FOR number and variety of vernacular names, few British plants can compete with Caltha palustris. Today it is most familiarly known as the marsh marigold or kingcup; but in the 19th century, the regional aliases of this golden-flowered denizen of wet places included May blob, butterblob, crazy-bet, fire o’gold, water goggles, publicans-and-sinners and soldier’s buttons. This much-named wild flower is one of those to be seen in the current exhibition at Kew Gardens Gallery of 55 drawings by Stella Ross-Craig, who at 97 is the doyenne of botanical artists.
Born in 1906, Ross-Craig attended Thanet Art School and Chelsea Polytechnic, where she was taught botany by her future husband, J. R. Sealy. Her career as a botanical artist began in 1929 with work for the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was under Kew’s aegis that she embarked on the most productive phase of her long career, producing more than 300 plates for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine between 1932 and 1980. In the same period, she drew a further 3,000 or so species of flowering plants for Kew’s Herbarium and Library collections.
But her single greatest achievement — and the source of the current exhibition — is her Drawings of British Plants. Published in 32 parts between 1948 and 1973, this private project comprises 1,296 full-page, black-and-white plates illustrating all British native flowering plants with the exception of the grasses and sedges.
Science’s acclaim for her work is encapsulated in the late Professor W. T. Stearn’s assessment of Stella Ross-Craig as “the most important botanical artist of the 20th century and possibly of all time”. But the scientific purpose of her work, with its unequalled accuracy and lucidity, has perhaps made it too easy to pigeonhole her work as a purely practical adjunct of botany.
There is unique artistry in these drawings. Her shading and textural conventions are original and remain a lesson in how to bring a dried specimen to life without exaggerating it. Her dissections and layouts have a truly simple elegance, and given that her weapon of choice is a lithographic pen rather than any of the smoother-running modern equivalents, her line has extraordinary assurance and unfaltering flair.
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At a time when highly coloured and romantic images of plants abound, this unique exhibition is a powerful reminder of the botanical artist’s true vocation, and its dual potential as science and fine art.
The exhibition continues at the Kew Gardens Gallery until September 28. www.kew.org