NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

Finnis Scott Foundation: £10,000 Botanical Art Prize 2024

18/9/2023

Applications are invited for the £10,000 Botanical Art Prize 2024 awarded by the Finnis Scott Foundation. This is about the Call for Entries, who can apply and how to apply.

In summary, the Botanical Art Prize is dedicated to the practice and promotion of botanical art. It aims

to support and promote collaborative botanical art projects in the UK and Ireland; and
through established botanical art groups which go beyond their day-to-day activities and recognises those which have already helped to raise the profile of botanical art.

Specifically the £10K Award is:

intended to fund discrete and collaborative projects that promote and encourage the practice and appreciation of botanical painting in the UK and/or Ireland
awarded biennially i.e. every two years.
sponsored by The Finnis Scott Foundation - a charity that was established by the will of the late Valerie Finnis to support Horticulture and Art.

Projects might include:

a new education programme,
the development of an existing course,
an exhibition, publication, event or collaborative project.

Previous Winners of this Botanical Art Prize have been:

2018 – Sir Cedric Morris Florilegium
2020 – Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration
2022 – Scottish Society of Botanical Artists.

Links are to information about the projects which won the award.

Call for Entries: Botanical Art Prize 2024

What follows is about:

which organisations are eligible to apply
how to apply
how applications are assessed
the timeline
monitoring processes

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Botanical Diversity: Artists' Profiles

22/7/2020

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Botanical Diversity is an exhibition by a group of Russian artists living in different countries and held in a gallery in Vienna in Austria this week.

This post

shows you the artwork in the exhibition; and
profiles the artists
details the location of the exhibition (at the end).

Cover of the Botanical Diversity Catalogue

You can find out more about the exhibition in the catalogue (cover above) on Issuu.

Views of the exhibition

This is a short slideshow of the work in the exhibition.

Profiles of the exhibiting artists

The eleven botanical artists listed - and then PROFILE BELOW - are participating in their first group exhibition together in Europe. They currently live in:

Belarus: Lidiya Doukhnevitch
Germany: Maxim Shirshin
Russia : Natalia Alatortseva, Svetlana Chernysheva, Svetlana Lanse, Victoria Mezenova, Marina Protsenko, Anastasiya Velikaya,
Slovenia: Tatiana Gart, Anna Suprunenko
United Kingdom: Marina Kiselyova

The artists who were members of the group of five artists who won an RHS Gold Medal in 2015 are indicated by GM 2019 after their name.

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The 20 Most Popular Pages about Botanical Art

31/12/2019

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Today I'm sharing the 20 most popular pages on Botanical Art and Artists (excluding specific artists) over 2018-19.

See if you can predict what will be popular.
Do tell me if you're surprised by any of the rankings. I know I was! It's made me rethink some future plans - and also identified pages I need to work on some more.

One of the ways I try to improve Botanical Art and Artists is by paying attention to what interests visitors to the site. That's why I regularly look at the website statistics. Periodically I pull a pdf file of Google Analytics and take a look at which pages which get the most traffic and which pages which get the lowest and the highest bounce rates.

I've decided to limit the timeframe for the count to 2018 and 2019 as I've introduced quite a few new pages since it started, over 4.5 years ago, in April 2015. However sorting out the ranked order based on my Google Analytics data was not at all easy and I ended up using an Excel spreadsheet and sorting on two data sets!

BELOW:

Check to see if there are any popular pages you've missed on a website which now has well over 1,000 web pages and blog posts.
Visit the pages - links are embedded in the titles of the top 20 web pages ranked below in order of popularity

1. Past Masters of Botanical Art & Illustration (1500-1900)
This one is way out in front and has been ever since I created the site. It gets more hits than the home page! This particular page is really interesting as it highlights and summarises some of the famous botanical artists and illustrators and Past Masters - between 1500 and 1900 - from the UK, France, Netherlands / Flemish, Germany & Austria, Italy, Australasia, Africa - specifically South Africa, North and Central America and South America. Plus and other notable artists working within botanical art and illustration. (Note Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600 - 1500) from China, India and Japan are on a separate page - and I probably need to create a seperate page for Europe too)

2. NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists
My News Blog started after the main site was created but has become very popular ever since. The number of subscribers also continues to climb

3. Tips and Techniques
Extremely popular right from the beginning. A good tip for any botanical artist wanting to create traffic to their website is to provides tips and techniques - for free - on your website or blog or social media site. People love them. Next best tip is alert me to your tip and if it's good enough then I'll add it into this resource page and you'll get even more traffic!

