NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Bryan Poole (1953-2022)

29/12/2022

Bryan Poole has died age 69. He was one of those very rare people in the world of botanical art - a very fine printmaker and a renowned creator of contemporary aquatint etchings featuring botanical plants. He was a perennial and popular exhibitor of his prints at the RHS Chelsea Show.

Below you can find an appreciation of his timeline and records of his background, career development, techniques used to produce his fine art prints, exhibitions, awards, commissions and collections.

My photo of Bryan Poole with his aquatint etching of "Cynara cardunculus - Cardoon" at a Private View at the Jonathan Cooper Gallery in Chelsea (21 April 2015)

Biography

Born in New Zealand on 2nd December 1953, he passed away on 19th December 2022, just after his 69th birthday, at his London home after a long battle with cancer. (See Death Notice at the end of this post)

It's been announced that a Memorial Service is planned to celebrate his life and achievements.

"Bryan Poole follows in a long line of fine botanical illustrators. Unusually, he has the gift to be able to combine traditional methods of illustration and reproduction with a very modern approach to botanical art and design. His appealing and distinctive work adds hugely to the wide range of talent found amongst botanical artists today."
Dr Christopher Grey-Wilson

Despite his New Zealand heritage, after graduating in Politics and Economics at the University of Otago and with absolutely no training in art, Bryan came to London in the early 1980s and became a freelance botanical illustrator and printmaker in 1981. Latterly he lived in Hackney in East London where he had his print studio in a converted air raid shelter

Bryan Poole in his studio

When he came to London, he trained and worked (1980-1986) in the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, under Dr Christopher Grey-Wilson, former editor of The Kew Magazine.

Subsequently he worked on commissions with a number of different people and bodies - including Dr John Kress, a botanist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

He produced his contemporary botanical aquatint etchings using copperplates and the painstaking and meticulous intaglio ("in the cut") technique developed in Europe in the 16th century and "spit bite" aquatint techniques (see Techniques below for an explanation of how he did this).

"I lived my life, independently, overseas and sang my own song . . . It is not that I've neglected New Zealand in any shape, way or form but it is just that I can make a living in London. I could never have done international work, gone to Dominican Republic, met (Smithsonian botanist and curator) John Kress, gone to Nepal . . . I am in the centre of things in London."
Botanical artist Bryan Poole home for Central Otago exhibition

Exhibitions

My first meeting with Bryan Poole - who was exhibiting his aquatint etchings at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2008

Bryan was probably best known to most people as a perennial exhibitor of his fine art botanical prints on a stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It's where I first met him - and became a big fan of his work.

An article by Ursula Buchan (Daily Telegraph 21 May 2008) identifies the print which can be seen on the bottom right of my photograph of him above.

Poole always shows his hand-coloured etchings at Chelsea and this year he has two pictures on display that are likely to cause something of a sensation. Each portrays the flower of a tropical heliconia species - just visible inside the enormous, gaudy, orange-red bracts - and the gorgeous purple-throated carib hummingbird (Eulampsis jugularis ). In one, the male bird is visiting Heliconia caribaea, in the other the female is buzzing round H. bihai. These pictures tell an amazing tale of co-evolution - or what scientists call "ecological causation of sexual dimorphism and co-adaptation
from Chelsea Flower Show 2008: A cut above the competition by Ursula Buchan, Daily Telegraph (21 May 2008)

Other achievements included

He had a one person exhibition of his work at the Herbarium Library at Kew in 2000
He exhibited in the 10th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration (28th October 2001 - 28th February 2002) at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh.
He received a prestigious Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in 2007
He was elected an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 2002 and promoted to Fellow in 2006.

He was also a regular exhibitor at specific Print Fairs and Shows in London.

Recently Bryan exhibited his botanical etchings

at Jonathan Cooper Gallery in 2015 - see the Catalogue of Work from Botanical Artists in the Collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE
in Central Otago in 2016 - See Botanical artist Bryan Poole home for Central Otago exhibition
as part of Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art (2019-20) the exhibition at Kew Gardens to celebrate the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art and 30 years of collecting 1,000+ artworks from all over the world - see Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists
various other exhibitions of the Shirley Sherwood Collection at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens (e.g. see Curtain Call for "Exotica" at Kew - list of art and artists exhibited in 2019)
a retrospective exhibition at the London Sketch Club - in association with a book about his work

In recent years, he and I both had problems with walking and standing. When meeting at Private Views at Kew, we used to shuffle around the exhibition using our walking sticks and often laid claim to the benches and sat next to one another during the speeches at the PVs.

