For the first time in its history, the Margaret Flockton Award exhibition will be leaving its traditional home of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
Its new home from this Saturday will be the PlantBank in the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.
From September 16 to November 12 the exhibition, which honours Sydney’s first female botanical illustrator Margaret Flockton, will display a mix of hand drawn and digital drawings at the Telopea Gallery.
Native finger limes, Frangipanis and Dragon’s Blood trees are just some of the diverse species that appear in the exhibition.
All up there are 29 submissions from 10 countries, including Australia, UK, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Japan and Turkey.
The great scientific institutions represented include the Royal Botanic Gardens of Madrid, Royal Botanic Garden Kew, the Dutch Academic Research Institute, Hacettepe Unversity, Turkey and The Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.
John Siemon, the curator manager at The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan said he was excited to host such a prestigious international award exhibition, including the artwork of winner Lucy T. Smith from Royal Botanic Garden Kew.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“This exhibition highlights the beauty of plants through botanical illustration and celebrates the aesthetics of science,’’ Mr Siemon said.[/social_quote]
“We also know the Flockton Exhibition has the power to draw new visitors to the Australian PlantBank.”
Botanic illustrations were originally created using a microscope, a sophisticated “camera lucida’’ and highly detailed black and white drawings by hand in pen, ink and pencil.
Today, scientific botanic illustrators are increasingly using graphic tablets and inkjet printers to render their exquisite and accurate artwork, taking the art form into the 21st century.
The Margaret Flockton award commemorates the contribution she made to Australian scientific botanical illustration.
From 1901 to 1927 Flockton worked as director J.H.Maiden’s right hand woman at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.
During her 27 year career she devotedly documented more than 1,000 plants, wildflowers lichen, blazing a trail for botanical illustrators forever more.
The Maple Brown Family and the Foundation and Friends of the Botanic Gardens sponsor this annual, international award for excellence in scientific botanical illustration and this year awarded first prizes to Lucy Smith from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
SNAPSHOT
WHAT Margaret Flockton award exhibition
WHEN Daily 9am – 4pm Saturday, September 16 to Sunday, November 12
WHERE Telopea Gallery, PlantBank, Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan
COST Free entry
