RHS Botanical Illustration- The Gold Medal Winners, A Tome For Those With a Passion For Art, The Gardening World- Or Both Combined!

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The Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library has a long tradition of partnering with artists to create beautiful artworks for their collection. In fact since they first started commissioning in 1806, they have gathered over 30,000 works of buds, fruits, flowers and leaves.

A new book, published by ACC Art Books, and curated by Charlotte Brooks, presents sixty botanical studies by gold medal winning artists from the Lindley Collection. The book, RHS Botanical Illustration- The Gold Medal Winners includes an essay detailing the long-standing relationship between artists and the RHS.

Each splendid, full colour illustration includes a short biography of the artist and a discussion of their winning composition. The artists are diverse, from around the globe, but the style is consistent, botanical illustration is described as, ‘a genre of art that endeavours faithfully to depict and represent the form, colour and detail of a plant’. Still you will see the artistic finesse and style choices between each gold medalist. It is especially interesting to see different people approach such a precise artistic genre I find. The subtle stylistic flairs are so fascinating. Click any image below to see detail.

Charlotte Brooks, the creator of the wonderful book, has worked as art curator at the RHS Lindley Library for over 15 years.  She also works on the judging panel, and researches Anglo-Chinese Botanical Art. 

The book itself it simply stunning and would make a glorious gift for anyone who loves floral gardening, or equally has an interest in still life drawing or painting. It would make a really good reference for botanical drawing as there is a lot of excellent work in there.

RHS Botanical Illustration Gold Medal Winners by Charlotte Brooks, available on ACC Art now.