After orchids, poinsettia is ranked as the UK’s most popular pot plant, yet it’s a plant with a difficult, but familiar story: Removed a long time ago from a poorer nation (Mexico), by Ambassador Poinsett, a representative of a richer nation (USA), it was then distributed, cultivated and sold, creating huge economic reward for the transporter and his nation. …
The Tower of London Poppies really captured the public’s imagination. It’s hard to think of a previous public art installation that created so much excitement and mass interest. Perhaps the sentiment behind the artwork had a lot to do with this, but for certain the scale, location and resulting visual impact were major factors too. In the aftermath of their glory, …
Marguerite Kelsey and a magnolia by Meredith Frampton, 1928 What an exquisite specimen. The woman is quite lovely too. When Meredith Frampton (1894 – 1984) painted Marguerite Kelsey’s portrait in 1928 he achieved excellence, stunningly matching her particular kind of beauty with a particularly beautiful plant. This is an image that is all about poise and pride, class …
It’s fascinating to see how much high-end art gets sold for at auction. How wonderful that Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 went for over $44m yesterday at Sotheby’s, New York. It’s about time a female artist moved into the higher echelons of the most expensive artworks ever sold list. The sale price …
The name dandelion comes from the French “dent de lion”, meaning lion’s tooth, which references the toothed edges of the leaves. In flower, it’s a plant that is so common, we scarcely notice it, apart from to designate to weed status when in our way. Yet when it turns to seed, it is appreciated much more: …
South African artist Daniella Mooney (b.1986) paints plants, which is not that surprising considering she lives and works in Cape Town, giving her access to one of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, not to mention Kirstenbosch, a national botanical garden with around 22,000 indigenous species. Cape Town, a place of exceptional beauty, …
Bluebonnets at Twilight, near San Antonio – Robert Julian Onderdonk, 1919-1920 True blue plants have a natural allure due to their rarity. Landscapes dominated by these blue plants are even rarer, yet because we have Bluebells in the UK, are also somewhat familiar. There are relatively few plants that bear truly blue flowers – Gentian, Lupin, Monkshood, …
Self Portrait by Christian Schad (1927) Having a narcissus flower staring you in the face can only really mean one thing – you’re a vain so and so. Not that the flower symbolism in Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait is really needed, as the artist’s obsession with showing off his chest in a see-through top, rather than …
If you haven’t the time to make your own Christmas cards this year, and you want something more original for your loved ones than is available on the high street, then crafting sites like Etsy are the place to shop. Millions of individuals with artistic persuasions are selling homemade cards to buy. All sorts of …
Today, to buy an original Tiffany lamp, you will need to pay anything from a couple of thousand to over a million pounds. Reinforcing our belief that botanical is always best, the lamps that are more in demand today are the brighter coloured floral ones that became iconic emblems of the Art Nouveau movement. The original Tiffany lamps …