Events at Kew and Wakehurst Place

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art is Now Open

Kew is delighted to announce that The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art is now open to the public. It is the first gallery in the world to open year round dedicated solely to botanical art.

The gallery will showcase art from Kew's unique historic collections as well as Dr Sherwood's contemporary collection of botanical art. The two collections, which complement each other, will allow Kew to show to the public many of its largely unseen treasures and there will always be a changing selection of contemporary works on exhibition from the Shirley Sherwood Collection. The new gallery will become the world centre of botanical art.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew holds one of the world's greatest collections of botanical art, totalling over 200,000 items. Until now much of this material has remained hidden in the Library at Kew, known only to a few, mainly due to a lack of adequate exhibition space with proper climatic control. The new Shirley Sherwood Gallery will now enable visitors to Kew to see many precious and unique works of art, by masters of botanical art such as Georg D. Ehret, the Bauer brothers and Pierre-Joseph Redouté, together with nineteenth century artists such as Walter Hood Fitch, who was one of the most prolific botanical artists ever. The controlled environment in the new gallery will also enable Kew to collaborate with other institutions that hold rich collections of botanical art such as the Chelsea Physic Garden, Natural History Museum and many international libraries.

Dr Sherwood started collecting botanical art in 1990, her first purchase was an orchid painted by artist Pandora Sellars. During her worldwide travels she discovered many botanical artists and she now has work from over two hundred artists from over thirty countries and the collection continues to grow. This is the eighteenth major exhibition of her collection around the world and the second at Kew.

The building, designed by award-winning architects Walters and Cohen, is intended to have minimum impact on the environment. Heating and air conditioning have been designed to use a fraction of the energy a conventional building would use; special glass and blinds will automatically react to light - reducing the running costs of the building and thus reducing Kew's carbon footprint.

Current Exhibitions

From November, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery is displaying three new exhibitions side by side.  

Kew's Hidden Trees

Behind the scenes at Kew are a collection of hidden trees. These are representations of trees, drawn, painted and printed primarily for botanical research. This exhibition contains historic and contemporary works that have rarely been viewed.

Down Under : Contemporary Botanical Artists from Australia and New Zealand

Discover today's exceptional Australian and New Zealand artists; Susannah Blaxill, Paul Jones, Jenny Phillips, Bryan Poole, Celia Rosser, Margaret Saul and more.

Inner Beauty? - Paintings of Medicinal Plants by Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society

Paintings and drawings recording medicinal plants in London's historic Chelsea Physic Garden.

During the changing of exhibitions sections of the gallery will always remain open, so whenever you visit the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art there will always be Botanical Illustrations on display. All new exhibitions will be completed and open from 15th November 2008.

Admission to the gallery is free and is included with an entry ticket to the gardens

Opening times 9.30am - 3.45pm

Past Exhibitions

The inaugural exhibition was Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections (19 April - 19 October 2008) combined some of the highlights from both Shirley Sherwood's and Kew's collections. An historical sequence of antique books and watercolours from the Library were mixed and matched with contemporary works chosen by Dr Sherwood, showing old and new masters side by side.

The catalogue to accompany this past exhibition Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections by Shirley Sherwood and Martyn Rix is available at the gallery, in the Kew bookshop or online at www.kewbooks.com

Paperback £24.95
Hardback £29.95

Contact

For more information on the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art please email shirleysherwoodgallery@kew.org