Press Release

New Gallery of Botanical Art

Opens at Kew Gardens, 19th April 2008

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. www.kewbooks.com

Authors: Shirley Sherwood and Martyn Rix

Imprint: Kew Publishing

Specification: 292 x 225 mm, 272pp

RRP soft cover: £24.95

RRP case bound with jacket: £29.95

ISBN soft cover: 978 1 84246 221 8

ISBN hard cover: 978 1 84246 368 0

'Adopt a Painting' to help restore the Marianne North Gallery

The Marianne North Gallery is a unique building holding a fascinating collection of one woman's botanical art at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . A vital restoration project, due to start in July 2008, will repair various features of the building, improve the conditions for the display of North's collection and conserve and restore the collection itself. Through our ‘Adopt a Painting' scheme we are also offering people the chance, for as little as £500, to have their hand in safeguarding each paintings future and supporting such a unique artistic collection. For advice on how to Adopt a Painting in the Marianne North Gallery email mng@kew.org or call Helen Lawrence on 020 8332 3249.

Art on Demand

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery will feature Art on Demand - a unique service allowing visitors to select images from Kew 's archive of renowned botanical art and photography, to create a bespoke piece of art. Art on Demand offers archival quality prints and canvases in a variety of sizes and with a choice of frames, delivered to your door ready-to-hang. Art on Demand is also available from the Victoria Plaza shop and will shortly be accessible via Kew 's website. Kew Art on Demand is in association with The Art Group, established leaders in art publishing.

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. For further information please contact the Press Office at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Please visit www.kew.org/press or contact pr@kew.org / 020 8332 5607. Images are available at www.kew.org/press/images. Please contact the RBG Kew Press Office for a username and password to download in high resolution format.

Notes to Editors

RBG Kew's Botanical Art Collection: Arranged systematically by plant families, Kew's collection of botanical art, which forms part of the National Reference Collection, plays a key role in plant science research, particularly for the identification of plants. Assembled over the last 200 years, Kew holds works by the great masters of the eighteenth century, such as G D Ehret, the Bauer brothers and Redouté, nineteenth century artists including Walter Hood Fitch and Marianne North and by twentieth century and contemporary botanical artists such as Margaret Mee, Stella Ross-Craig, Pandora Sellars and Christabel King. The collection also includes many of the original botanically precise watercolours from Curtis's Botanical Magazine dating back to 1789. Among the Library's 300,000 books and pamphlets are many lavishly illustrated and rare books dating back to 1370. In addition the archives contain the illustrated notebooks of great botanists and plant hunters including Sir William Hooker, the first Director of Kew, objets d'art, portraits, photographs and daguerreotypes.

Dr Shirley Sherwood: Dr Shirley Sherwood is Editor-in-Chief of the Orient-Express Magazine and contributed generously to the costs of constructing the gallery. She is Vice Chairman and a judge on the Picture Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society, London; a former trustee on the Advisory Board of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; an honorary trustee of the American Society for Botanical Artists; a Fellow of the Linnean Society and on the Board of the Smithsonian Institution. She has written several books including Contemporary Botanical Artists: The Shirley Sherwood Collection and A Passion for Plants: Contemporary Botanical Masterworks. Parts of her collection have toured the United States including the Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh and Denver Art Museum. In 2003 she showed a hundred works at the Smithsonian in Washington which were visited by over half a million people.

Architecture: The design of The Shirley Sherwood Gallery seeks to combine the needs of the collection and those of Kew's visitors. Thus, the main gallery space is a ‘box within a box' where the environment can be controlled at 50 lux and 55% relative humidity. On two sides this central space is flanked by four small gallery spaces with the same climate and light controls, each of which can be closed off without disrupting visitor flow. Displays in these spaces can be integrated with the main exhibition or used as discrete spaces for the display of ‘treasures' from Kew's collections or for regularly changing topical displays relating to current affairs or developments in plant science and conservation. The exhibition spaces, totalling 300m2, have been designed to be as flexible as possible, by using versatile display and lighting systems. Two of the external walls of the gallery space are glazed to create a welcoming and accessible reception and orientation area where prints, an Art on Demand service and some publications can be displayed. Materials have also been sensitively selected to complement and contrast with the Victorian structure of the adjacent Marianne North Gallery.

Walters and Cohen: Founded in 1994 by Cindy Walters and Michál Cohen, Walters and Cohen has since grown into a dynamic and multicultural practice of talented individuals from around the world. Walters and Cohen has actively developed an international portfolio of public, education, commercial, housing and cultural projects. Walters and Cohen works closely with clients to establish an appropriate and achievable brief for every project. Detailed research into innovative building materials has resulted in an impressive portfolio of bold, contemporary and imaginative projects. www.waltersandcohen.com

Kew Publishing: The publishing house of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew produces over 20 new titles each year, catering for diverse readerships, from scientists and academics to the general public of all ages. We aim to inspire and educate people about our work and to make available Kew's unique heritage and resources, knowledge and cutting edge expertise to as wide an audience as possible throughout the world. www.kewbooks.com

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Kew Gardens is a major international visitor attraction and its 132 hectares of landscaped gardens attract over one million visitors per year. Kew is a UNESCO-inscribed World Heritage Site and represents over 250 years of historical landscape. The site houses over 40 listed buildings and other structures including the Palm House, Temperate House, Orangery and Pagoda as well as two ancient monuments, Queen Charlotte's Cottage and Kew Palace. RBG, 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. www.kew.org.

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