4. Best Botanical Art Instruction Books
A very popular page because I only list the books I rate and I also provide lots of reviews - and some of them are in-depth. This is a VERY long page with LOTS links to sub-pages which review books by specific people

5. What is Botanical Art?
The perennial question - hence the ranking. I try to provide an answer by quoting others on this topic. I add to it when I find a great new comment or insight.

6. Scientific Botanical Illustration
How to draw plants to scientific standards. This page includes basic instruction on what to do and what not to do when illustrating plants to scientific standards; drawing aids which promote accuracy in measurement and rendering in scientific illustration links to practical tips and techniques for botanical illustration from leading scientific botanical illustrators and organisations providing support for scientific illustration. Plus articles about the history of scientific botanical illustration and the development of contemporary Flora.

7. Botanical Artists and Illustrators UK
This page highlights artists and illustrators creating contemporary botanical art and illustration of distinction who are based on or born in the UK - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This page which has way more artists than any other continent or country in terms of people who qualify for the listing.

8. Plant Names and Botanical Latin
When recording a plant name wrong can affect the colour of medal you receive at an RHS Botanical Art Show it's worth making an effort to understand how plant names are constructed and how to write them. (There's a few artists who wish growers made the same effort!). Plus it's a topic which does not get a lot of coverage online!

9. How to draw and paint leaves and trees
I've been saying for a long time, botanical art is not just about painting flowers! The second thing I've remarked on more than a few times is there is a major market for the author who writes the definitive book on how to paint plants and trees. I get asked by publishers for names of artists I'd recommend for specific topics. If you're interested contact me.

This page is the "top tips" page dedicated to tips and techniques for how to draw and paint botanically correct trees and leaves. Drawing and watercolour painting instruction includes step by step demonstrations, videos and books. I'm currently working my way through an analysis of every instruction book in terms of how good it is in providing instruction for leaves and/or trees.

10. Contemporary Botanical Artists and Illustrators
This is the gateway to all the pages about the contemporary botanical artists and illustrators listed on this website who draw, paint and print plants and flowers AND have been recognised for their excellence and mastery of their individual approach to botanical art and illustration [Note Continent / country listings are not definitive. They're being updated all the time]

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A watercolour catalogue to drool over!

20/12/2019

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I'm a very big fan of comprehensive and well organised catalogues of art materials. I like people who take the trouble to provide information about the paints and other colour media that artists use - including pigment numbers and lightfastness ratings.

I also know from talking about the art materials used for botanical art with very many botanical artists that there's a keen interest amongst very many artists about what's best, what's on offer and what's new.

"New", of course, is a relative term. If you've not previously been aware of a brand, colours, associated materials then it's "new to you".

Colour - Introduction

Which is long way round of identifying that Jackson's Art have produced an extremely impressive 132 page guide in its Watercolour Catalogue 20/21. I've never ever seen one before that beats this one - and I've looked at lots over the years.

It covers:

colour media - watercolour paint / inks / sticks / pencils, gouache, graphite and charcoal
surface - watercolour paper / boards / panels / blocks and pads and cartridge pads
brushes - of various kinds
Studio - mediums, palettes, easels, storage and accessories

It's not available as a document. It's only available as a digital file. I don't blame them - it would cost a lot of money to produce as a print document and maintain the very necessary print quality on the colours and shades. Viewed on screen, what colours look is entirely down to how good your screen is and whether it is white balanced.

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Review: 'Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art' at Kew Gardens

24/11/2019

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The new exhibition Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens is very definitely a LANDMARK exhibition of contemporary botanical art - and one woman's dedication and commitment. It's significant in size and scope and is very impressive to the point of being quite overwhelming.

I'm very happy to highly recommend it to all those interested in botanical art and/or watercolour painting and/or plants and nature in general.

The current exterior of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art

I think it's the first time in the 11 year history of the gallery that the entire gallery has been given over to paintings from The Shirley Sherwood Collection. Normally exhibitions on a theme have been a mix of artwork (and/or other items) from the Kew Collection and the Shirley Sherwood Collection.

However, this exhibition is rather different. It celebrates

30 years of collecting contemporary botanical art - via purchase from galleries, auction houses and direct from artists, commissions and gifts from some artists
more than 1,000 artworks collected - in what is now by far the largest private collection of botanical art in the world; and
a new book about the collection! (review to follow tomorrow)

As such this exhibition has a much more personal feel. It's also organised by geographical area - in terms of where the artists live rather than where the plant comes from - with notes from Dr Sherwood about how she met artists in the different countries - which provides insight into how the collection developed over time.

