New Gallery of Botanical Art Opens at Kew Gardens
The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens, opening on 19 April
2008, is the first gallery in the world dedicated to botanical art and will be open
to the public all year round. The gallery, designed by award-winning architects
Walters and Cohen, will exhibit precious works of art from the collections of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Dr Shirley Sherwood, many of which have never been
on public display before.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew holds one of the world’s greatest collections
of botanical art, totalling over 200,000 items. Kew holds works by masters of botanical
art such as G D Ehret and the Bauer Brothers, together with nineteenth century artists
such as Walter Hood Fitch, who was one of the most prolific botanical artists ever.
Dr Shirley Sherwood holds one of the world’s most comprehensive collections
of original contemporary botanical art. The new building is physically linked to
the adjacent Marianne North Gallery, a permanent display of Victorian botanical
and landscape paintings. The gallery space linking the two buildings will feature
a selection of contemporary works from the Shirley Sherwood Collection.
Many of the works in Kew’s collection require a climate-controlled environment
with managed light levels. Until now, although the collection has been consulted
by experts and researchers, most of the works have been kept in study collections
behind the scenes. The new gallery will provide the right environment and will make
Kew’s collections more accessible, ensuring that the 1.3 million annual visitors
to Kew Gardens can see the treasures on public display.
Dr Sherwood travels extensively and has been collecting contemporary botanical art
since 1990. Her comprehensive collection includes work by over 200 artists living
in 30 different countries and documents the emergence of a new wave of botanical
painters and the renaissance of their art form. Arguably the most important private
collection of twentieth century botanical art in the world, these art works complement
Kew’s own collection which has a rich heritage of eighteenth and nineteenth
century illustrations as well as more recent acquisitions.
Kew’s collection of botanical art includes illustrations of extinct species
for which the artwork may be the only surviving record. As well as being great works
of art, these historically rich illustrations are scientific tools highly valued
by taxonomists, horticulturalists, and researchers alike. With one quarter of the
world’s species of flowering plants threatened by extinction in the next 50
years, Kew has a vital role to play to inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation.
The beauty, rarity and accuracy of the images displayed in The Shirley Sherwood
Gallery will raise public awareness of the beauty and fragility of the natural world.
Following the opening of The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, the Marianne
North Gallery - both the building and its collections - is due to be restored and
enhanced through improved interpretation, better signage and a programme of activities.
This work is the subject of an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund. This beautiful
space is filled floor to ceiling with a lavish collection of 832 colourful paintings
by Marianne North, a Victorian amateur botanical artist, who travelled the world
and left her collection to Kew. Behind the scenes, an extension to the Herbarium,
Library and Archives, opening in 2009, will provide improved facilities for consulting
Kew’s illustrations collection.
Inaugural Exhibition: 19 April – 19 October 2008
A changing annual programme of three exhibitions is planned and the inaugural exhibition
will combine some of the highlights from the Kew and Shirley Sherwood Collections
with support from our sponsor Jonathan Cooper, Park Walk Gallery. This first exhibition
aims to show the scope of the two collections and the richness of botanical art
as a whole, providing an overview of the most significant artists from c1700 through
to contemporary artists. This opening exhibition will include Tulipa by G D Ehret;
one of the finest botanical artists to date and whose work consistently demonstrates
the longstanding importance of this area of art to science. Polyanthus and primroses
by Maria Sibylla Merian will also be on display. Merian was born in 1647 and travelled
to far-flung tropical lands to draw insects and plants, her combination of artistic
talent and close observation of the subject in the field set a precedent for scientific
illustration. There will also be a selection of works by the great female flower
painter Marianne North, including Banksia and Pineapple. North travelled extensively
throughout the mid-19th century to paint and also met Sir William Hooker, the former
Director of Kew Gardens. Her more naturalistic works conveyed the already changing
environment and a large proportion were donated to Kew Gardens to be housed in the
Marianne North Gallery. Visitors will also be able to see Bromelia agavoides by
P J Stroobant, a piece from a collection of paintings done for a monograph that
was never published, and Cleistocactus fieldianus by Christabel King – a modern
day botanical artist. In the autumn of 2008 the second exhibition will focus on
Trees; a view of the rich legacy of illustrating trees largely through detailed
specimens. Future exhibitions will celebrate a range of artists and their subjects
throughout the history of botanical illustration.
Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections
This book marks the inaugural exhibition of The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical
Art at Kew, which opens in April 2008. Extensively illustrated and elegantly designed,
the book will feature some 200 paintings and drawings from both the Kew and Shirley
Sherwood collections, reflecting the richness of botanical art as a whole, providing
an overview of the most significant artists from the 1600s through to contemporary
artists, and demonstrating the enduring importance of botanical illustration. The
book includes informative essays on the origins, history and relevance of botanical
illustration with special reference to the Kew and Shirley Sherwood collections.
It also has annotated captions, with artist's details, dimensions of the paintings,
medium and material, and the nature of the plant shown and biographies of artists,
selected bibliography and indexes to plants and artists. Buy this book
Further Information
The Shirley Sherwood Gallery will be open all day, as per the opening hours of the
Gardens. Please see
http://www.kew.org/visitor/timeskew.html. Entrance to the gallery will be
at no additional cost to Garden admission.