Lizzie Sanders (1950 - 2020)

It has been announced that the renowned botanical artist and illustrator Lizzie Sanders GM passed away last week, age 70.

Lizzie Sanders in her studio

Born in London on 4 January 1950, she had lived in Edinburgh since 1983 - near to the Botanic Garden where she also taught botanical illustration to very many students. Anne Carlaw, the Chairperson of the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists announced her death via an email to members today.

​In it she described Lizzie and her work as both an artist and as a teacher.

"many of us were fortunate to have been taught by Lizzie at the Botanics and even more of you will have been familiar with her stunning work.

Lizzy was the doyenne of dry brush work. To watch her in action was a joy, to try and replicate her technique took considerable practice, time and a shed load of patience. "

It seemed appropriate to use as an example of her stunning botanical artwork, her painting of Sutherland Kale - produced for Flora Scotia and published - as a feature image - in Scottish Plant Lore 

Sutherland Kale © Lizzie Sanders - painted for Flora Scotia in 2018 and featured in the introduction to the Catalogue "Scottish Plant Lore"

Favourites are always bold, structural plants which themselves make a grand statement and which lead to careful, sometimes unconventional, composition.
from her website

Lizzie Sanders Timeline

• 1950: Lizzie Sanders was born in London on 4 January 1950.
• 1967-71: Lizzie studied for a Diploma in Art, Graphic Design and Typography at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee 
• 1981-82: She left Scotland to study Strategic Advertising and Television Production at the Visual Arts School in New York
  
• She then pursued a career in Design and spent many years working as a Designer for advertising companies in Italy (1975-80) and as an Art Director in New York (1981-1982).
• 1983 - she finally returned to Scotland and spent seven years as an Art Director or Design Director at two companies in Edinburgh.  
• 1988: awarded Scottish Designer of the Year.
• 1990-2000 - she was a Founding Partner of a firm of Design Consultants
• 1990: Lizzie was a keen gardener, she took some classes in botanical illustration at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh between 1991 and 1996. She also took short courses with Annie Farrer (Kew); Pauline Dean (RHS Wisley) and Claire Dalby (Cambridge Botanic Garden).  She never looked back, eventually giving up her design career to concentrate on botanical illustration. 
• As well as creating impressive botanical illustrations she also started teaching art students about how to improve their art and design
• She lived in Edinburgh, near the Royal Botanic Gardens, where she found many of the natural specimens she painted
• She died in July 2020.
  

Artwork by Lizzie Sanders

Lizzie Sanders has been producing botanical paintings for some thirty years. Her work is botanically accurate, painted meticulously in watercolour, using a dry brush technique. She aims to produce contemporary ‘graphic’ images where neither art nor science is compromised and is particularly interested in the tension created by presenting an image which reads as truly three-dimensional against a stark, flat, white background.
from her website

Below are links to places where you can see her impeccable artwork. Her contribution will live on as these serve as excellent examples of what can be achieved in botanical art and illustration.  I personally much appreciate the influence of her excellent graphic design skills which she employed to very good effect in the composition of a number of her works - particularly in relation to cropping and compendiums.

• Portfolio on her website - which demonstrates very clearly her interest was not limited to showy blooms
  • Rhododendrons
  • Flowers
  • Fruits and vegetables
  • Leaves and seeds
  • Patterns in Nature
• her painting of Paperbark Maple Acer griseum for the ASBA Out of the Wood exhibition - the link includes the backstory which also tells you about her approach to painting a plant
• her painting of Eucalyptus deglupta for ASBA Member Gallery. These two paintings feature as part of a series of paintings of bark patterns - as part of her "Patterns in Nature" series - which is when she seriously grabbed my attention
• You can see another of her fine bark series - this time of Myrtle (Tree Bark) - at the website of Susan Frei Nathan (who represents her work in the USA)
• Begonia samhaensis - an  Endangered, IUCN Red List painted for the ASBA Losing Paradise exhibition in 2010

