Botanical Artistry

A new book by botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on fruits contains some amazing photography. You can see a terrific slide show here at the BBC news site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7591649.stm

Photography as good as this really gives botanical illustration a run for its money!

The Waterhouse is Australia’s richest prize for Natural History Art, boasting a total prize pool of $107,500. Each year entries are invited in three categories: Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculpture & Objects. Tasmanian Michael McWilliams has been named overall winner of the 2008 Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize for his painting Bandicoot Playground.

You can see the winning artworks here. There's always some surprises and some interesting artworks in this show. The exhibition of finalists and winners will be on display from 10am until 5pm every day until 7th September 2008 in the ETSA Utilities Gallery at the South Australian Museum.

Someone on the Yahoo botanical art group asked how I painted this recent submission to the monthly challenge. Luckily I took a few photos as I went, so I am able to show you.

The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation presents the exhibition “Pancrace Bessa and the Golden Age of French Botanical Illustration” from 18 September to 19 December 2008.

This show features 11 of Pancrace Bessa's original watercolors for the  erbier Général de l'Amateur (Paris, [1810-]1816-1827), a selection of engravings from publications that he illustrated, and watercolors and prints by the two men who most influenced his style and technique---Gerard van Spaendonck (1746-1822) and Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840). The exhibition is open to the public free of charge. Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-4p.m. (except 27-28 November and 12 December). We will also open on Saturday, 25 October, 1-5 p.m., during Carnegie Mellon’s homecoming.

Have a look at the website for further details.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew have just opened the Shirley Sherwood gallery which will showcase the Shirley Sherwood collection of contemporary botanical art as well as treasures from the Botanic Gardens historical collection. Shirley Sherwood's collection is well known to botanical artists and it is terrific to see that it will have a permanent exhibition space. Katherine Tyrrell's blog making a mark has an excellent post on the gallery.

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation presents the exhibition "Edward
Donovan: Naturalist Artist, Author and Collector" from 27 March to 29 June
2008.

Created in the period 1823-1830, these botanical watercolors by the
early 19th-century British naturalist Edward Donovan depict exotic plants
introduced to the British Isles.

The exhibition is open to the public free
of charge.

Hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-4 p.m.
(except 18 and 25-26 May).

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
Carnegie Mellon University
Hunt Library, 5th Floor
4909 Frew Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Phone: 412-268-2434

Web site:
http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/HIBD/Exhibitions/Exhibitions.shtml

Botanical Artistry is back after a database corruption took out the site for quite a while - my apologies! We're just getting back on our feet and starting to restore all the functions of the previous site. Stay tuned.

Since we last featured Anna Knights in December last year, she has gone on to further success.

After receiving the Dawn Jolliffe bursary from the Royal Horticultural Society to assist her to exhibit at her first ever exhibition as part of the botanical art competition at BBC Gardener's World Live in June 2007, Anna was awarded an RHS Gold Medal and the best in show award.

It is very rare for an artist to receive such an award on their first entry and it is even more of an achievement for Anna considering that she had begun botanical painting only a year previously. Anna is entirely self-taught. Having studied History at university, Anna began botanical painting in her spare time in February 2006.

The RHS have purchased original paintings and prints from Anna for their Lindley Library botanical art collection.

For further details on Anna's work see her website: www.annaknights.co.uk.

The Hunt Institute's 12th International Exhibition of botanical Art & Illustration will run from 30 September to 20 December 2007 and features 111 artworks by 64 artists from 14 countries. More information and a list of the artists is available on their Web site. This looks like a terrific exhibition and a full colour catalogue will be available.

In conjunction with the opening of the International exhibition, the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) will hold its 13th Annual Meeting and Conference in Pittsburgh (27–29 September). Many botanical artists from across the U.S. will be in town to attend.