Esmee Winkel wins Margaret Flockton Award 2021

Notoleptopus decaisnei, Esmee Winkel, The Netherlands

Esmee Somers Winkel has won the First Prize in the 17th Margaret Flockton Award 2021. The award comes with $5,000 but is most prized for its highly prestigious nature within the scientific botanical illustration community.

Esmee is a a professional scientific illustrator working in the Netherlands. This First prize follows on from

• the Second Prize she won in 2017,
• the Jill Smythies Award (2014) awarded by the Linnean Society and
• her three RHS Gold Medals (2013, 2016 and 2018).

This post covers: (in order)

• About the Award - why it is prestigious​ and what's important in a winning illustration.
• ​About the two prizewinners and three artists whose illustrations were highly commended PLUS Judges comments
• About the Exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney
• How you can see the images online - and view the video presentation.​

The Margaret Flockton Award

Margaret Flockton Award is unique amongst international art awards, focusing exclusively on contemporary scientific botanical illustration, as distinct from botanical art RBG Sydney Flickr Album Margaret Flockton Award 2021

The Margaret Flockton Award is specifically about scientific botanical illustration. It's prestigious because it is the ONLY award dedicated to the excellence and expertise demonstrated by those who produce botanical illustrations to an exactly scientific standard for botany and botanists

As a result, entries are typically:

• submitted by professional botanical illustrators - or those aspiring to be one.
• related to plates produced for the record and for scientific botanical publications.

This competition and exhibition is International. Scientific botanical illustrators from around the world are invited by the curators of the exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney to:

• digitally submit scientifically accurate taxonomic illustrations
• i.e. highly detailed black and white drawings primarily undertaken in pen and ink, pencil or digitally rendered.
• that accompany a published taxonomic description of the plant,
• with the drawing clearly highlighting all of the distinctive features of the species.

REVIEW my dedicated page for The Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Illustration

The Criteria used to judge the Award are listed below:

1. Accurate interpretation and portrayal of the plant characters and diagnostic features highlighted in the botanical description
2. Technical merit
3. Artistic merit
4. Composition
5. Reproducibility

See A Guide to Scientific Illustration (on the Margaret Flockton Award page on the RBG website - at the bottom) for more information on judging criteria.

Reproducability is extremely important, because the nature of our work is that it is reproduced so anything too delicate can be lost on reduction.
​Composition will usually be the thing that wins a work. If you can make a composition sing in terms of the way it tells the story of the plant you're doing well.
Comments by Lesley Elkan from the Facebook Live Event

While other awards will look for accurate interpretation and portrayal plus technical and artistic merit, this is the only award which specifically considers illustration from the perspective of the scope for reproduction in scientific publications (i.e. the whole purpose of the illustration is to communicate to a wide community of interest via printed or digital matter).

The Judges for the 2020 Award were all from the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.

• Catherine Wardrop - RBG&CP Botanical Illustrator and Margaret Flockton Award Curator
• Lesley Elkan - Botanical Illustrator
• Dr Kerry Gibbons, RBG&DT Flora Botanist​

Apparently they had 25 illustrations two days before the deadline and on the Monday morning they had 103!  Next year the Judges would appreciate receiving illustrations earlier if that's at all possible! :)

About the Prizewinners

I photographed Esmee Winkel with her RHS Gold Medal scientific botanical illustrations in 2016 - just after she'd given me her best tips for cleaning Rotring technical pens!

FIRST PRIZE ($5,000) Esmee Winkel, The Netherlands - for Notoleptopus decaisnei (ink)
(see illustration at the top of this post)

Esmee's illustrated has been awarded the First Prize for its exacting skilful technique and perfectly balanced composition. The clarity of the strong line is complemented by the perfectly rendered elements, with a concise stipple techniques used only where required to convincglu describe form. Line weight is also used to describe shadows and depth. The illustration reveals the life cycle and key features of 
​Judge's Comments

My commentary: I'm reading that as a lot of appreciation and applause for

• a "less is more" approach to botanical illustration and
• demonstrable and refined expertise in the full range of available techniques!

​Plus note the smart move of illustrating an Australian plant!

Esmee Winkel is a professional scientific illustrator who specialises in botanical illustration and works as a Scientific illustrator and Botanical artist for the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden and at the Hortus Botanicus, Leiden in the Netherlands. 

She has previously won second prize in the Margaret Flockton Award 2017.

Other prizes she has won include

• 2016: the Botanical Illustrator Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Art from the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA)
• 2016: a second RHS Gold Medal for her display of drawings of rare and endangered orchids in 2016 (see Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medallists - from the UK and Europe - and video below)
• 2014: the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in botanical illustration by the Linnean Society
• 2013: an RHS Gold Medal in 2013 for a set of meticulous and well-designed pen and ink drawings of Leguminosae (see Interviews with RHS Botanical Art Gold Medal Winners)
• 2012 - a BISCOT Gold Medal in 2012

You can read more about her in About Esmee Winkel, botanical illustrator at Naturalis

SECOND PRIZE Rogerio Lupo​, Brazil for Vellozia inselbergae (ink) 
NOTE: This illustration is in memory of Professor Renato Mello-Silva, who was responsible for the discovery, research and description of this and many other new species of Velloziaceae that the artist has illustrated.

