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Western Libraries

Botanical Illustration Resources

A Selected Bibliography created for the 1999 Northwest Botanical Illustration Symposium (updated frequently) Compiled by Julene Sodt, of the Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA

Selected Websites

Societies, Associations, Institutes and Botanical Gardens

American Society of Botanical Artists
Provides information and scheduling about activities and events, profiles an ASBA Artist, and links to Websites of and for members.
 
Botanical Artists' Association of Southern Africa
Dedicated to "promoting public awareness of botanical art."  The web site gives access to information about the organization's exhibitions, meetings, workshops and newsletters.
 
Denver Botanical Gardens
 
Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
A brief history of the Guild, membership information, constitution and by-laws, Guild and Chapter events, and access to a GNSI Listserv are among the services/information available at this site.

The Florilegium Society
The Florilegium Society was established to produce an archive of botanical illustrations of the plants of Sheffield Botanical Gardens. Botanical illustration is the marrying of art and science where the structures of plants are displayed in clear, scientifically accurate detail. The archive will provide a useful source of reference and a scientific and historical record of the regeneration of Sheffield Botanical Gardens. -- from Web site

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
The Hunt Institute, a research division of Carnegie Mellon University, specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science (including botanical illustration through research and documentation).

The Society of Botanical Artists
The British mother society to the American Society of Botanical Artists. 

Exhibitions and Shows

Brooklyn Botanical Garden
"The Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society is a group of 44 of the country's most accomplished botanical artists, who are restoring vitality to this centuries-old form.  In a multiyear effort that combines botanical art and herbarium specimen, the society is creating an incomparable record of plants grown by the Garden and part of the living collections. Twenty nine of the society's artists have contributed the works in watercolor, oil, gouache, acrylic, pen with ink, and graphite pencil that are on display in this Portraits of a Garden 2004 exhibit." --Description from Website

Perennial Pages: An Exhibition of Flower Illustration in Books Since the Renaissance
Notes on the artists, a select bibliography, and pictures from this exhibit are featured at this site.

Books/Catalogs/Databases/Special Collections

Botanicus
Botanicus is "a freely accessible, Web-based encyclopedia of digitized 18th and 19th century botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. Materials have been added since 1995, focusing primarily on beautifully illustrated volumes from the library's rare book collection. Included is Sydenham Teast Edwards' Botanical Register from 1815-1828.

Catalog of Botanical Illustrations (Smithsonian)
The Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History has created a database of the more than 3000 botanical illustrations. Currently the Smithsonian is offering 500 images in the three families that have been completed: Bromeliaceae, Cactaceae, and Melastomataceae. Biographical sketches of the artists are included.

Donald Angus Collection of Botanical Prints
(Bishop Museum, Foster Gardens, the National Tropical Botanical Garden, and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Hamilton Library)

The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations (The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London)
The Botany Library of the Department of Information and Library Systems holds all of the surviving botanical artwork from Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage.  Represented are works of the artists Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771), John Frederick Miller and Frederick Polydore Nodder, among others. These artists' works feature in the finished watercolours made during and after the voyage, between 1773 and 1784. Of the three, only Parkinson sailed on the ship and it was he who made the first sketches of the plants which were encountered and collected."

Flora Danica Online
"The vast Danish botanical work Flora Danica, begun in 1761, consists of 3,240 engravings in folio of all the wild plants that grew in the kingdom of Denmark."   The plates are browseable, issue by issue, and searchable by Latin name.