I will miss him and his work. It was exceptional.

Bryan Poole at the Otago Exhibition in 2016

Technique

Poole's technique was described in detail in The Telegraph article in 2008. Although Bryan describes 'The Etching Process' on his website, I'm reproducing it below for posterity as it appears to be the only place where his approach to his work has ever been described in such detail.

Essentially it's the same process used by the famous botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) when he created fine art prints from his watercolours.

Poole is also notable for making a number of artworks using a landscape format - in order to capture the growth habit of a plant.

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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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Latin American Exhibit in 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew

18/12/2019

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The exhibit of contemporary botanical art from Latin America can be seen in Gallery 2 within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. The exhibition continues until 15 March 2020.

It covers botanical art by contemporary botanical artists past and present working in Brazil and Mexico . You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists. They include Margaret Mee, who was born in England but did most of her work while living in Brazil.

BELOW you can see

photos of the paintings in the exhibition
with names of the plants, credits for the artists
plus explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists!

Three paintings using pencil and gouache by Margaret Mee occupy one wall. They demonstrate the variation in the paintings she produced. Her work is in included in the section due her dedication to painting the plants in the Amazon rainforest basin. Her work also stimulated the Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme at Kew.

Her paintings in the exhibition are:

Neoglaziovia variegate 1964;
Philodendron - pictured with the Amazon habitat where it was growing and
Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

Paintings by Margaret Mee | Left to right: Neoglaziovia variegate 1964; Philodendron and Clusia grandiflora 1987 (pencil and Gouache on paper)

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Australasian Exhibit in 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew

10/12/2019

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The Australasian exhibit within Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art is the first one you come to as you go through the double doors from the reception area of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. into Gallery 1.

It covers contemporary botanical art by both Australian and New Zealand artists past and present. You can read more about the artists in my earlier blog post Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #6: Australasian Artists

Below you can see photos of the paintings in the exhibition - with names of the plants, credits for the artists and explanations of and/or any stories I know about the plants and/or artists!

Australia and New Zealand have strong artists traditions with flourishing art and conservation societies. We had a botanical exhibition here... of a Florilegium of contemporary plant portraits demo Sydney's three botanical gardens, as well as two smaller 'Down Under' shows with paintings by Australian and New Zealand.
Introduction to the Australasian Gallery

Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton

The first paintings you see on your left as you walk through the door contain some stunners.

The small gem-like painting of Agapanthus is by Susannah Blaxill. It's painted in watercolour and gouache on (if I recall correctly) some Rory McEwen vellum which she painted for the Rory McEwen exhibition in the gallery in 2013. I seem to recall there's a story that she had never painted on vellum before and was petrified of making a mistake. As you can clearly see she didn't - and if you take a very big magnifier and look very carefully you can see the tiny hatching strokes she used. It's an absolutely beautiful painting - a real gem!
Above it is a small painting of Violas, painted in acrylic by Paul Jones. It's been in quite a few exhibitions including "A new Flowering" exhibition at the Ashmolean in 2005
The large painting of an enlarged white Camellia japonica 'Elegans champagne' on white paper (800mm x 760mm) is by Annie Hughes GM (RHS: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017). Annie won her first RHS Gold Medal for a suite of eight paintings of Camellias in 2011 and the painting was acquired from the exhibition at the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney in March 2012.
The painting on the right is of Styphelia triflora by Julie Nettleton who won an RHS Gold Medal and 'Best Painting in Show' for an exhibit of Grass Trees in 2016. It has an amazing full page image in the book which allows you to see properly all the paintings of parts.

Paintings by Bronwyn van de Graaff , Celia Rosser and Beverly Allen.

The next three paintings speak Australia to me.

The Xanthorrhoea johnsonii Grass Tree is by Bronwyn van de Graaff which has a great composition.
The Banksia serrata Saw Banksia (1995) is by Celia Rosser OAM PhD (Hon.) who one is of the world's finest living botanical artists. She dedicated herself to producing watercolour paintings of every Banksia species every known Banksiaover 25 years. These were published as The Banksias, a three-volume series of monographs (1981, 1988 and 2000). This banksia requires you to take a magnifier with you if you want to see the level of detail she has achieved. It gets a full page in the book - but you need to get up close and personal with this painting! (You can see why in this blog post)
The Strelitzia nicolai by Beverly Allen GM (RHS 2007, NYBG 2010) is amazing and is the feature image of the exhibition. It's also used on the cover of the book produced in association with the exhibition.