(Note: It struck me that it would be interesting to see another exhibition - with artwork organised by plant family. I don't think we've had one since The Art of Plant Evolution).

I've never ever seen so many artworks in the galleries - and one senses from the number of artworks in the exhibition that it's been very difficult to prune the list of artworks that Dr Sherwood wanted to include in the exhibition!

The net effect is that the exhibition is quite overwhelming - meaning it takes quite a long time to get round and do it justice!

Gallery 1: Australasia - Paintings by Paul Jones, Susannah Blaxill, Annie Hughes and Julie Nettleton

This is only an overview. As I was walking around I very quickly decided that it would be absolutely impossible to do it justice in one blog post/review. Over lunch at the Pavilion Restaurant I tried to work out what to do. I've decided to repeat what I did with the lists of the artists whose work is on display - and do each gallery and geographical area in turn.

As a minimum (i.e. there may be more!), I will review each gallery exhibition in turn - one country or continent each week. I'm not quite sure of the order yet - maybe the one I followed as I viewed the exhibition late last week. For the record:

Gallery 1 - Australasia
Gallery 2 - Europe
Gallery 3 - North America
Gallery 4 - Latin America
Gallery 5 - Britain
Gallery 6 - South Africa and Asia

I hope to be able to add into these reviews some photos of the artists who will be at the private view evening next week.

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Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art #1: British Artists

11/11/2019

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art opens at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens on Saturday 16th November 2019 (see details of dates and hours at end of this post).

On the same day Shirley Sherwood's latest book, celebrating her extensive and leading private collection of contemporary botanical art, is also published. The Shirley Sherwood Collection: Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art will be available from the shop in the Gallery as well as the Main Shop.

Banner image for the exhibition website page on the Kew website

Cover of Dr Sherwood's NEW Book about The Shirley Sherwood Collection

For all those of you who have collected (as I have) Dr Sherwood's previous books and have admired the artwork on their pages this is the most amazing opportunity

first to see the real paintings in the exhibition - and to see examples of all those she has acquired since she first started writing about contemporary botanical art
also to see them recorded in the new 320 page hardback book about The Shirley Sherwood Collection - which is without any doubt the most important private collection of contemporary botanical art in the world.

I have absolutely no doubt that this exhibition will be enormously popular and - without even seeing it yet - that this book will undoubtedly become a best seller and a seminal reference on this topic!

About the exhibition artists

This entire retrospective exhibition is selected from Dr Sherwood's personal collection of over 1,000 contemporary botanical artworks - plus a few "old favourites"!

The exhibition is organised according to geographical regions of the world recognising her very many travels in pursuit of botanical art - and the truly international nature of her collection.

Every day this week - including Saturday when the exhibition opens - I am going to publish the names of the artists who have work in the exhibition - starting today with the ARTISTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES AND IRELAND - and moving on to those from

Wednesday - North and Latin America,
Thursday - from countries in Europe,
Friday - from countries in Asia and South Africa and
Saturday - from Australia and New Zealand.

I'm very much looking forward to the Private View which a lot of those artists will be attending. This is a very special group of artists!

(If you don't want to miss one of my blog posts, I suggest you subscribe to this blog - see side column or subscription box later in this post)

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.

The images below have been featured in previous posts of mine about previous exhibitions at the Gallery or about the artists. Many thanks to Sophie Cooper, Personal Assistant to Shirley Sherwood for providing me with the lists of artists and to Maria and Victoria for providing updates for what got hung.

Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
#1: Artists of the British Isles and Ireland

Gillian Barlow GM (1994, 1997, joint 1999); Veitch GM
b. 1944 Current Chair of the RHS Picture Committee (joined 2005) and a judge for the RHS Botanical Art Shows. Won three RHS Gold Medals and a Gold Veitch Memorial Medal (2015) for an outstanding contribution to advancement of the art of horticulture. Official Orchid Artist for the RHS (1999-2005). Deputy Chairman of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society. Work in various collections: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; RHS Lindley Library, Shirley Sherwood Collection, and Hunt Institute. (Prints) She has also worked as a Herald painter at London's College of Arms for 30 years

Artichoke Seed Head 2001 Cynara cardunculus (see A New Flowering)

Stephanie Berni
b. 1949 in Bristol. Began botanical painting in 1996 for The English Gardening School Diploma Course. with Anne Marie Evans. Has work in The Shirley Sherwood Collection and the Highgrove Florilegium. Her Australian Tree Fern painting adorns the front cover of Shirley Sherwood’s Book A New Flowering; 1000 Years of Botanical Art.

