Exhibitions at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery - closing and opening

This is about the three exhibitions about to close at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens - and the NEW exhibition which opens on 29th August 2015.

Current Exhibitions - finish 9th August

On my main blog you can find three reviews of the exhibitions which are currently on at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens - but are due to close on 9th August.

These are:

• Review: Kew's Heritage Trees - paintings by Masumi Yamanaka
• The Joy of Spring - an exhibition of works in the Shirley Sherwood Collection

• "Flowering Bulbs and Tubers" - Exhibition by the Dutch Society of Botanical Artists

You won't be able to visit the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art between 10th August 28th August inclusive as it will be closed while these exhibitions are removed and the new one is installed.

Nature's Bounty: paintings from the Shirley Sherwood Collection

The new exhibition Nature's Bounty: paintings from the Shirley Sherwood Collection will open on 29 August 2015 and continue until 31 January 2016. The Gallery is open every day 10am to 5.30pm except Mondays. From 25 October the exhibition will close at 3.45pm. The price of entry is included with the admission price to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew.

Subject: Fruit and plants from around the world - including paintings of the development of fruit in stages which requires months of periodic observation, waiting for fruit to develop so that every stage can be illustrated.

Scope: Paintings from the Shirley Sherwood Collection plus items illustrating fruit, from Kew’s Library, Art and Archives collections. 

Featuring botanical artwork by....

• Susannah Blaxill (b. 1954 Australia) - who paints watercolour on both white and black backgrounds (and paper and vellum)
• Brigid Edwards (b. 1940 UK) - I always think of her as the mistress of the small and perfectly formed structure
• Coral Guest (b. 1955 - UK) - renowned for painting large flowers life size - however this exhibition will focus on small fruits such as the pomegranate. Coral shares her studies for paintings on her website. This is her blog.
• Kate Nessler (b.1950 - USA) - Kate is renowned for painting on vellum.
• Rosie Sanders (b. 1944 - UK) - who creates large and bold paintings and the images of heritage apples which filled a book. Below you can see a video about the approach Rosie used when painting her apples and creating her book.
• Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770) - who worked with Carl Linnaeus in 1735-6 and is famous for developing a Linnaean style of botanical illustration and producing botanical paintings for Kew.
• Indian artists from the Company School (note the link is to an auction page which provides examples of the plants painted rather than examples of what will be in the exhibition)

PLUS 

• a selection of plates of fruit from Berthe Hoola van Nooten’s Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Chosis de la flore et de la pomone de l’Ile de Java. (1863 First Edition). Berthe Hoola Van Nooten was a Dutch botanical artist, born in 1817, working in Java and Southeast Asia as a plant collector and artist.  NOTE: You can view a copy of the book on Botanicus 
• Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s Choix des Plus Belles Fleurs (You can view a copy of this book on rarebookroom.com)
• Maria Sibylla Merian‘s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. (View images from the book on the Smithsonian website)
• a small display of fruit models from Kew’s Economic Botany Collection.

This time I'll be doing the review of the exhibition soon after it opens!