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Irish botanical artist awarded Margaret Flockton Award (Sydney, Australia)

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We’re delighted to report that Irish botanical artist and ISBA member Deborah Lambkin has won a prestigious international award from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney for excellence in scientific botanical illustration.

The Foundation and Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, has awarded the Margaret Flockton Award for Excellence in scientific botanical illustration to RHS Orchid Artist (Irish Botanical Artist), Deborah Lambkin.

The award was for her drawing of a new species of Gastrodia orchid from Madagascar which was chosen from 63 illustrations from 46 artists from 21 different countries.

Ink drawing of Gastrodia orchid. Copyright 2020 Deborah Lambkin

A new species of Gastrodia orchid from Madagascar, illustrated by Deborah Lambkin

The Margaret Flockton Exhibition is a yearly exhibition held at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and showcases work from the world’s leading scientific botanical illustrators. The exhibition is now in its 17th year and attracts submissions from artists worldwide. Deborah is the first Irish artist to ever participate in the event.

The award commemorates the contribution Margaret Flockton made to Australian scientific botanical illustration. The Maple-Brown Family and the Foundation and Friends of the Botanic Gardens sponsor this annual, international award for excellence in scientific botanical illustration.

Visit the exhibition online here: 2020 Margaret Flockton Award exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

AGM, Orchids, Éireannach, Courses, Bloom… Busy Times!

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March and April have been very busy times for the ISBA; our AGM in March saw our chair for the last two years, Jane Stark, step down, passing the baton (or should that be the paintbrush) to Lynn Stringer. Jane didn’t sit back though as she has spent most of her time since then on the design, layout and typesetting of the book that will accompany our Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition: Éireannach: Celebrating Native Plants of Ireland. To find out more about the progress of the project, and how to buy the book, check the latest update on our Éireannach project page.

April sees us hosting An Evening Celebration of Orchids in Botanical Art , part of a series of orchid events at the National Botanic Gardens in April, including an exhibition of paintings by Deborah Lambkin and Margareta Pertl, both ISBA members. Check out the event on our calendar page.

If all these events have whetted your appetite to learn more about the practice of Botanical Art, two of our members are providing tuition in two very different locations in April and May. Yanny Petters will hold a two-day course in Wicklow in April and Jane Stark a five-day course in the Burren in May.

May will see our Éireannach exhibition open on the 5th, with an open day on the Worldwide Day of Botanical Art on the 18th.

And in June, there will be an exhibition of Botanical Art at Bloom. Those who submitted their work for this exhibition should hear by the end of April whether their submissions have been accepted.

An Evening Celebration of Orchids in Botanical Art

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We’ll be hosting An Evening Celebration of Orchids in Botanical Art in association with the Dublin Orchid Fair at 6.30 pm Friday 20 April 2018, in the Visitor Centre of the National Botanic Gardens. The evening will feature a talk:

The RHS Orchid Committee and its artists: a history of the RHS orchid award paintings

A talk by Clare Hermans, Chairman of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Orchid Committee, author of many articles and co-author of Orchids of Madagascar and a research fellow of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. 

The talk was originally given at the World Orchid Conference held in Ecuador last November.

The talk will be followed by a wine reception and  a tour of:

Three Threads – of the orchid tapestry created by Frederick William Moore – an exhibition.

Organised by staff of the National Botanic Gardens, it features archival material from the Library at Glasnevin, orchid paintings by Deborah Lambkin (an ISBA member and official artist to the RHS’s Orchid Committee), and a collection of orchid portraits that celebrate Frederick Moore, painted by Margareta Pertl (also an ISBA member). The exhibition runs from Saturday 29 March to Wednesday 25 April.

Painting of orchid, Coelogyne mooreana, by Margareta Pertl

Coelogyne mooreana, by Margareta Pertl

There is no admission charge and all are welcome, but we would be grateful if those who wish to attend would email isba.committee@gmail.com and include the number of guests attending.

The Dublin Orchid Fair takes place Saturday 21st April and Sunday 22nd April and will be held in the Teak House at Glasnevin. This is the premier annual orchid event in Ireland, with a selection of species and hybrids for sale. It promises to be an exciting weekend for orchid lovers, gardeners and botanical artists alike.