Botanic Gardens Trust, Sydney, Australia

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Margaret Flockton Award exhibition

In a niche field defined by scientific precision and exquisite draughtsmanship, the Margaret Flockton Award and Exhibition, supported by the Friends of the Botanic Gardens, offers a glimpse into the minute world of botanical illustration and the jewel-like beauty of nature at its most fecund.

Now in its ninth year, this annual autumn exhibition receives entries from scientific botanical illustrators worldwide who enter the best of their recent works for a chance to win generous prize money and an internationally recognised award.

This international competition and exhibition at the Red Box Gallery in the National Herbarium of NSW is recognised as a leading showcase for black and white botanical illustration and its important role in plant sciences.

The Margaret Flockton Award and Exhibition honours the first botanical illustrator at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden. From 1901 to 1928, Margaret Flockton executed hundreds of botanically accurate drawings, lithographs and coloured sketches and left a legacy of over 1000 illustrations which are still referred to and reproduced for plant taxonomy and identification today.

When: Saturday 31 March - Friday 29 June, 10 am - 4 pm weekdays.
Where: Red Box Gallery, National Herbarium of NSW, enter via reception on Mrs Macquaries Rd
Cost: Free, selected artworks for sale
Enquiries: 9231 8111 or 9231 8182

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Location of Red Box Gallery - Click on map to enlarge 

2012 Winning Entries

1st prize ($5000) - Klei Sousa from Brazil for Mimosa acutistipula

2nd prize ($2000) - Anita Walsmit Sachs from The Netherlands for Lepisanthes senegalensis

Highly Commended - Pauline Dewar from Victoria, Australia for Asphodelus fistulosus

Highly Commended - Susana Ferreira de Souza from Brazil for Dorstenia arifolia

Highly Commended - Lucy Smith from the United Kingdom for Elaeocarpus macrocerus

This year’s Margaret Flockton Award winners were up against a total of 14 artists and 21 submitted artworks. Some notable past winners of the Flockton Award (Sandra Burrows, Rogerio Lupo, Edmundo Saavedra Vidal, as well as curators Lesley Elkan and Catherine Wardrop) were also invited to exhibit (not compete); thus the total works hail from Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea, Spain, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, USA, Mexico and Brazil.

After starting training in 2005, Klei Sousa from Brazil, the winner of this year’s award for the pen and ink illustration Mimosa acutistipula, has had a quick rise to the top in the profession he’s passionate about.

‘I became a professional botanical illustrator in 2007 and since then have entered the Margaret Flockton Award every year (five times). Each time I try to do something better than the previous year and I always hope that I can win,’ Mr Sousa said. Klei Sousa has worked at the Instituto de Botanica de Sao Paulo, first entering the Margaret Flockton Award in 2008, winning 2nd prize in 2009, and has had Highly Commended awards every other year.

‘Competing is not always very well received but in this case, at least for me, it is a great way to constantly improve my artwork. Now I’ve won, I’ll invest the money in my career and buy a stereomicroscope and take my family on holidays.’

Mr Sousa chose the Mimosa acutistipula (a Brazilian shrub) under instruction from a student of botany who is researching the genus.

In her second year of exhibiting at the Margaret Flockton Awards, the 2nd prize winner Anita Walsmit Sachs, who works at Leiden University and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at the Hague in the Netherlands, said she intends to donate her prize money to the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, the oldest botanic garden in the Netherlands to buy furniture for the classroom where she teaches botanical drawing workshops.

‘The Award is doubly good because my career as a botanical artist has also been given a great boost. I am really thrilled with the prize, as I try to make people aware of the beauty of scientific drawings and their scientific but also decorative value,’ Ms Walsmit Sachs said.

Ms Walsmit Sach’s subject, Lepisanthes senegalensis (an African tree), is part of a series made from the Flora of Nepal.  It was a commission from the National Herbarium, Leiden University and the ‘Naturalis’.

The opening night, Thursday 30 March, was a combined event with another Friends of the Botanic Gardens exhibition Botanica - The Masters and Moore and was a resounding success for both. Following an enthusiastic welcome by Professor David Mabberley, Executive Director, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, the Governor of New South Wales, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC then responded with her own deeply felt appreciation of all forms of botanical art. The Governor went on to announce the winning and highly commended awards, with Victorian artist Pauline Dewar being present to receive her highly commended award from Her Excellency. Gavin Smith also received Lucy Smith’s highly commended award in her absence.

Visitors to both exhibitions appreciated the comparisons between the highly accurate and ‘mind-bogglingly’ detailed tonal works of the Margaret Flockton Award against the glorious painted images in Botanica. The Friends are hoping both exhibitions will be able to enjoy such ‘cross pollination’ again in the future. 

Judges

The judges for the 2012 Award were Dr Marco Duretto, Research Scientist, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust; Julia Sideris, scientific journals production, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust and Beverly Allen, botanical artist and president of the Florilegium Society of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.

Judges comments

The key to a scientific illustration is the accuracy, even at higher magnification, and it is essential that the artist not use artistic licence, unclear lines, hesitant mark making or adding random elements simply to make the illustration interesting. The better plates are well constructed so the observer is drawn into the plate, can easily and logically navigate it and quickly identify key features for the species or group in question. Successful illustrations reduce and reproduce accurately and are not cluttered with features not useful in identification or of scientific interest.

All finalists chosen this year were equal in respect of scientific accuracy, strong botanical narrative, fine draughtsmanship and appropriate technique. In the final assessment, the recognised constants in the visual arts were used to distinguish the winners: a focal point which draws the eye into the illustration to explore, and a compositional balance that encourages a comfortable and prolonged visual engagement. This delicate visual ‘storytelling’ and the artist’s own stylistic rendering are the aesthetic qualities which transform a scientific illustration beyond a diagrammatic illumination of facts to evoke an emotional response to the subject. 

Judging criteria

  1. Accurate  interpretation and portrayal of the plant characters and diagnostic features in the botanical description
  2. Technical merit
  3. Artistic merit
  4. Composition
  5. Reproducibility

Click here for further information on Margaret Flockton and the Margaret Flockton Award.


 

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Margaret Flockton Award 2012 winners

Mimosa-acutistipula
1st prize ($5000)
Klei Sousa from Brazil for Mimosa acutistipula

Lepisanthes-senegalensis
2nd prize ($2000)
Anita Walsmit Sachs from the Netherlands for Lepisanthes senegalensisAsphodelus-fistulosus 
Highly Commended
Pauline Dewar from Victoria, Australia for Asphodelus fistulosusDorstenia-arifolia
Highly Commended
Susana Ferreira de Souza from Brazil for Dorstenia arifolia 

Elaeocarpus-macrocerus
Highly Commended
Lucy Smith from the United Kingdom for Elaeocarpus macrocerus 

Supported by

The Maple-Brown family

Foundation & Friends

Exhibition venue

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