NEWS about Botanical Art and for Botanical Artists

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 Brazier 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. 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

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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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Artists exhibiting at the 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art at the Hunt Institute

22/5/2019

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The 16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration at the Hunt Instutute of Botanical Documentation includes 41 artworks by 41 artists who are citizens of 14 countries.

Below you can find the names of the artists organised by country

links to their websites are embedded in their names
plus a brief comment about the artist.

"Fading Beauty" by Vivienne Rew - Watercolour on Fabriano Artistico Extra White HP 300lb (the old stock) ; 45cm x 45cm

Exhibition

Venue: 5th floor of the Hunt Library building at Carnegie Mellon University
Dates: 17 September–18 December 2019 with a
Reception: 17 October (6–8 pm).
Opening Hours: Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–noon and 1–5 p.m.; Sunday, 1–4 p.m. (except 20 November and 24–27 November).
Admission: Free

Artists selected to exhibit at
16th International Exhibition of Botanical Art

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Where can you find a botanical art course in England, Scotland and Wales in 2019?

21/1/2019

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My directory of short courses, classes and workshops in botanical art and/or illustration in England, Scotland and Wales has been updated to include all those being held in 2019 that have been:

notified to me and/or
are being venues which had courses last year.

The Miller's House at Flatford Mill - now a Field Centre offering workshops and short courses

Where can you find a botanical art course in 2019?

The list is organised geographically.
Each area is prefaced by a list of botanical art tutors listed in that section.
Each course is delisted after it has been held - hence now is the best time of year to get an insight into the short courses on offer.

Places with courses, classes or workshops in 2019 include include:

England

London
East Anglia - Cambridge, Essex, Suffolk
Midlands - Birmingham
North - Cheshire, Derbyshire, North Yorkshire
South and SE England - Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, West Sussex
South West England - Bath, Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire

Scotland - Edinburgh

Wales

Cardiff,
Gwynedd,
Powys,
Vale of Glamorgan,
West Glamorgan

Hassop Hall Hotel in Bakewell, Derbyshire

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For your information

I can only list what I'm told about or find about - hence I don't pretend that this list is comprehensive.

This page ONLY lists Botanical Art & Illustration workshops, classes and courses

by Organisations
and/or at Educational Centres in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
and NOT in a private home.

(i.e. it's a reasonably safe bet that they comply with all relevant legislative and regulatory requirements for having third parties on their premises). I'm much less sure of compliance by domestic premises - hence why they are typically excluded.

Tutors and tuition providers can tell me about their course (if it has not been included) by providing the information requested at the bottom of the page and using the dedicated form for UK Course Information.

Reputable UK-based tutors are listed in the International Directory: Botanical Art Tutors (along with tutors around the world)

West Dean College in West Sussex

For Tuition in Other Countries

I'm also updating the courses in other countries and would appreciate updates.
See separate pages for Botanical Art Tuition offered in:

North America - USA, Canada and Caribbean
Australasia - Australia
Europe and North Africa - Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Morocco Netherlands, Romania and Spain

These also have a form at the bottom of the page for tuition updates.
Courses in Africa, Asia and South and Central America will be added on separate pages in due course

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Botanical Painting Courses at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts

11/12/2018

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The Prince's School of Traditional Arts provides a range of workshops and short, practical courses in traditional arts and crafts as part of its Open Programme. Between March and May 2019 these will include some rather unusual courses in different kinds of botanical painting.

The art courses listed below are a variation of those normally provided to students of botanical painting. They offer an opportunity to explore how to paint plants and flowers using different media and approaches to botanical painting

All the courses are held at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts, 19-22 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3SG (Nearest tube stations are Old Street or Liverpool Street; absolutely no parking!)

This five-day practical course will introduce you to the basics of botanical morphology so students will know what to look for when drawing and painting flowers. It will also reveal the development of botanical art through time.https://t.co/BXkMORxl3e pic.twitter.com/bYrcMlFarb
— School of Traditional Arts (@princesschool) November 19, 2018

Botanical Painting and Taxonomy
Dates: 11 March 2019 - 15 March 2019
Time: 10:30 - 17:30
Tutor Jessica Shepherd
Course Fee: £385

This five day course will

introduce the basics of botanical morphology
reveal the development of botanical art through time
demonstrate how drama can be created through thoughtful lighting,
examine the importance of composition
explore the colours and techniques needed when painting flowers and leaves.
develop a painting including the techniques learned on the course.

