To coincide with the end of the Garden Museum’s beautiful exhibition of McEwen’s delicate botanical paintings, this January 20 livestreamed event will see Nicola Shulman, author of the illustrated exhibition catalogue, joined by art critic and brother of the artist, John McEwen, and Rory’s friend and collaborator, botanist Martyn Rix.
If you’re curious to hear what ignited McEwen’s interest in botanical painting, or keen to learn more about his technique for painting on vellum, then this special event is well worth attending. McEwen was an artist who could produce minutely detailed and accurate paintings of petals and dying leaves, whilst experimenting with abstraction and mixed media sculpture; the impressive diversity of his work will be discussed.
Rory lived a full life in which folk music and painting were abiding passions. This panel of speakers will discuss his story and the people who influenced his art. £10 Livestream. To book, visit gardenmuseum.org.uk
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.
Take inspiration for your rose paintings from Redoute and Rory McEwen. Sarah Roche guides your interpretation of the form and dimension of this most elegant of flowers through a series of basic exercises in drawing and painting. Learn to decode the complex shape and structure of flowers. Apply your skills in a watercolor study, portraying the way the petals overlap and curl, the sharp edges of the thorns, and the smooth textures of leaves. Techniques covered in this class will reinforce your painting skills so that you can add a painting of the rose and other similar complex flower forms to your portfolio. The four day class will take place Mondays and Wednesdays, June 13, 15, 20 and 22 from 9:30 am – 2:30 pm at the Wellesley College Botanic Garden in Wellesley, and costs $225 for Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture members, and $275 for non-members. Sign up at www.wellesley.edu/WCFH, or call 781-283-3094, ext. 4. The image below, by Maria Cecilia Freeman, is part of an art exhibition entitled “Rose Studies” on view through April 30, 2011 at the Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum.