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The Winter Garden: Scented Sprigs and Feisty Flowers by Susan Christopher-Coulson

1/12/2019

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About the Winter Banner for 2019/20

"The Winter Garden: Scented Sprigs and Feisty Flowers" by Susan Christopher-Coulson (Shirley Sherwood Collection) coloured pencil

The Winter Garden: Scented Sprigs and Feisty Flowers by Susan Christopher-Coulson - in a cropped format - is the new banner on the homepage of my website and my Botanical Art and Artists Facebook Page.

This is the first contemporary botanical image I've used since I created my website four and half years ago. There are two reasons for this change:

the routine one - I change the banner to try and suit the season every three months on the 1st December, 1st March, 1st June and 1st September.
Winter has always been a bit of a challenge - except when using images from the Southern Hemisphere!

However, I was very pleased to spot this image of "The Winter Garden: Scented Sprigs and Feisty Flowers" by Susan Christopher-Coulson when reviewing the artwork hung in the Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art exhibition at Kew. It seemed very appropriate to me to honour the exhibition in some way over these winter months. When I saw her at the private view I asked whether I could use the image for the winter banner for my website and she very kindly agreed.

About Susan Christopher Coulson

Susan Christopher Coulson at the PV for Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery - where "The Winter Garden: Scented Sprigs and Feisty Flowers" is currently hanging

Susan Christopher Coulson GM (1999) VPSBA is a very experienced botanical artist and teacher of botanical art whose chosen medium is coloured pencils.

Susan was born in Durham and trained as a fashion and textile designer, graduating with a degree in Fashion and Textiles from Kingston Polytechnic in 1977. She then lived in London for several years while working in the fashion industry as a designer / illustrator. She returned north with a young family and the subjects she drew began to change from fashion to plants.

The Botanical Artist

She'd become interested in the plant world while on country walks with her father during her childhood - which is also when drawing with coloured pencil also started as her preferred form of artistic expression. As an adult she expanded her techniques

She focused on developing drawings based on natural subjects, including botanical, and expanding her coloured pencil techniques, which have been her preferred medium since childhood. Their potential to create rich tonal depths as well as subtle transitions and translucent colours is a constant fascination as are the infinite possibilities offered by the botanical subjects, which she prefers to draw directly from live subjects.

Awards

Her work has received a variety of awards

She was awarded two Royal Horticultural Society gold medals in 1999 and 2001.
At annual exhibitions of both the Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Floral Painters (now defunct)

Collections and other notable information

Her artwork is in the Shirley Sherwood Collection, the RHS Lindley Library Collection and The Florilegium archive at Sheffield Botanical Gardens, as well as numerous private collections in the UK and abroad.
She has also produced commissions for a number of clients (and this is how to contact Susan if you're interested in commissioning her or asking her to teach)
Her artwork has also featured in a number of books about botanical art, notably those associated with the Society of Botanical Artists.
She was one of the two Vice Presidents of the Society of Botanical Artists between 2010 and 2018.
She continues to teach botanical art - using coloured pencils around the UK (see below)

Group of coloured pencil drawings by Susan Christopher Coulson exhibited at the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists in 2015. (top left) Cures from the Potager; (top right) Bean Counting: In Pursuit of Diversity; (bottom left ) Medieval Medicinals, from an Apothcary's Garden; (bottom right) Winter Greens: In pursuit of Form and Colour in the Winter Garden

The Teacher

Susan is a well known and experienced teacher of botanical art using coloured pencils.
Her Teaching page on her website details those venues in the UK where Susan will be teaching workshops. You'll also find her listed as both a teacher on my Teachers Page and her courses and workshops on my Courses Page for the UK

Susan Christopher Coulson demonstrating how to use coloured pencils for botanical art at the RHS Botanical Art Show in 2016

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Future Banners

In future, I'm minded to use more CONTEMPORARY botanical artwork for the seasonal banner image. If botanical artists want to contact me with suggestions as to appropriate images - whether their own or ones by other contemporary botanical artists - I'd be very happy to receive and consider all suggestions.

I have two constraints:

the artist must be listed on my website (or eligible to list on my website)
The image needs to lend itself to a panoramic format for the banner - via cropping if required - whatever format it is created in. So verticals in a portrait format with wide empty spaces either side won't work - but a landscape or square format with horizontals (such as in Winter Flowers) does work.

Obviously all contemporary botanical artwork is subject to copyright when used in this way and the artist must agree to the use of the image for a banner.