Jessica Shepherd trained in botany at the University of Plymouth and University of Edinburgh before she became a botanical painter

Persian Miniature Painting: Flowers and Trees
Dates: 11 March 2019 - 15 March 2019
Time: 10:30 - 17:30
Tutor: Farkhondeh Ahmadzadeh
Course fee: £385 (concessions)

This course focuses on the details of nature in Persian miniature paintings.

covers trees, rocks, and different types of flowers,
practice how to draw and paint them using Persian miniature techniques.
Through a series of practical demonstrations, including traditional paper treatments, pigment preparation, and brush techniques, students will prepare their own papers and paints to be used for their paintings.

Farkhondeh Ahmadzadeh is an Iranian artist based in London. She graduated with distinction from The Prince's School's MA programme in 2011 and was awarded the Jerwood prize for Islamic traditional art.

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Botanical Indian Miniature Painting
Dates: 6 April 2019 - 11 May 2019
Time: 10:00 - 16:30
Tutor: Samantha Buckley | £350

This course is inspired by examples of Mughal botanical paintings and focuses on

the process of creating an Indian miniature painting,
the traditional method of transferring the image to burnished wasli paper using ink and squirrel hair brushes.
the use of handmade pigments from India and how to prepare, apply and then burnish these colours in preparation for the detailed work of miniature painting.
the special technique of prataj to create the detail associated with these beautiful paintings.

Botanical Indian Miniature Painting - At The Prince's School Of Traditional Arts (Day 1) is an excellent blog post by somebody who took the miniature painting course with Sam Buckley in 2016.

Samantha Buckley completed her MA at The School in 2006, receiving a distinction for her studies in miniature painting. In 2011 she was invited to undertake a one-year apprenticeship in India to extend her knowledge and technique of miniature painting,

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Margaret Mee 1909-1988: 30th Anniversary

30/11/2018

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Margaret Mee (1909 - 1988) the renowned painter of the flora of the Amazon Forest and dedicated environmental conservationist.

She and her husband had returned to England in November 1988 for a major exhibition of her paintings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew coupled with the launch of a book Margaret Mee in Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest (1988) based on Margaret's diaries - and discussion about the future of her paintings.

Very sadly she was killed at the age of 79 in a car crash in Leicester on 30 November 1988 a few months after her last expedition to the Amazon.

Those attending her memorial service, held at Kew on 16 January 1989, included representatives of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Brazilian government, and the world of botany.
In May 1989, her ashes were scattered in the Amazon Forest by her husband and close friends. A plaque was fixed to a tree to record her passing.

Paintings by Margaret Mee at the the "Brazil: a powerhouse of plants: Margaret Mee, pioneering artist and her legacy" Exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery (20 February 2016 to 29 August 2016)

About Margaret Mee

About Margaret Mee is my page about this remarkable and very petite woman, who was

a famous and important botanical artist, who specialised in painting the flora of the Amazon Forest. 
an ardent conservationist who highlighted the way in which the forest was being destroyed; and
a botanical painter who inspired a number of botanical artists around the world - notably a number of Brazilian botanical artists.

In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forest

from Amazon UK

Her legacy includes

images from her 15 expeditions into the Amazon Rainforest
nine new plants - previously unknown to botanical record
400 folios of gouache illustrations, 40 sketchbooks and 15 diaries - many now archived at Kew Gardens
her diaries and three books about her work and her paintings
a heightened awareness of the importance of conservation of habitat in the Amazon rainforest.
inspiration for a number of Brazilian artists - notably the Demonte family, Marlena Baretto, Patricia Villela and Alvaro Nunes
The Margaret Mee Amazon Trust (closed 1996) followed by a Fellowship Programme which enables Brazilian artists to train at Kew Gardens
3,000 dancers paraded to a Margaret Mee theme at the Rio Carnival in 1994!

Plus a number of plants are named after her, including:

Heliconia chartacea var. meeana - which has vivid blue berries
Aechmea polyantha - a vaselike Bromeliad discovered by Margaret Mee

On About Margaret Mee you can find out about:

A Timeline of her life and work
Margaret Mee and the Amazon Flora
Margaret Mee's Paintings - and her approach to painting
Exhibitions of Margaret Mee's paintings - in the UK, USA and Brazil
The Margaret Mee Trust and Fellowship Programme

Videos and Slideshows of her work

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REVIEW: The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies

5/10/2018

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Cover and spine of "The Greenwood Trees" by Christina Hart Davies

This is a review of 'The Greenwood Trees - History, Folklore and uses of Britain's trees' by Christina Hart-Davies - a slim volume that is essentially about the native trees of the UK.

