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Kew Gardens opened the first gallery in the world dedicated to botanical art in April this year. We spoke to Christopher Mills, who has curated the Shirley Sherwood Gallery's first exhibition on the treasures of botanical art.
Botanical artists have a little-known yet significant place in history. For centuries they have recorded the development of species in far-flung, exotic countries, helped scientists document discoveries, and enabled horticulturists to create previously unknown plants and flowers. As some of those species have become extinct, botanical art is the only proof that they ever existed, thereby capturing the fragility of the natural world.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has over 200,000 examples of botanical art, making it one of the world's largest collections. Being added to this is the collection of Dr Shirley Sherwood, who has been collecting contemporary botanical art since 1990. Featuring work by over 200 artists from 30 countries, her collection bears testament to the growing popularity and increasing interest in botanical art. Indeed, due to the support that Dr Sherwood's family has provided, Kew has named its new gallery after her.
The resurgence of interest in botanical art has also given rise to more books being published on this subject. This year, Assouline has brought out the sublime "Botanicals, Butterflies and Insects," which presents more than two centuries of lovely, large-format, natural history drawings taken from the book collections of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries in Washington DC. Elaborately depicted butterflies are juxtaposed against blooming flowers in this delightful, coffee table edition.
Certainly, the relevance of botanical art is being reevaluated.
Here Christopher Mills, the head of library, arts and archives at Kew Gardens, shares his views.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, holds one of the world's greatest collections of botanical art, totaling over 200,000 items. How was it acquired?
Kew celebrates its 250th anniversary next year, and we've been acquiring artworks throughout that time and have bought earlier material as soon as it became available. The collection includes works from the 15th century up to 2007, although the majority is from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. A lot of visitors have played a guessing game about when the works were made by not looking at the captions. Sometimes it's difficult to tell.
Why did Dr Shirley Sherwood decide to donate her collection to Kew?
She hasn't donated it yet. Her family helped build the gallery and she is lending it to Kew so that other people can enjoy the paintings that she has collected and enjoyed. We don't have the entire collection at the moment and in the future we will use other things from it.
What have been people's reactions to the gallery since it opened?
I'm pleased to say that we've had an extremely positive reaction. In the first month we had nearly 16,000 visitors which, given the rainy time of year and that people come to Kew for a number of reasons, was very gratifying. Many people see botanical art as a specialism and were surprised, as this is a new thing for them.
Who came to consult Kew's collection of botanical art before?
Traditionally, the collection was used by botanists and horticulturalists looking for particular species. In the last few years, it was also used by graphic designers and product designers looking for inspiration and ideas, and by art historians and historians in general because many of the drawings would have been done on expeditions and journeys.
Would you agree that there is a renaissance of interest in botanical art?
Yes, the heightened interest began around the late 1980s and has gathered momentum since then. A lot of publishers realize that a good illustration can show things in relation to a plant that it would be difficult to do with photography. Equally, more people recognize that botanical art is more affordable than other types of art, and a lot of people have taken it up as a hobby. There has certainly been a growth in courses teaching botanical art in recent years.
Botanical art is often overlooked and misconceived. Is your aim to reassess it as an art form?
A lot of people refer to botanical art as illustration. If they saw some of the pictures in the exhibition they would find that a difficult argument to maintain. It used to be said that botanical art doesn't change, that people draw plants in the same way now as in the past. This exhibition shows there has been a lot of experimentation and variety. There are so many different styles, some of which are very surprising.
What is the relationship between the 18th century desire to document species of plants and flowers, and the interest today to recreate extinct species?
The data attached to botanical art has a real use. Both professional drawings done on expeditions and amateur sketch books, with the time and place recorded, can enable a recreation of what an environment would have looked like and what might have been growing there. A succession of drawings can be used to see how the area has greatly changed. Drawings can be instructive about where you might be able to find a species and help you track down where there might be random populations.
Would you say that botanical art is even more relevant today as so many species are being threatened with extinction?
We haven't made a big thing of that in this exhibition but we do have examples in the gallery of endangered species. One of the pictures is of a jade vine, which is an endangered species in the Philippines although you're probably more likely to find it in a greenhouse now. Some visitors come aware of these issues, and we think the gallery will increase this awareness.
What particular skills are necessary for a botanical artist?
A botanical artist needs to have a great attention to detail, and be willing to look at something very closely and be able to faithfully record the specimen that they are drawing. The composition of a picture is still an important element, as it would be in any piece of art. But observation is key because an artist will see something a scientist won't and vice versa. A scientist working with an artist will mean that an artist might produce a finer painting than if they had done it on their own.
Which are the most outstanding works in your exhibition?
For me, one of the most dramatic paintings is "Polyanthus and primroses" by Maria Sibylla Merian. It's nearly 400 years old and is particularly special as it's different from the paintings of insects that we know her for. It's a stunning painting done on velum rather than paper, and consequently it looks really fresh, as if the plants are alive. We also have some works, such as of Strelitzia, the birds of paradise flower, by Franz Bauer, who spent 40 years drawing plants that grew at Kew. He is probably one of the greatest technical artists. Although he isn't widely known outside the botanical arts, I think he and his brother Ferdinand, another botanical artist, could have held their own against any artist.
Are you going to liaise with other museums to curate traveling exhibitions?
We plan to do exhibitions with other institutions such as the Chelsea Physic Garden (www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk) and the Natural History Museum (www.nhm.ac.uk), both in London. We've had preliminary conversations with foreign institutions and often lend pieces from our collections to other museums around the world.
Are you going to make products inspired by botanical art?
We've introduced a screen-based Art on Demand service, enabling visitors to order a framed canvas or paper print of some of the things they have seen in the exhibition. There's also a range of products made by companies external to Kew. Our art collection has been used by everybody from people designing postage stamps or mugs through to linen and textile curtains.
Definition of luxury:
My idea of luxury is a room that is furnished with fine books of the kind I'm interested in and accompanied by some of my favorite pieces of artwork. I would very much like to have that Maria Sibylla Merian picture I spoke about because it makes me feel relaxed and I never cease admiring the skill that went into making it. I'd settle for a nice facsimile of the artworks if I couldn't have the real thing!
If luxury were:
An object:
It would probably be an old stone cottage hundreds of miles from anywhere else, and probably in Wales.
A person:
I suppose it would be David Attenborough. I was lucky enough to spend some time with him recently; he's someone I really admire and he's an awfully nice man.
A place:
I think it would be Vancouver because it's the one place among those that I've wanted to go to that I haven't been to yet. I saw pictures of it as a child and it struck a chord with me but I've never managed to go.
A moment:
I would love to have had a half-hour conversation with Virginia Woolf. We'd have probably fallen out after half an hour because she was quite a spiky person.
"Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections" runs from April 19 through October 19, 2008.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AB
Tel.+44 (0)20 8332 5655
www.kew.org
Buy online:
www.kewbooks.com
http://www.assouline.com/books/details.php?idproduct=547&id_mere=1