By way of credit I always create a link on the home page to the source of the image e.g. the artist's own website. (Try clicking the small image on the home page to see what I mean)

Do leave a comment below if you're interested in providing an image and/or would like to suggest a suitable image for future banners.

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NEW: The Shirley Sherwood Collection has a website!

27/11/2019

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The NEW Shirley Sherwood Collection website - Home Page

Last night Shirley Sherwood announced that the Shirley Sherwood Collection of Botanical Art now has a website. The URL is http://shirleysherwood.com - which I'm sure all fans of botanical art will want to bookmark

I've known about it for some time but also knew that the natural time for a public announcement would be at last night's Private View for the "Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art" exhibition at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens. So today is the right time to share with everybody else!

Below I'll describe what you can find on the website and how to access the different sections and pages within the website.

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Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #4: Artists from Asia

16/11/2019

This is the fourth in my series of posts about artists who have artwork in the new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens relates to Asia. The artists are from China, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and Thailand

Three posts in my series of SIX posts about the artists in the exhibition have been published previously:

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #2: North and Latin American Artists (USA, Canada Brazil and Mexico)
Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #3: European Artists

Two more posts (to come) relate to:

#5 artists from South Africa
#6 artists from Australia and New Zealand

Mieko Ishikawa GM (2006) with her very famous painting of "Acorns from Brunei" and Flowering Cherries Prunus Pendula" owned by Shirley Sherwood. (Pictured in the Flora Japonica exhibition in 2016)

The exhibition celebrates 30 years of the Shirley Sherwood Collection - and is being exhibited in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens - which opened 11 years ago and has now received well over 1 million visitors.

The exhibition opened today and continues until until 15 March 2020. (note the opening and last entry times at the end)

I'm expecting it will get a lot more visitors with this new exhibition which comprises artwork from Shirley Sherwood's Collection of Contemporary Botanical Art which is the largest private collection in the world - with more than 1,000 artworks.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#4: Asian Artists

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.

CHINA

Jinyong Feng
b.1925. Taught most of the contemporary botanical illustrators in China. He has also exhibited widely including at the Hunt and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. He is retired from a senior position at the Botanical Institute in Beijing.

Camellia chekiangoleosa 1994 (Contemporary Botanical Artists)
Camellia chrysantha (The Art of Plant Evolution)

Tai-li Zhang
b.1938. Worked as a botanical artist all her life. She trained at the School of Botanical Painting, Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica in Beijing from 1958-1960. She then worked for the next 35 years at the department of plant taxonomy in the Institute of Botany. She has exhibited her work in many exhibitions in China and also in Australia, the Missouri Botanical Gardens in the USA and the Everard Read Gallery in South Africa. She also exhibited in the 6th International Exhibition at the Hunt Institute. Over 1,000 of her drawings were reproduced in Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinae.

Paulownia elongata (Contemporary Botanical Artists)
Maidenhair Tree 1994 (Contemporary Botanical Artists)

INDIA

Damodar Lal Gurjar
b. 1958. Graduated from Rajasthan School of Arts, Jaipur in 1981. His botanical artwork featured in a solo exhibition, Enduring Perfection: Paintings by Damodar Lal Gurjar, at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in 2001. He has work included in A Passion for Plants: Contemporary Botanical Masterworks.

Nasturtium Tropaeolum (A Passion for Plants, pg 93)

Thakur Ganga (Rai Sahib) Singh (1895-1970)
Born in India. He joined the Dehra Dun Forest Institute in 1911 and served as a Senior Artist for 30 years until his retirement in 1945. In 1931 he took long leave for a year and travelled to London for formal training as an artist at the Slade School of Art. He was made Rai Sahib ( a title of honour) for his contribution to art. Court painter to Yadhavindra Singh, Maharajah of Patiala. Ganga Singh was engaged by the Maharajah in 1942 to reproduce his collected flora in watercolour drawings. He became a permanent member of His Highness' staff and painted over four hundred watercolours over a period of twenty years.

Tiger Lily Lilium lancifolium (A Passion for Plants, pg 212)

When I was a schoolgirl I visited Pakistan just after partition and spent some wonderful months exploring the Himalayas of the North West Frontier Province, close to the border with Kashmir, I will never forget the spectaucyalr drifts of delphiniums flowing down the mountains, the alpine streams and high valleys dotted with orchids and lilies. As a budding botanist I scrambled up the mountains with my pony, collecting and pressing plants, which I eventually took to Kew.
Shirley Sherwood - in her profile of Thakur (Rai Sahib) Singh in "A Passion for Plants"

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