Stunning Spring Selling Exhibition at Kew Gardens

5 February - 1 June 2011
The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

January 2011

From Eye to Hand
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is delighted to announce its first exhibition of original botanical artwork that will be for sale, at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery for Botanical Art. ‘From Eye to Hand’ will consist of paintings by artists whose work already features in the Kew Collection, and who were invited to submit material for this exhibition. A commission taken from sales will support the work of Kew, contribute to the ongoing development of The Shirley Sherwood Gallery for Botanical Art, and to the care of Kew’s art collection.

The Second strand of ‘From Eye to Hand’ will feature paintings that have been selected from the Kew Art Collection, which contains over 200,000 items. These are works by artists who flourished from the mid eighteenth century, through to those producing outstanding work today, and includes paintings by some of the undisputed masters of botanical art. The paintings, publications and archive material displayed here reveal a variety of style and subject. Some pieces have been produced for publication, while other examples were made to aid identification of and record plants being studied by botanists. The use of botanical illustration is still fundamental to scientific research, and Kew currently commissions a significant number of botanical illustrations a year. This will be the only section of the exhibition in which the artwork will not be for sale.

Professor Stephen Hopper, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, says, “This exhibition will allow visitors to see the splendour and richness of the work of some of the country’s finest botanical artists. We are excited to be hosting our first exhibition here at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art where such stunning work will be on sale. As well as being beautiful in their own right, botanical illustrations are also important scientific records through which plants are named and classified - visitors who invest in the artwork are also investing in the essential work that Kew carries out here and across the globe.”

For more information about The Shirley Sherwood Gallery please click here

The Botanical Brush
Alongside ‘From Eye to Hand’, there will be a display of the work of nine artists who have botanical paintings held in the archive of Hampton Court Palace Florilegium. The Society was founded in 2004 to record the paintings grown in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace, with special focus on the plants grown in the Queen Mary Exotics Collection, a National Heritage Collection unique to Hampton Court Palace that has been in existence since the seventeenth century.

The Society is limited to 25 members, all qualified botanical artists, who have gained internationally recognised awards and medals, and whose paintings and private commissions are held in collections worldwide.

The Secret Garden
The Leicestershire Society of Botanical Illustrators will also feature in the exhibition. Their paintings represent plants from Belgrave Hall Museum Gardens in Leicester, many of which date back to the Victorian era. The Society was formed in 1987 by a small group of enthusiastic botanical painters led by Anne-Marie Evans. Over the years the Society has grown, drawing members from a wide area, many of whom meet each week to paint together. Members traditionally work in watercolour on hot-pressed paper or vellum. The Society has been particularly successful at the Royal Horticultural Society in London, receiving awards ranging from silver to silver-gilt and gold. Members have also exhibited individually at these shows, being awarded the full range of medals.

For more information please contact the RBG Kew Press Office on 020 8332 5607 or email pr@kew.org

Images are available to download from www.kew.org/press/images . Please contact the press office for the username and password.

Notes to editors:

• Opening hours: 9.30am – 4.15pm until 7 February 2011
9.30am – 5.30pm 8 February until 28 March 2011
• Last entry to the Gardens, the Glasshouses, Galleries and the Xstrata Treetop Walkway is 30 minutes before closing
• Admission: Adults £13.90, Concessions £11.90, free for children under 17 (with an adult)
• Visitor information: 020 8332 5655 or info@kew.org
• Website: www.kew.org

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, opened in spring 2008, and is the first public gallery in the world dedicated to botanical art and open all year round. The gallery, designed by leading architects Walters and Cohen, exhibits precious works of art from the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Dr Shirley Sherwood. It won the Civic Trust Award for architecture in March 2010.

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 private collections of over 750 contemporary botanical drawings from over 240 artists. The gallery adjoins the Marianne North Gallery, a display of botanical and landscape paintings by Victorian artist Marianne North.

In June 2008, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of £1,867,000 kick starting a conservation project which began in July 2008 with the renovation of the Gallery building. The painting collection is currently being conserved and will be re-hung by 15 December 2010. More information here http://www.kew.org/collections/art-images/marianne-north/index.htm

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous scientific organisation, internationally respected for its outstanding living collection of plants and world-class Herbarium as well as its scientific expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development in the UK and around the world. Kew Gardens is a major international visitor attraction. Its landscaped 132 hectares and RBG Kew's country estate, Wakehurst Place, attract nearly 2 million visitors every year. Kew was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2003 and celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2009. Wakehurst Place is home to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild plant seed bank in the world. RBG Kew and its partners have collected and conserved seed from 10% of the world's wild flowering plant species (c.30, 000 species) and aim to conserve 25% by 2020.

‘Biodiversity Year at Kew’ in 2010 will celebrate the importance of plant diversity in underpinning biodiversity through a programme of themed and seasonal horticultural displays, art exhibitions, educational activities for all the family and scientific announcements. For a full programme of events see www.kew.org/press/2010.html or visit www.kew.org/biodiversity.