1597-1670). The latter produced most of the engravings for Hortus Floridus (1614), which was apparently the first illustrated book to apply the microscopy of magnifying lenses to botanical illustration.
Emanuel Sweert (1552-1612) - a Dutch painter and nurseryman

UNITED KINGDOM

Elisabeth Blackwell (1707-1758) - author and illustrator of A Curious Herbal - after working with plants from the Chelsea Physic Garden. About Elizabeth Blackwell on this website relates her life and the development of her Herbal.

Contemporary Artists

0 Comments

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #3: European Artists

14/11/2019

0 Comments

Find out about the European artists who have artwork in the new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art - celebrating 30 years of the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

Angela Petrini (Italy) Shirley Sherwood at RHS Botanical Art Show 2018 - with the painting which has just been purchased between them. The next day the one on the left also joined the collection!

The exhibition opens at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens on Saturday 16th November 2019- until 15 March 2020. (note the opening and last entry times at the end)

The art work in the exhibition celebrates the 30th anniversary of the private collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood and the artwork in all six galleries comes from that collection.

This is the third in my series of posts about the artists in the exhibition.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists (USA, Canada Brazil and Mexico)
Today: European Artists
Friday: from countries in Asia and South Africa
Saturday: Australia and New Zealand

Below you can find:

the names of artists whose work is displayed - with a link to their website embedded in their name (or a link to a dedicated page on my website for some of the deceased artists)
a short profile of each artist - focusing on their achievements
the names of the plants in their artwork which has been selected for the exhibition. Where plants have been featured in previous books by Dr Sherwood this is noted next to the name.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#3: European Artists

Although Shirley Sherwood is renowned for having created a collection of contemporary botanical art, she ha also acquired pieces by past masters of botanical art.

OLD EUROPEAN

Franz Andreas Bauer (1758-1840) DEDICATED PAGE on this website
Worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for over 50 years and latterly was employed as "Botanick Painter to his Majesty" and drew all the new flowering plants at Kew.

Erica fascicularis numbered ‘6’ Erica fascicularis

Basil Besler (1561-1629) DEDICATED PAGE on this website
Basilius Besler is not a botanical artist. Rather he was the man best known for compiling the book known as the Hortus Eystettensis which was a florilegium of all the plants grown in the garden of the prince bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria.

Rose of Jericho I and III and Melocactus intortus or Turks' II Cap Cactus 1615

Besler - Rose of Jericho I and III and Melocactus intortus or Turks' II Cap Cactus 1615

Barbara Regina Dietzsch (1706-1783)
A very talented member of the from the Nuremberg artist dynasty Dietzsch. Her work was exported and although credited with being a court painter she rejected this description.

Redcurrant Branch with Butterfly - Gouache heightened w white on vellum

Johann Dietzsch (1710-1769)
A German draftsman, engraver and painter who used watercolour and body colour to produce paintings in the Dutch style eg on prepared vellum with a dark background. According to this article in The Economist - this is the artist who prompted Dr Shirley Sherwood to break her rule to only buy work by contemporary artists.

Woolly Thistle Silvbum marianum

AUSTRIA

Jakob Demus
b.1959. one of a few botanical artists who are printmakers. He produces etchings and diamond-needle dry points. His Ranunculus Asiaticus is in the Shirley Sherwood Collection and more work is in the Hunt Collection.

Ranunculus asiaticus 1988

Unlike a normal drypoint, the sharpened diamond shears smoothly through the copper, allowing the artist to make extremely precise, almost photographical images.

BELGIUM

Gertrude Hamilton
born (in 1968) and educated in Belgium. Received graphic arts training in Paris, and later studied at the Art Students League in New York, where she discovered the art of botanical and natural history illustration. She is a member of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society.

Red & Purple Currants Raspberries Snail & Bee 2001

Red & Purple Currants Raspberries Snail & Bee by Gertude Hamilton

0 Comments