Boston Flora

Tag: Twigs Way

  • Wednesday, April 2, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Eastern – Artists’ Gardens: Painters in their Places, Online

    Plants and gardens have long served as a creative inspiration for artists. They are places of color, structure and changing light, representations of memories and emotions, expressions of the cycle of life and the passing of time. When the garden is one created by the artist themself, the scope for exploration and engagement intensifies and, whether garden-lover or art-lover, we are drawn in to their stories and meanings. In this four-part series, The Gardens Trust will explore a range of gardens created and celebrated by their artist owners. 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 2 weeks) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register through Eventbrite HERE.

    Gardens, fashions, sculpture and antique culture meet and mix as we move between France, Spain, Italy and England with artists who both recorded and, in the case of Sorolla and le Sidaner, created gardens. The third artist is John Singer Sargent. On April 2 we will examine the concepts of the role of gardens in art and culture more generally as exampled and contrasted by these three artists.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks reflect themes of, class and gender, politics, art and literature along with the quirky and unusual. Twigs is Course Director of the MA/PhD in Garden History at Buckingham University and an accredited Arts Society lecturer. Her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion (2020) and the new edition of A History of Women in the Garden was published by Bloomsbury (2023). Image: Les Jardins Henri Le Sidaner, Gerberoy, photo ©Twigs Way

  • Tuesday, September 17, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern – History of Gardens 2 – Botany and Botanical Art, Online

    The identification, depiction and celebration of plants is a key aspect of garden history, and one in which women have played a particularly important part. This highly illustrated talk will explore the role of female artists in floral and botanic art, focusing particularly on those working in the 17th century, but also looking forward to later artists. It will examine works by both ‘amateur’ and professional female artists including Giovanna Garzonni, Maria van Oosterwijck, Maria Sibylla Merian, Rachel Ruysch, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Moser, Mary Delany and Augusta Withers.

    This September 17 The Gardens Trust virtual talk is the second in our online course the History of Gardens 2, on Tuesdays. Sponsored by Wooden Books. Tickets £8 each (GT members £6) Sign up through Eventbrite HERE.

    This ticket is for this individual talk and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire [second] series of 5 talks in our History of Gardens Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25).

    Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards.

    Dr Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Much of her work has concentrated on the roles played by women in all forms of garden and plant-related spheres, and she is increasingly fascinated on the overlap between art, fashion, textiles and gardens. Her history of the chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020 following an earlier work on the carnation. Twigs teaches for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and, from September 2024, will also be co-Course Director of the MA in Garden History at the University of Buckingham.

  • Tuesday, June 4, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Botanists and Botanical Art: Marianne North, Online

    The Gardens Trust presents a series of three talks on botanists and botanical art across three centuries, exploring people and illustrations that have defined, recorded and celebrated the world of plants in all their distinctiveness and intricacy. We start the series with exciting new research on previously unremarked botanical images on the paneling of a fine Jacobean house in Hampshire. In the second lecture we will examine the extraordinary set of almost a thousand paper collages of exotic plants produced by an 18th century woman of advanced years, before finishing with tales of a Victorian lady traveler who sought out rare plants in their native lands, not to collect – but to paint. Tickets for the three part series may be purchased through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/botanists-and-botanical-art-tickets-834657221217 Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

    The final lecture on June 4 will focus on Marianne North (1830 – 1890) who lived an unconventional life painting exotic and rare plants in their native lands. Living and traveling with the ‘liberty of a wild bird’ but maintaining the dress and manners of a Victorian lady, the pursuit of plants took her around the world whilst her paintings were destined for Kew. This talk explores Marianne North’s work, her social context and the eventual creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

    Dr Twigs Way is a researcher, writer and speaker in garden history, fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her research reflects that endless curiosity and her books on plants and gardens explore themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature. Currently (2024) delivering a series of talks for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on the overlap between garden design and textile fashion through the ages. Image: detail, View of the Jesuit College of Caracas, Minas Geraes, Brazil by Marianne North, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY-NC-ND

  • Tuesday, May 28, 5:00 am – 6:30 am (but recorded) – Botanists and Botanical Art: Mary Delany

    The Gardens Trust presents a series of three talks on botanists and botanical art across three centuries, exploring people and illustrations that have defined, recorded and celebrated the world of plants in all their distinctiveness and intricacy. We start the series with exciting new research on previously unremarked botanical images on the paneling of a fine Jacobean house in Hampshire. In the second lecture we will examine the extraordinary set of almost a thousand paper collages of exotic plants produced by an 18th century woman of advanced years, before finishing with tales of a Victorian lady traveler who sought out rare plants in their native lands, not to collect – but to paint. Tickets for the three part series may be purchased through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/botanists-and-botanical-art-tickets-834657221217 Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.