Rogerio Lupo has distinguished himself in this award in the past

• 2017: Highly Commended - Drosera magnifica sp. nov. by Rogerio Lupo, Brazil
• 2013: First Prize - Vellozia perdicipes  sp.nov. by Rogerio Lupo, Brazil  
• 2010: First Prize Vellozia sp. by Rogerio Lupo, Brazil
• 2006: Highly Commended  

He is a Natural Science Illustrator who graduated in biology from the Universidade de São Paulo. Much of his work is dedicated to the illustration of scientific botanical articles/papers. He has also researched different approaches to illustration and artistic techniques. 

The illustration of his subject Vellozia inselbergae was only published for the first time a month ago.

This finely rendered illustration is flawlessly executed in ink on board. Exquisite
hatching clearly but sensitively describes the complex form of the habit. Textures are a joy to discover, with careful observation of highlights and shadows creating a clear impression of raspy edges, course anthers and oh-so-many awl-shaped protuberances!
​​Judge's Comments

Vellozia inselbergae, Rogerio Lupo, Brazil

HIGHLY COMMENDED
​Cycas siamensis by Sansanee Deekrajang, Thailand (graphite)

Sansanee Deekrajang won the Second Prize last year in 2020.

She was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1980. She has a degree of art from 
Silpakorn University and has specialised in fine art printmaking in the past. She taught herself how to do botanical art and won an RHS Gold Medal for her watercolour paintings of tropical plants in 2016. She also has a particular talent for producing very bright paintings full of content with excellent compositions.

The judges were blown away by this masterful pencil rendering.  The structure of the highly complex Cycas species was clearly and accurately captured while still
maintaining a soft tonal effect.  The layering of the many elements, although ‘intense’ is still easy to read and reproduces well.  The artist’s love of the medium and the subject is clearly evident in this ambitious artwork.
​​​Judge's Comments

​Cycas siamensis, Sansanee Deekrajang, Thailand

HIGHLY COMMENDED
​Dionaea muscipula â€‹by Francois Sockhom Mey, France (ink and graphite)

Francois does not have a website and I can't find a bio - but does have a Facebook Page called "A Garden's chronicle"

Note the fly! (below)

This illustration captures the viewer with its dynamic style.  The plant jumps from the page and almost comes alive – who’d be a fly?  While a more stylised illustration, this work still captures in scientific detail all of the key features of the species in an excellent and easy to read composition.
​​​​Judge's Comments

Dionaea muscipula ​by Francois Sockhom Mey, France

HIGHLY COMMENDED
Acacia terminalis subsp. Eastern Sydney (G.P.Phillips 126)
​by Anna Voytsekhovich, Australia

The award is for a sub-species which has not yet been published.

Anna Voytsekhovich has a PhD in Botany and is both a Biologist and an Art tutor, Scientific illustrator and Botanical artist. She is a member of the Botanical Art Society of the Australia Wildlife Art Society of Australia.  This is 

• her ResearchGate Profile - indicating past assignments and publications she's been involved with.
• This is her Instagram account. 

​​​This smaller illustration displays highly proficient technique, resulting in a perfect example of a black and white plate suitable for reduction and publication. Stippling and linework are in perfect balance to describe the minute pinnae of the Acacia and the treatment of the inflorescence depicts the lightly coloured, fluffy flowers.  Although not a complex composition, it clearly illuminates the key features of this well-known, but as yet unnamed, subspecies of Acacia terminalis.
Judge's Comments

Acacia terminalis subsp. Eastern Sydney (G.P.Phillips 126), Anna Voytsekhovich, Australia

The LiveStream

This year the announcement of the prizewinners was live via a Facebook Live Event. (It's not up yet on RBGS Facebook Live events but I guess it will be soon).

All those winning prizes and receiving "Highly Commended" are featured in the livestream video

Denise Ora, Chief Executive, Botanic Gardens Greater Sydney was joined by gardening guru, Costa Georgiadis, ABC Gardening Australia host for a special Facebook LIVE event live streamed from the Calyx Building at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. Together with Catherine Wardrop and Lesley Elkan, the botanical illustrators at RBG Sydney, they presented examples from the exhibition. 

The announcement of those who have won prizes or been highly commended starts at 24 minutes 20 seconds.

The Exhibition

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Catherine W & Lesley E (@rbg_illustration)

The Exhibition includes 43 scientific botanical illustrations selected from 103 entries from around the world - including 25 entries from Thailand! (see my post about the Margaret Flockton Award 2021: Call for Entries).

You can see the hung exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

• Where: The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2000
• When: 10 - 4pm  Everyday  (NB. closing 1pm on Tues June 8)
• Free Entry
• All Enquiries: [email protected] | Ph: 02 9231 8111 

It will then tour to the three other gardens which make up the Royal Botanic Garden.

View the images online

You can see great images of all 103 entries in the Flickr Album Margaret Flockton Award 2021. (Crops of the images for prizewinners are included in this post.)
​

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Catherine W & Lesley E (@rbg_illustration)

Many thanks to Catherine Wardrop and Lesley Elkan for supplying me with a copy of the Judges' Comments.

READ MORE on this website about

• The Margaret Flockton Award 
• Margaret Flockton​