Review: Chelsea Physic Garden: Celebrating 350 Years in Paint and Print

Yesterday I visited Chelsea Physic Garden: Celebrating 350 Years in Paint and Print at the Bankside Gallery on the South Bank.

Dicotyledon Beds, Chelsea Physic Garden by Claire Denny

collage, gouache & ink

Frame: 45 x 45 cm | Artwork: 29 x 29 cm

SOLD

It's a very good exhibition of the diverse perspectives of different by selected artist members of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) and Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE).

The exhibition is being held to mark the 350th anniversary of the Chelsea Physic Garden.

View of the exhibition at the Bankside Gallery

There was a previous collaborative exhibition in 2021 - Chelsea Physic Garden: A Year in the Life. This came about as a result of an invitation from the Chelsea Physic Garden for artists to visit the garden and create art as a result

Over the course of the last 18 months, the artists have researched, visited (when possible) and recorded the Garden throughout changing seasons and varying restrictions, documenting perhaps one of the most extraordinary years of the Garden’s life. The result is a compelling and vibrant display of creativity and a wonderful example of what can be achieved in the face of adversity. The exhibition is truly refreshing and uplifting; a reminder of the joys and healing powers of both art and nature.

The initiative which started in 2019 was interrupted by the Pandemic. However at the same time it resulted in a greater understanding of the value of the garden.

You can also read: The Healing Powers of Art and Nature: Chelsea Physic Garden through the eyes of artists

I highly recommend a visit to the exhibition for those who like painting (or printmaking) gardens - or just enjoy Chelsea Physic Garden which is a delightful, historic and informative oasis in Chelsea - next to the river.

The exhibition banner on an external view of the Bankside Gallery

Paintings in the Exhibition - Two Painters

You can see an album of my gallery shots of the exhibition on my Facebook Page - see Chelsea Physic Garden 350th Anniversary - which are receiving some very positive responses from those who have viewed them. Believe me - they're better in real life!

View of the exhibition

I'm a Friend of the Florilegium Society based at Chelsea Physic Garden and am very familiar with the garden. Members of the Florilegium Society all draw and paint the plants rather than the garden.  (READ my page about Florilegium Societies to find out more about what they do). 

It was therefore very interesting to see the different ways in which the RWS and RE artists tackled the subject of the garden.

I'm going to highlight the artists who I thought best captured the look and spirit and history of the garden

Claire Denny

The complete star of the exhibition for me was Claire Denny who was elected a full member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 2022. Her suite of four paintings completely capture both the garden and the glasshouses. I'm not in the least bit surprised that three of her four paintings (priced at £650 each) have already sold - they speak of the place.

The style however is completely different from what she produces for her normal work.

Four paintings by Claire Denny

collage, gouache & ink | Frame: 

45 x 45 cm Artwork: 29 x 29 cm

Paul Regan RWS

I love these two paintings by Paul Regan RWS which took me straight back to Autumn / Winter months in the garden - and when I was trying to photograph the pomegranates on the Pomegranate Tree next to the wall.  

Two paintings by Paul Regan
(Left) Last Winter Light at Chelsea Physic Garden: The Pond Rockery
acrylic on paper Frame: 74 x 56 cm / Artwork: 53 x 35 cm
(Right) Last Winter Light at Chelsea Physic Garden: The Pomegranate Tree
(acrylic on paper Frame: 74 x 56 cm / Artwork: 53 x 35 cm)

I'm not surprised to read that he likes to paint the "quiet empty spaces" and that he excels at painting light. He's caught the light in winter perfectly and, in particular, the look of the old pomegranates battered by the birds as they cling forever to the skeletal branches of the tree against the cold blue skies. It took me straight back to standing under that tree with precisely that view!

Prints in the Exhibition - Two Painter-Printmakers

Mychael Barratt PPRE Hon RWS

What I particularly liked about Mychael Barratt's Map of Chelsea Physic Garden was the way it really nailed the history of the place. It started out as the Botanical Garden of the Society of Apothecaries. (One of my specialist subjects! See my page Botanic and Physic Gardens of the Past​ in London) 

Map of Chelsea Physic Garden by Mychael Barratt PPRE Hon RWS

silkscreen, etching and hand-colouring

Frame: 61 x 50 cm | Artwork: 42 x 32 cm

famous people associated with the garden

The map highlights the names of many of the famous people associated with the garden. Just the left hand side includes:

• Philip Miller (1691 – 1771) who was appointed as head gardener in 1722 and continued until 1770. During his time as head gardener he trained many people who subsequently became important in the botanical world.
• Joseph Banks - a regular visitor to the garden, as a youth. He was on Captain James Cook's expedition around the world that discovered Australia and subsequently was highly influential in the development of Kew Gardens. He made a number of contributions to the garden - including seeds and the garden now includes plants first named by or named after Banks.
• Carl Linnaeus - the Swedish botanist who developed a system of binomial nomenclature - for systematic identification of plants. He visited the garden and taught Miller about his new system of subdividing plants, as described in Systema Naturae. 
• William Curtis was demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti between 1771 and 1777. Curtis was the author of Flora Londinensis and started Curtis's Botanical Magazine.
• Georg Dionysius Ehret - the famous and revered botanical artist who benefited hugely from his association with the garden. Plus he married Miller's sister! He  illustrated a number of plates in Phillip Miller’s book, ‘Figures of the most beautiful, useful and uncommon plants described in the gardener’s dictionary’, published in London in 1752.
• John Lindley was the Praefectus Hortis, in 1836 - but had many other demands on this time such as being holding the Chair of Botany at London University and devoting time to saving Kew Gardens from closure.

Anybody who knows the garden knows the pool and the rockery and the statue of Hans Sloane in the centre. Sloane purchased the manor of Chelsea in 1712 which provided the grounds for the garden.

So Denise Ballard-Wyllie ARE's original print spoke volumes in terms of present day and the garden's past history and its original benefactor. The green/pink colour palette was an interesting choice which also echoed the garden. 

I took a look at her biography and it's very obvious that she both has an impressive art education and likes gardens!

Chelsea Physic Garden & Dr Sloane by Denise Ballard-Wylie ARE
lithography / screenprint
Frame size: 68.5 x 88 cm | Image size: 50 x 70 cm

What I liked less

For me, if an exhibition is being put on to celebrate an important and historical anniversary of a particular place - then it self-evidently needs to be about a particular place and/or the history.

NOT JUST THE "SAME OLD SAME OLD"! 

I am not impressed by those who just contribute "more of the same" such as:

• yet another Anita Klein print of herself with glass in hand - this time with outlines of plants behind
• a still life by Wendy Jacob of a couple of plants in pots. It's a nice painting but could have been anywhere

I was more forgiving of the somewhat abstracted perspectives of some plants in the garden than I was of those who seemed not have deviated not one iota from normal paintings in their portfolio or bothered to find out anything about the garden or reflect on its history. 

Their artworks speak of them - and NOT the garden.

If you can't be bothered to make the effort, please don't hang  something "that will do". 

Just show us that you can be bothered to make the effort - or let somebody else have a go who does "get it".