The Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne are proud to have been involved with the development and promotion of the work of professional and amateur botanical illustrators since 1990, and are delighted to present this, the ninth biennial The Art of Botanical Illustration exhibition.

In this exhibition are 170 paintings selected from over 400 submitted. They represent the work of 82 artists from around Australia and overseas, including that of talented students attending Botanical Illustration classes held at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

The works were selected on the following basis: they should accurately represent the form and botany of the chosen subject; they should adequately convey the characteristics of the species or variety; and they should be represented as an artistically pleasing, balanced and considered work of art. They must also be identified and named accurately according to standard botanical practices.

Artists of all levels of experience were encouraged to submit works for selection. The final collection on display offers an outstanding opportunity to acquire works by talented emerging artists as well as those by artists with well-established national and international reputations. For some artists this will be the first time they have exhibited at a major exhibition. We are delighted to be able to offer so many artists this opportunity to display their work alongside that of their peers.

This exhibition will be the seventh at which the Friends have donated funds to the Royal Botanic Gardens for the purchase of works for inclusion in the State Botanical Collection held in the National Herbarium of Victoria. From the 2006 exhibition, works by Diane Boak, Margaret Holloway and Merle McIntyre were acquired by the Gardens in this way. RBG provided funds for the acquisition of an additional painting by Edyta Hoxley. The Director’s Circle funded the purchase of a painting by Marta Salamon.

A colour copy of the catalogue in Adobe Acrobat form (PDF) can be downloaded from here.

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