Australian tree fern 2004 Balantium antarcticum (see A New Flowering)

Raymond Booth (1929-2015) DEDICATED PAGE
a botanical, wildlife and natural history artist of international renown who lived a reclusive life in Yorkshire and exhibited at the Fine Art Society. One of a very few botanical painters who used oil for his paintings. His work is held in various collections including the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh. He grew and painted many rare species of Japanese plants and then painted 85 paintings to illustrate the book Japonica Magnifica, published in 1992. Included in Contemporary Botanical Artists (1996)

Rosa moyesii 1988 Rosa moyesii (See Contemporary Botanical Artists)

Victoria Braithwaite
b.1973 Exhibits with the SBA and the SSBA. Has work in the Shirley Sherwood Collections (exhibited Kew 2016 and 2017)

Peony, Greenbank Garden 2018

Jenny Brasier GM (1982, 1988 1989, 1994, 2000)
b.1936 No formal training. Encouraged to paint plants and flowers in her later years by Wilfrid Blunt. Has work in The Art of Botanical Illustration' (1994 version), in the V&A and Shirley Sherwood Collection plus five Gold Medals for works in watercolour on both paper and vellum. Exhibited at Hunt 1983. One of two contemporary botanical artists who work was included in 'Picturing Plants' at the V&A in 1995. Awarded the Jill Smythies award for Botanical Illustration by The Linnean Society in 2002. Founder member of the SBA plus current Chair of the Eden Florilegium Society

Cyclamen pseudibericum 1993 Cyclamen pseudibericum (See Contemporary Botanical Artists)

Norah Briggs (1905-1989)
Mother of Shirley Sherwood

Aristolochia sp. 1949

Dr Andrew P. Brown GM (1992, 1994, 1997, 1999)
b. 1948. Awarded four Gold Medals by the RHS. He is a freelance botanical illustrator for Kew Gardens; Secretary of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society and author of the books associated with exhibitions by the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society. Previously Head of Biology at Westminster School, London. Current member of the RHS Picture Panel.

Voodoo Lily 1994 Sauromatum venosum (See Contemporary Botanical Artists)

Andrew Brown with his Voodoo Lilly

Isobel Adams, Orchids and Great Dixter

1/7/2019

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When visiting Great Dixter last week, there were lots of local orchids in the uncut meadow grass areas of the site. I love garden websites that actually identify plants you can see - as the Great Dixter site does in relation to the Front Meadow area

The grass is cut twice (August and late autumn) and all is removed and composted. Orchids native to the Weald are a particular success; early purples, green winged, twayblade and spotted (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). It is a sanctuary for them, since changed farming and woodland practices have eliminated most of their natural habitats.
Great Dixter website - Front Meadow (my bold)

Plate 53 Wild Flowers of the British Isles written and illustrated by Isobel Adams - highlighting the spotted, early purple and greenwinged orchids

Common spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii according to Dixter and Orchis maculata according to Isobel Adams) photographed in the front meadow

H. Isobel Adams and Wild Flowers of the British Isles

Mrs Harriet Isabel Adams FLS (1863-1952) illustrated and wrote Wild Flowers of the British Isles which was published in two volumes by Heinemann in 1910. (digitised in 2016)

She sought help from others in gathering specimens but remarkably little is known about her.

It's one of my all time favourite books about wild flowers in Britain and I do wish some publisher would get to grips with the task of publishing a facsimile. I guarantee it would sell well to both botanical art lovers and the wider public because it is both informative and her illustrations are so very beautiful to look at.

Her book does not compete, of course, with Bentham or Hooker's handbooks; but it is sufficiently scientific to enable serious botanists to recommend it to beginners. There are some eighty full-page plates in this quarto volume. We have seen few flower drawings (always excepting Curtis's 'Flora Londinensis') that have given us so much pleasure to look at. From one to half-a-dozen plants are figured on a page ; but Miss Adams manages to keep the character of each species distinct, and the grouping is often full of skill and grace. We have nothing but praise for the colouring, especially the various greens. The yellow of the rock-rose is beautiful, and the more subdued mauves and pinks are excellent. It is all slightly conventional, but gives a truer effect than many an attempt at realism.
The Spectator Archive

Isobel Adams trained at Birmingham School of Art and became a noted 'Arts and Crafts' Illustrator. On 15th November 1906, 'Mrs Harriet Isabel Adams' was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society, having been proposed at the previous meeting. She was also a member of the The Botanical Society and Exchange Club of the British Isles. She died age 89 in 1952.

Below are a couple more of her plates about the Orchid Family - as found in the British Isles. Plus details about the fabulous Great Dixter garden for those who'd like to visit

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