Trees, Tropical Plants & Theatre in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art (October 2018 - March 2019)

On Monday I went to see the four new botanical art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens.  I'll be reviewing them all individually on this blog in future but today I thought I'd give you a taster of what can be seen - so you start planning a visit!

The four new exhibitions run from 6 October 2018 – 17 March 2019 and have a couple of over-arching themes

Orchids and tropical plants

Orchids and tropical plants are featured in the first two exhibitions 

• Rankafu: Masterpieces of Japanese Woodblock Prints of Orchids (Galleries 1 and 2) - this is the first exhibition as you walk in through the main entrance
• Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars (1936-2017)​​ (Galleries 3 and 4) - This is very likely to be extremely popular with all experienced botanical artists and aspiring students.  Her works features a lot of tropical plants and orchids (and cyclamens, lilies and arum) and a lot of foliage.  

The Botanical Theatre of watercolour paintings by Pandora Sellars

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks ​(Gallery 5) 7 of the 20 oaks on display

Trees

The tree theme is particularly relevant to the Charter of the Forest in its 800th anniversary year.

• Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks ​(Gallery 5) - in the large square central gallery
• Trees: Delight in the Detail (Gallery 6) - the first exhibition you encounter when approaching from the Marianne North Gallery.

​HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: This is one of the best combination of exhibitions that I've seen here. There's a lot of excellent quality art to look at - I found it quite overwhelming - and it's really difficult to take it all in on one visit.  So think very seriously about:

• planning enough time for your visit
• or maybe even planning more than one visit!

I know one artist who has already visited twice on one day and wants to go again!
​
PS You will need a magnifier or a loupe to properly appreciate some of the paintings in these exhibitions.  If you forget yours, you can borrow one from reception.

Rankafu​: Masterpieces of Japanese Woodblock Prints of Orchids 

View of the exhibition of Rankafu wood block prints of orchids

These impressive and very beautiful woodblock prints of orchids are based on the watercolours of Zuigetsu Ikeda.  They were first published in 1946. 

Rankafu means as ‘Orchid Flower Album’. These prints are on loan from the Collection of Stephen Kirby and this is first major exhibition of the Rankafu woodblock colour prints outside of Japan.

​Woodblock printing of this quality is technically demanding and the exhibition includes a display explaining how they are produced.

Botanical Theatre: The Art of Pandora Sellars

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - This is an exhibition NOT TO BE MISSED.
​It's unlikely you'll ever see its like again.

Many experienced botanical artists will need no introduction to the late Pandora Sellars. She has been described by Shirley Sherwood as “One of the most important botanical artists of all time[1]” and  “the best leaf painter ever”.  Others would characterise her as being one of the best botanical artists when it comes to tackling a complex composition which shows off the botanical features of a plant to best effect.

However very few will have ever seen more than a few examples of her artwork in person.

This exhibition is unique and a wonderful opportunity to

• view a retrospective of c. 50 artworks and items produced from her art - just a small percentage of the artwork she produced over a period of nearly 40 years.
• note how her artwork developed over the years - between 1972 and 2007
• see the scope of her work - from botanical illustration commissions for Kew and other publishers to botanical artworks produced for her own pleasure.

Those who do not know about Pandora Sellars can read all about her and her botanical artwork in About Pandora Sellars (1936-2017) my dedicated page on this website.

The artwork is on loan from:

• Kew Collection (17 works) 
• Shirley Sherwood Collection (8 works)
• RHS Lindley Library (1 work)
• Cyclamen Society (7 works)
• Postal Museum (5 works)
• Private Collections (12 works - plus her painting materials
• Plus a selection of books containing botanical illustrations by Pandora Sellars

​

Mark Frith: A Legacy of Oaks

Six of the Veteran Oaks drawn by Mark Frith - in Gallery 5

This is an exhibition of a series of 20 highly intricate, large-scale graphite drawings of Britain’s most characterful veteran oaks, many of which are more than 1,000 years. The trees are shown in winter - devoid of all leaves and new growth.

They were drawn by Mark Frith who studied Fine Art at Bristol before becoming a BAFTA award-winning filmmaker before starting to draw his first tree in 2011.

The series were commissioned by publisher, poet, and philanthropist, Felix Dennis. After he died, ten trees were gifted to the Kew Collection and ten are now owned by the Heart of England Forest - founded by Felix Dennis.
​

Trees: Delight in the Detail

View of "Palms" - one small section of "Trees: Delight in Detail"

This exhibition leans very much towards looking at the details of trees rather than the tree as a whole - and different approaches used to paint the details of trees.

The artwork represents trees from all over the world - from temperate areas and the tropics - and the detail of their leaves, cones, flowers, fruits, seeds and nuts.

​Sizes vary enormously according to real life but also due to enlargement employed to show the detail of a particular aspect.

The artwork comes from the Shirley Sherwood Collection - collected from artists from all over the world. Artists include:

• UK: Jenny Brasier, Brigid Edwards, Annie Farrer (2 works), Flappy Lane Fox, Katherine Manisco, Rory McEwen (2 works), Margaret Mee (2 works), Barbara Oozerally, Jess Shepherd, Julie Small (2 works) 
• Australia: Jenny Phillips
• Austria: Jakob Demus
• Brazil: Maria Alice de Rezende, Alvaro Nunes (7 works)
• Germany: Regine Hagedorn,
• India: Arundhati Vartak
• Japan: Mariko Ikeda, Mieko Ishikawa, Kimuyo Maruyama (2 works), Michiko Toyota
• Philippines: Emmanuel Cordova
• Russia: Olga Makrushenko
• South Africa: Gill Condy, Ann Schweizer, Vicki Thomas
• Thailand: Phansakdi Chakkaphak
• USA: Monika de Vries Gohlke; Anne Ophelia Dowden, Ingrid Finnan, Hillary Parker, 

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