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Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society Show
April 12 –June 15, 2003
View the 1st Annual Exhibition
The first florilegium appeared 400 years ago. Europe's wealthy and powerful, who were assembling vast collections of new and rare plants from all corners of the world, had begun to commission artists to record the wonders growing in their gardens. Illustrated herbals and floras of previous centuries were often of considerable beauty, but they were above all medical and botanical books. Florilegia were anthologies of illustrations, drawn from life and botanically accurate like those for herbals and floras, but with new and exuberant emphasis on the beauty of plants. A perfect marriage of science and art.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society is a group of 43 of the country's most accomplished botanical artists who are restoring vitality to this centuries-old form. In a multiyear effort that marries botanical art and herbarium specimen, the society is creating an incomparable record of plants grown by the Garden and part of the living collections. Thirty-one of these artists contributed works in watercolor, gouache, acrylic, pen and ink, and graphite pencil that are on display in this inaugural online exhibit.
Early signs of the renaissance in botanical art that is now in full swing were the formation of the American Society of Botanical Artists in 1995 (now 1,000 artists strong) and the creation of florilegium societies in England—first at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1995 and later at the Sheffield Botanical Gardens in 2002. The Florilegium Society has an enthusiastic home at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where gardeners and botanists collaborate with artists to communicate the science of plants through the beauty of art and advance the appreciation of botanical art around the world.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden thanks the following members of the Florilegium Society for their generosity:
- Francesca Anderson
- Mary Chambers Bauschelt
- Chiara Becchi
- Leslie Berge
- Diane Bouchier
- Wendy Brockman
- Harriet Carotenuto
- Christina Davis
- Monika E. de Vries Gohlke
- Nan Dedrick
- Jean Emmons
- Marilyn A. Garber
- Carol E. Hamilton
- Paul Harwood
- Gina Ingoglia
- Martha G. Kemp
- Judith Kunhardt
- Angela Mirro
- Peter K. Nelson
- Kate Nessler
- George Olson
- Rose Pellicano
- Dick Rauh
- Eleanor I. Rohrbaugh
- Adele Rossetti Morosini
- Mary Ryniec
- Manabu Saito
- Jessica Tcherepnine
- Virginia A. Tuttle
- Carol Woodin
- Eleanor B. Wunderlich
Click on the drawings below to view a larger version of the image and to see more information about the work.