Lizzie Sander’s approach is also complimentary to McEwen from a modernist perspective.  Technically and compositionally Sanders is a perfectionist as McEwen was, her art crosses from what we know and appreciate of classical botanical portraiture, representational, to abstract painting which poses never-ending questions while we succumb to its  beauty.  As seen in her latest masterpiece of the Myrtle Bark painting
Susan Frei Nathan

Eucalyptus deglupta 2, Rainbow eucalyptus bark by Lizzie Sanders

Her artwork was published in a number of important publications about contemporary botanical art, including:

• A Passion for Plants, Shirley Sherwood - in which Shirley discusses some her paintings of the plants from Scotra which won Lizzie one of her Gold Medals.
• Treasures of Botanical Art, Shirley Sherwood and Martyn Rix.
• The Art of Plant Evolution, W John Kress and Shirley Sherwood.
• Old and New South American Botanical Art, M. Pilar de San Pío Aladrén and Shirley Sherwood.
• The Highgrove Florilegium, Addison Publications.
• PLANT – Exploring the Botanical World. Published by Phaidon.
• RHS Botanical Illustration: The Gold Medal Winners, Charlotte Banks.
• Scottish Plant Lore - an Illustrated Flora Gregory J Kremer

plus two books about botanical art instruction:

• The Art of Botanical Painting, Margaret Stevens and the Society of Botanical Artists.  
• Botanical Illustration from Life: A Visual Guide to Observing, Drawing and Painting Plants, Isik Guner.

Lizzie Sanders - Art Teacher

​Lizzie Sanders taught students at a number of educational establishments in Scotland

• She lectured in Graphic Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee (1991-94) and Edinburgh College of Art (1994-95)
• In 2001, she became a tutor for the Diploma Course in Botanical Illustration at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh.

She also taught masterclasses on botanical art in the UK, Europe and the USA

Lizzie Sanders: Achievements as a Botanical Artist

Lizzie Sanders achieved an honour which very few do - she was awarded three RHS Gold Medals - winning a Gold Medal each time she exhibited - in

• February 2000,
• February 2002, and
• January 2004. 

Many current students might want to note that her RHS exhibits - and Gold Medals - came some 10+ years after she started to study botanical art. 

In 2001, she was commissioned to produce the design for the commemorative plate for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. 
​
In 2003, she was elected a member of the Society of Botanical Arts and won the Margaret Granger Rose Bowl for the best work by a new member.  She was also awarded a Certificate of Botanical Merit.

In 2003, she won 'Best in Show' in the ASBA/New York Horticultural Society Sixth Annual International Juried Botanical Art Exhibition and went on to repeat this in 2011 and 2016.

In 2004 she was honoured by the American Society of Botanical Artists, with the Diane Bouchier Award for Excellence.

In 2004, she also exhibited at the 11th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration of the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, USA.

In 2006 she won a Gold Medal and became the first recipient of the Mary Mendum Medal, awarded at BISCOT by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, Edinburgh.

Passiflora helleri by Lizzie Sanders - exhibited at the 11th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation

Her artwork is held in the following collections

• two paintings in the Highgrove Florilegium - which marked the 60th Birthday of the Prince of Wales (The Prince of Wales Charitable Trust)
• six paintings in The Shirley Sherwood Collection
• The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, USA
• The Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library, London, UK
• The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK - including five works in the RBGE Florilegium​
• The Filoli Florilegium
• ​The Alisa and Isaac M Sutton Collection, USA
• plus numerous private collections.

It's always extremely sad to lose a very fine botanical artist. I admired her work a lot and I'm just sorry I never got to meet her and missed seeing her exhibits at the RHS Botanical Art Show. However, there is much that can still be appreciated of what she excelled at and hopefully many aspiring botanical artists will find much inspiration in her work. 

​My condolences to her family and to her many friends and students among the community of Scottish Botanical Artists and botanical artists around the world.

NOTE: I understand that Dr. Shirley Sherwood is planning to a video tribute to the artwork of Lizzie' Sanders and you can watch out for this on her Facebook Page. I've also just noticed that the most impressive piece in Shirley Sherwood's collection was painted in 1995 - just five years after she started to paint botanical art!