    On May 28, we will explore the work of Mary Delany (1700 – 1788) and her ‘Paper Mosaicks’ with Twigs Way. Scandal, politics, botany, and art: this talk will explore the life of the ‘grotto nymph’ and creator of botanic paper collages, Mary Delany. Acclaimed by Sir Joseph Banks, personal friend of Queen Charlotte, and fellow ‘explorer’ of botanical wonders with the Duchess of Portland, Mary Delany embarked, aged 72, on a fabulous Flora of paper portrayals of exotic plants. This will be a heavily illustrated talk drawing on Mary Delany’s own words.

    Dr Twigs Way is a researcher, writer and speaker in garden history, fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her research reflects that endless curiosity and her books on plants and gardens explore themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature. Currently (2024) delivering a series of talks for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on the overlap between garden design and textile fashion through the ages.

    Image: Passiflora laurifolia,Tulipa sylvestris and Rhododendron ponticum by Mary Delany © The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

  • Thursday, March 23, 11:00 am GMT (but recorded) – C20 Garden Part 2: Painting Gardens of War and Peace – Reflecting Realities? Online

    Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.

    Spanning art from the rural idylls of Helen Allingham to the gritty reality of wartime allotments, and on into the mid-century with artists gardeners of the middling and suburban classes: this Gardens Trust talk on March 23 with Twigs Way will attempt to draw out strands of meaning and symbolism, reflection and realities, that span a century of garden art through war and peace. The talk will introduce lesser known artists, particularly of wartime gardens and public gardens, as well as those more familiar to us creating gardens in the luxuriance of peace. Co-incidentally the talk will discuss some of the artists who will be appearing in the Garden Museum exhibition on Private & Public: Finding The Modern British Garden which commences the day before this talk!

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature . . and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. From gnomes in Neasden to hollyhocks from the Holy Land every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently not-quite working on the equally golden daffodil.

    Helen Allingham painting

  • Thursday, March 9, 10:00 am GMT (but recorded) – C20 Garden, Part 2: Beverley Nichols, Leading Us Down the Garden Path, Online

    Created and re-created against the backdrop of cycle of war and peace with its accompanying social and economic impacts, the twentieth century garden pivots between tradition and modernism, informality and structure. The century sees a shift in both style and materials as concrete takes its place at the heart of new towns and spaces, whilst the country house garden struggles to survive and flourish again in a new order. Garden design increasingly reflects the needs of a wider range of society, whilst literary and artistic movements locate gardens at the very heart of the struggle for meaning in a world of change and aspiration. The Gardens Trust series reflects the continuity and change in garden design and understanding through the twentieth century highlighting specific gardens and designers and setting them within more contextual discussions. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week. Tickets £30 or £5 each. To purchase a ticket for the complete series through Eventbrite, visit HERE. The Gardens Trust has complete details on its website.

    The March 9 talk with Twigs Way highlights one of my personal favorite garden authors, Beverley Nichols (1898-1983): Leading us Down the Garden Path. Beverley Nichols was an author, socialite, and garden creator, now perhaps best remembered for his books which were not quite about gardening and yet not-quite not about gardening. Inspired by his various houses and gardens, the events he shared and the people he portrayed (sometimes quite mercilessly) were also not quite true and yet not-quite not true. Although somewhat misogynistic in style, and resolutely off-hand on the subject of gardening instruction, his 1932 best-selling work Down the Garden Path, illustrated by Rex Whistler, has been in print almost continuously since it first appeared. It was followed by two other works about his time at ‘Allways’ (his pseudonym for Glatton, Cambridgeshire), before a move to Hampstead Heath and then on to a Georgian manor in Ashtead, Surrey resulted in more not-quite gardening books. Nichols gave rise to a particular genre of gardening memoir in the mid-twentieth century, not to mention several satires on the style including Garden Rubbish (1936). This talk will explore the life, loves and garden landscapes of Beverley Nichols, drawing on published and unpublished material. The speaker lives in the village adjacent to Nichols’ beloved ‘Allways’.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature . . and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. From gnomes in Neasden to hollyhocks from the Holy Land every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently not-quite working on the equally golden daffodil.

