Product Description

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, this 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 Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art: The Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew Gardens, opening in spring 2008, will be the first public gallery in the world dedicated to botanical art. The gallery, designed by leading 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.The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew holds one of the world's greatest collections of botanical art, totalling over 200,000 items. Dr Shirley Sherwood holds one of the world's most comprehensive collections of contemporary botanical drawings from over 200 artists. The new gallery will adjoin the Marianne North Gallery, a display of Victorian botanical and landscape paintings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14525 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

About the Author
Martyn Rix has worked for the Royal Horticultural Society and has co-authored many books on horticulture with Roger Phillips. He is editor of 'Curtis's Botanical Magazine' published by Kew, the longest continuously running botanical periodical in the world, founded in 1787, which places special emphasis on botanical illustration. Martyn has travelled widely around the world collecting and photographing plants, and designing and planting gardens. In 2002 he was awarded the Gold Veitch Memorial Media for services to Horticulture.Dr Shirley Sherwood travels extensively and has been collecting contemporary botanical drawings since 1990. Her comprehensive collection includes work by artists living in thirty different countries and documents the emergence of a new wave of botanical painters and the renaissance of their art form and is arguably the most important private collection of twentieth century botanical art in the world.

Customer Reviews

Treasures of Botanical Art

a really beautiful book - ideal for any botanical artist - or coffee table.

A landmark publication
This book is written by two experts in botanical art and was published as the catalogue of the inaugural exhibition of the The Shirley Sherwood Gallery in Kew Gardens, the first gallery in the world to be dedicated to year round exhibitions of botanical art - which I went to see on the day the gallery opened in April 2008.

I can personally vouch for the fact that this book provides excellent colour reproduction of the works which were in the exhibition.

It's also a fascinating book in that it mixes the best work by contemporary botanical artists - mainly from the Shirley Sherwood Collection - with the historic artwork which forms part of the collection of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. The book includes biographies of all the artists.

I highly recommend it to all botanical art lovers, botanical artists (to see the standards whwhich are achieved by contemporary artists), and people who provide tuition in botanical art - however this is not a "how to" book.

I'd personally go for the hardback version Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections (Royal Botanic Garden)- as I did - because I think this will become a landmark publication in time.

Trerasures of Botanical Art Shirley Sherwood's Kew Collection
A won derful book full of a variety of great botanical paintings botanically correct yet still showing the particular artist's imput. A pleasure to have.