By the time I got to the end I realised that the book she has written and illustrated reminded me a lot of many of the early Herbals - which describe and identify plants - including illustrations - and identify what they are associated with and what they are used for. Both her previous book and this one are focused on telling you what a plant/tree is good for as well as what it looked like. It goes way, way beyond a book of botanical illustrations

It is in effect a contemporary version of what we refer to in botanical literature as Herbals. It is packed full of information and illustrations about the different native trees. What's more Christina has written all the text, which references facts and beliefs from very many of the books from the past - from Dioscorides onwards - and painted all the illustrations in watercolour

Overall, the book is enormously informative, very interesting and very accessible - it and can be enjoyed by young and old, by those interested in nature and trees and by those interested in different ways of representing and painting trees.

For example it includes snippets of information e.g.

90% of a tree is dead; and
the number of acorns buried each year by birds and small mammals in the UK may total 1.5 billion!

I've been buying books about Trees for some time and I can honestly say this book has actually taught me more about UK trees - and more quickly - than many of the others.

Who knew the aspen was one of the earliest trees to re-colonise the UK after the Ice Age?

The book covers 37 different varieties of tree, of which 31 are natives of the UK i.e. they were around 6,000 years BC when the waters started to rise again after the Ice Age.

The book has five sections:

a brief history of trees in Britain - which is absolutely fascinating. I learned a LOT about how trees grew and were managed over the different periods within UK History!
people and trees - this section took me back nearly 60 years to my primary school days when I was learning about how early man lived and the sorts of tools and products he used to make from trees.
trees and beliefs - about the various tree spirits, creation myths, symbols and festivals associated with trees
things that live in trees - about the community of insects, birds and small mammals that live in and with trees - as well as the fungi and parasites also living in trees and in some cases attacking them.
The Greenwood Trees i.e. the very old trees associated with the Wildwood. This is by far the biggest section. This section also has the most botanical illustrations which are quite delightful.

About "The Greenwood Trees"

Whitebeam Berries © Christina Hart-Davies

Marking the 800th anniversary of the Forest Charter, award-winning botanical artist Christina Hart-Davies celebrates our long relationship with trees. Since pre-historic times they have provided us with shelter, fuel, medicine, food and even the air we breathe. They have tanned leather, dyed cloth and made everything from cathedrals to clothes-pegs. We have told stories about them, admired their magnificent beauty and woven them into our spiritual lives. Following A Wild Plant Year, which recorded the folklore and cultural history of our native wildflowers, in The Greenwood Trees Christina looks at the history, folklore and virtues of our native trees – and a few well-known introductions too – all illustrated with her exquisitely detailed watercolour paintings.

The book was published at the end of last month by Two Rivers Press who published Christina's earlier book A Wild Plant Year: The History, Folklore and Uses of Britain’s Flora

It is naturally printed on paper which is FSC certified as coming from a responsible source!

Title: The Greenwood Trees: History, Folklore and Virtues of Britain’s Trees
Author/Artist: Christina Hart-Davies
format: paperback
size: 200 x 200 mm / 7.875 x 7.875 in (square format)
ISBN: 978‑1‑909747‑40‑1
pages: 120
price: £ 15.99
Publication date: September 2018

You can obtain the book as follows:

an ordinary copy from Two Rivers Press direct
a signed copy (with postage included) direct from Christina Hart-Davies
an unsigned copy from Amazon UK

About Christina Hart-Davies

Christina Hart-Davies with her most recent RHS Gold Medal display of "Common British Corticolous Lichens"

Christina Hart-Davies has been a professional botanical artist for 30+ years.

She has five RHS Gold Medals (4 for mosses and lichens - in 1984, 1986, 1988 and 2018 -and one for orchids - in 1992). The last two lichen Gold Medals were 20 years apart - proving (like Kathy Pickles did) that it's never too late to have another go!
She has also illustrated for a wide variety of prestigious clients and publications. Her artwork has been extensively published. Publishers she has worked with include Crowood Press; Dorling Kindersley; Elm Tree Books; Gilgamesh Publishing; Hamlyn; HarperCollins; Michael Joseph; Longman; Macmillan/RHS; New Holland; Pyramid/Octopus; Two Rivers Press; Virgin Publishing. Publications include: BBC Wildlife Magazine; British Wildlife; Kew Magazine; Successful Gardening (Eaglemoss Publications); Sunday Times
She was a Founder Member - and Honorary Secretary for its first ten years - of the Society of Botanical Artists.
Botanical artist to an expedition to the rainforests of Sumatra
She has artwork in The Hunt and The Shirley Sherwood Collections - and mine (I own two of her works)!
She is also an occasional tutor on various courses in the UK

You can see work done for this book in her current exhibition Treesome at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens - which finishes on Sunday 7th October. (see Treesome - Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire)

Apple by Christina Hart-Davies (there are a number of similar illustrations in the book for different trees)

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