  • Thursday, December 8 – The 19th Century Garden: Where the Suburbs Meet Utopia, Online

    Between 1801 and 1901 the population of England and Wales rose from 8.9 million to 32.6 million, with the majority pouring into the expanding urban fringes. Gardens flourished in the new suburbs, allowing aspiring homeowners to demonstrate their fortunes and their taste. As James Shirley Hibberd declared ‘He who lays out his garden in accordance with correct principles of taste, may find it as much amusement, and as genuine a solace from the cark and care of life, as if it were a domain of thousands of acres’. Gardening periodicals provided everything from over-sized hedge cutters to (mini) hothouses for suburban homeowners anxious to create individual utopias in identical spaces. Women and children joined the movement to create paradise in Pooter-land. As the century progressed, colourful annual bedding and newly introduced conifers gave opportunity for differentiating the fashionable from the outmoded, the comfortably-off from the merely aspiring, and the morally upright from the delinquent. This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5 Register at Eventbrite HERE. 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.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity with themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature . . and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. From gnomes in Neasden to hollyhocks from the Holy Land every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past. Twigs’ history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently working on the history of the daffodil and also researching the life of Viscountess Frances Wolseley. Twigs’ best-selling book is Gardening for Rabbits but you may prefer her Suburban Gardens published by Amberley in their Britain’s Heritage series.

    Front garden, early 20th century. © Garden Museum Ref 2000-327

  • Tuesday, May 3, 5:00 am – From Gardens to Landscape, Woodbines to Woods: Women at Wrest in a Changing World: Jemima Marchioness Grey and Amabel Hume-Campbell, Countess de Grey of Wrest Park, Online

    Wrest Park is well known for its long association with powerful female garden creators from Lady Elizabeth Talbot (1581-1651) and the ‘Good Countess’ Amabel (1607-98), through to the arrival of the Land Army in the walled garden in the 20th century. This May 3 Gardens Trust talk will contrast the lives and contributions of two of the most influential women on the surviving landscape at Wrest: Jemima Marchioness Grey (1723-97) and Amabel Yorke, Countess de Grey (1751-1833). Their cultural influences and economic contexts provide a dramatic contrast from Jemima’s intellectual rurality within the milieu of Chinoiserie and classical understanding, to the harsher economic realities and political backdrop of enclosure and war experienced by Amabel. We will use their letters and diaries to explore one designed landscape through their two very different lives. The live webinar will take place at 5 am Eastern time, but a recording link is sent the same day to enjoy over the following week at your convenience. £5 through Eventbrite by linking HERE.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs’ talks and books reflect themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature, and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. Twigs has a specific interest in the roles of women in and out of the garden, which was the topic of her first book and a particular interest in the women of Wrest Park. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently (not quite) working on the equally golden daffodil.

    Portrait of the Ladies Amabel and Mary Jemima Yorke by Joshua Reynolds

  • Tuesday, February 15, 10:00 am GMT – Forgotten Women Gardeners: Viscountess Frances Wolseley, Online

    The Gardens Trust presents the last in a series on Forgotten Women Gardeners with a focus on Viscountess Frances Wolseley at Glynde and Beyone with Garden Historian Twigs Way, on February 15 . £5. Register HERE. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. The live airing is incredibly early in the US, but the recording link comes very quickly.

    Founder of one of the earliest gardening schools for women, Frances Garnet Wolseley (1872-1936) was a champion of women’s right to work, and a lover of gardens. She was also a prolific author on topics relating both to her gardening school, women’s role on the land, and the countryside of Sussex. Her books on Gardening for Women (1908) and Women on the Land (1916) went beyond the confines of the school to suggest ways in which women could lead a revival of market co-operatives and smallholdings. During the war she took on official roles promoting the employment of women in farming but never lost her interest in the theory and practice of garden design.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs’ talks and books reflect themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature, and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. Twigs has a specific interest in the roles of women in and out of the garden, which was the topic of her first book. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently working on the equally golden daffodil, but dreams of having a publisher for a biography of Frances Garnet Wolseley.

  • Tuesday, January 11, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Eastern – Forgotten Women Gardeners: Weeding, Writing, and Illustrating, Online

    Following the success of the Gardens Trust series on gardeners last year they are pleased to be offering six more lectures this time focusing on some less well-known women and their contributions to horticulture.

    This ticket costs £24 for the entire course of 6 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

    In this introduction to the series Twigs Way will explore the broader history of women’s involvement in gardens from medieval weeders paid in ale and herrings to Victorian ladies gardening in corsets via ambitious royal creators of botanic gardens and forgotten illustrators. Highlighting the way in which women were forced into the margins of the traditional overview of garden history, we will shine a spotlight on the forgotten, the neglected and the poorly paid to whom the ‘art and craft of gardening’ in its broader context owes its existence.

    Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs’ talks and books reflect themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature, and her desire to follow unknown paths towards the unexpected. Twigs has a specific interest in the roles of women in and out of the garden, which was the topic of her first book. Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently working on the equally golden daffodil, but dreams of having a publisher for a biography of Frances Garnet Wolseley.