Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Amazing Botanical Art Exhibit 

Beauty, Passion, Research

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Duets Exhibition, 5th floor, Hunt Library

Want to know which artist wrote Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum surinamensium?  How to tell if an unsigned and undated John Tyley watercolor was really created by him?  Why Margaret Mee devoted 30 years of her life documenting and painting rare species of flowers in the Amazon?

Pseudobombax grandiflorum (Cav.) A. Robyns [detail]
 watercolor on paper by Margaret Ursula Mee, England (1909-1988) 
©Estate of Greville Mee, collection of Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Ask Ms. Lugene Bruno!

Curator of Art & Senior Research Scholar, Lugene Bruno of  Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation can answer these questions, and more.  She is the passionate and brilliant steward of one of the world's largest collections of botanical art and illustrations. With more than 29,270 original paintings, drawings, and original prints from the 1400s to the present, her department serves as an international center for the study of botanical art and illustration.

watercolor by John Tyley (Antiqua/England?, fl. early 1800s)
Image courtesy Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Currently on exhibition is Duets and it is breathtakingly beautiful!  Ms. Bruno said this about the exhibition, "Duets includes historical and contemporary drawings, paintings and prints emphasizing the different visual approaches to similar subjects realized by pairs of artists while showing the trajectory of botanical art through several centuries."

Evocative and moving, Duets shows how botanical art can eloquently communicate the important role plants have in our lives, and ultimately, our world.

Exhibition is open through 30 June.  It is Free!  They will have an Open House on 29 June.

*This is Part I of two reviews.