Boston Flora

Tag: Oak Spring Garden Foundation

  • Through Sunday, December 15 – Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature

    Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature presents the vibrant career of the renowned Scottish artist, Rory McEwen (1932-1982). Focusing on his remarkable paintings of plants, the exhibition reveals McEwen’s lifelong enquiry into light and color in portraying his unique concept of the natural object. Over the course of his career, with his all-embracing perspective of modern art, McEwen developed a distinctive style, painting on vellum and using large empty backgrounds on which his plant portraits seem to float. In his paintings he forged his own personal interpretation of 20th century modernism, portraying individual flowers, leaves and vegetables as subject matter, “as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth, my truth of the time in which I live.”

    Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature presents 85 watercolors on vellum and paper, representing a wide range of the artist’s work, along with many of the well-known 17th and 18th century masters who influenced him—including Robert, Redouté, Ehret, Aubriet as well as early illuminated manuscripts and folio volumes. McEwen’s work is also presented alongside the works of numerous contemporary artists who in turn continue McEwen’s artistic legacy. It includes works on loan from the Collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Mellon’s Oak Spring Garden Foundation Collection, the Shirley Sherwood Collection and the McEwen Family Estate Collection, as well as works from numerous private collections, most of which have never before been seen by the American public. McEwen’s work is found in private and public collections across the globe, including the British Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum; Tate; National Gallery of Modern Art, Scotland; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh; and Museum of Modern Art, New York.

    The exhibition, Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, is presented by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in association with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) and Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Virginia); tour management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.

    The Gerard B. Lambert Foundation has provided major support for the exhibition. Generous support for the Davis presentation is provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis, the Alice G. Spink Art Fund, the Constance Rhind Robey ’81 Fund for Museum Exhibitions, and the Kathryn Wasserman Davis ’28 Fund for World Cultures. Below: Rory McEwen, Tulip ‘Julia Farnese’ rose feather, 1976, Watercolour on vellum, ©Estate of Rory McEwen

  • Monday, March 7, 1:00 pm Eastern – An Uncharted Network: John Bradby Blake’s Botanical Drawings and the Chinese Court

    As one of the earliest locally commissioned set of botanical drawings in Canton, John Bradby Blake’s four volumes of Chinese plants at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation show not only unprecedented quality in the most up-to-date Linnaean system but also an uncanny resemblance to the new trend of depicting plants in the eclectic style at the Qing court. This Gardens Trust March 7 lecture with Dr. Yu-chih Lai, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan attempts to navigate and weave the uncharted network that linked the foreign community in Canton and the court, and to explore how the eclectically mimetic style in Bradby Blake’s drawings was made possible by hiring local Chinese painters to work with him. £5. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

  • Monday, February 7, 1:00 pm Eastern Time – The Life and Work of John Bradby Blake, Online

    The Gardens Trust presents a series of six online talks on Mondays from February 7 – March 14 at 1 pm Eastern time, exploring the extraordinary life and work of John Bradby Blake (1745 – 1773). Zoom access to each lecture may be purchased for £5 each or all 6 for £24. Each lecture is recorded and a link will be sent, accessible for one week, for those who have a time conflict. These Gardens Trust lectures have been uniformly excellent, and purchase through Eventbrite may be accessed by clicking HERE.

    John Bradby Blake’s life was short but exceptional. During a span of only three years in the southern Chinese port city of Canton, Blake and his Chinese artist(s) produced several hundred exquisite, botanically accurate, colored drawings of Chinese plants, many of which were unknown in the West. Hidden from public view for more than two centuries, these singular and historically crucial collaborative artistic creations have only recently resurfaced.

    This series of six illustrated talks, focusing on the botanical drawings, will lead you into a previously unknown world in London and Canton, which Blake participated in and shaped. It will explore the many meanings of the material results of a rich and unique cross-cultural encounter which continued to reverberate for decades after his death.

    Our speakers, who have worked closely together on the Blake drawings and associated, scattered manuscripts and texts (in Chinese and western languages), are experts in the fields of botany, art history, garden history and the history of science; and they come to you from the United Kingdom, the United States and Taiwan.

    The first talk on February 7 is entitled An Englishman Abroad: An Introduction to the Life and Times of John Bradby Blake, with Sir Peter Crane FRS, Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia. Sir Peter writes: I first encountered the name of John Bradby Blake about a decade ago. Later, arriving at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, I was surprised to discover a large archive of Bradby Blake material among the rare books and manuscripts assembled by the philanthropist Rachel Lambert Mellon. This unpublished archive, which includes a collection of more than 150 magnificent plant portraits, provides a rich insight into the activities of an emerging botanical scholar who was working as a trader for the British East India Company in Canton and Macau in the early 1770s.

  • Available September 1 – Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscapes for the Public Good Exhibit, Online

    On September 1, Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscapes for the Public Good will be available. This downloadable exhibit features 23 panels of vivid photos and drawings, exploring the many facets of Olmsted’s life and legacy. Curated by Dr. Caroline Mesrobian Hickman of the University of Maryland and in conjunction with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, the exhibit explores the many facets of Olmsted’s life and legacy. The download will be offered free of charge after registration.

    The exhibit comes with suggestions for display, ranging from traditional paper and posterboard to eco-friendly corrugated cardboard and outdoor stanchions, as well as estimated costs. This allows organizations to customize based on their space and budget.

    Organizations may add their own panels so long as they conform to design and content guidelines.

    For more information, contact: info@olmsted-200.org.