This weekend The Guardian was the only national newspaper to report the results of this year’s National Poetry Competition. The winning entry was by a woman called Linda French and the poem was called Bernard and Cerinthe (click the link to read it!). A plant-inspired poem, it depicts a man’s (Bernard) liking for Cerinthe, and was chosen …
Last in our series of free botanical vintage art from The New Botanical Garden book via the Biodiversity Heritage Library. See previous post for details. All images below are in the Public Domain for you to use as you wish. We work through from Primula to Vitex. Please note that the name in brackets is …
If anyone tells you that a scarf printed with plants is not cool, they are tragically misguided and just plain wrong. These floracentric quadrilateral pieces of material look as good on young men as they do on old women, and as good on young women as they do on old men, not to mention kids …
Maybe it’s her name, which Plant Curator can’t stop saying, or maybe it’s the lovely bio on her website that is full of positivity, sweetness and colour, or maybe it’s her intricate, sweeping floral headdress illustrations. Whatever it is, the world can’t have enough Sunny Gus. This Los Angeles based fashion and beauty illustrator is …
Peter Lippmann seems like a photographer that would really like to be shooting plants full-time. In his personal portfolio he has collections of rotting fruit, flowers in jars and assorted cacti. In his commercial work he takes haute couture photographs of expensive shoes, handbags and jewellery, yet even for these assignments he manages to slip …
At Plant Curator we use the term botanical art loosely to include any creative expression that involves plants. Over the last few months this website has shown that there are many great artists out there doing incredible things with plants, working in every medium you can imagine. Yet historically the term “botanical art” was used …
Primavera was painted in Renaissance Italy around about 1480 by the artist Sandro Botticelli. It’s quite a big thing, almost life size, measuring 2.03m by 3.14m. If you want to see it first-hand, you will need to visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Plant Curator would love to tell you it was writing this while sipping …
Michael Nichols is an award winning National Geographic photographer. Not a bad job one would imagine. At the end of 2012 he was given the minor assignment of taking a picture of one of the biggest trees in the world – The President – a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) located in the Giant Forest of …
Plant Curator is not really sure what is going on here, it’s all a bit weird but then kind of wonderful. French photographer Erwan Fichou combines topiary with people and elevation and makes elevated topiary people. Apparently, they are not photoshoped in, but are all really up there. He worked with gardeners in Mexico to …
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) is well known for his architectural design and for being the UK’s main exponent of Art Nouveau. While he is also noted for enhancing those designs with flower motifs, he is perhaps less appreciated for his outright botanical art works. A new exhibition this summer may go some way towards revising …