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Drawing From Life: Maud H. Purdy and 90 Years of Women Artists at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Exhibition Catalog
Artists' Biographies
Francesca Anderson specializes in pen-and-ink drawings. She has had more than 20 solo shows and 60 group shows in the United States and abroad. Her work is represented in many international museums and private collections and in numerous botanical books and journal articles. She has received two gold medals from the Royal Horticultural Society, London. Anderson is a founder and president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society and a fellow of the Linnean Society.
Bobbi Angell has been drawing plants for the New York Botanical Garden and other academic institutions since 1978, contributing her detailed line drawings to regional floras and botanical monographs. Her scientific illustrations have included many plants new to science, and her pen-and-ink portraits of common and uncommon garden plants appear in the New York Times and the newsletters of Bryant Park Restoration Corp. and Brooklyn Botanic Garden. John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds and Van Engelen Inc. feature her botanical illustrations in their catalogs and on seed packets.
Monika E. de Vries Gohlke studied at Parsons School of Design and has exhibited her watercolors and etchings internationally. Her work is represented in many private and public collections, notably those of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation; New York Public Library; Library of Congress; New York Historical Society; and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she is a fellow of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society. She also designs for the textile and home-furnishings market.
Nan Dedrick is a founding member of Art Botanica, a group of five botanical artists who created the exhibition Camellias of Planting Fields Arboretum, which won a silver medal from the Royal Horticultural Society. She began studying botanical painting after retiring as an art teacher, and since then her botanical art has been exhibited in numerous group shows. She is a fellow of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society.
Anne Ophelia Dowden (1907–2007) studied painting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, and in New York at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design and the Art Students League. She taught drawing at Pratt Institute and was a founder of the American Design Group. She designed fabrics and wallpaper for 15 years, then turned to full-time botanical illustration in 1950. Among her many popular books are Shakespeare's Flowers, The Lore & Legends of Flowers, The Clover and the Bee: A Book of Pollination, and Poisons in Our Path: Plants That Harm and Heal.
Wendy Hollender is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and designed textiles for more than 20 years before devoting her career to botanical illustration. She teaches and is program coordinator for botanical art and illustration at the New York Botanical Garden. Her work has been widely exhibited in both group and solo shows, including one at the Horticultural Society of New York in 2003. She is a member of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society.
Louise Mansfield (1876–1970) studied with impressionist Charles Webster Hawthorne and Robert Henri, a founder of the Ashcan school, before specializing in flower painting and scientific illustration. Her work appeared in numerous popular books and magazines as well as scientific journals and was exhibited in galleries and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Brooklyn Botanic Garden holds the original graphite drawings for her best-known book, An Artist's Herbal.
Dianne McElwain has specialized in botanical art and illustration since 1976 and has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including the 11th International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Her paintings are in many prestigious collections, including those of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society, Lloyd and Barbara Macklowe, Shirley Sherwood, and Governor Robert Taft and Hope Taft. Her illustrations have been reproduced in many publications.
Angela Mirro studied at Parsons School of Design and developed a career as a textile designer while also focusing on painting watercolors of orchids. Her work has been exhibited worldwide and is represented in many private and public collections, including the Shirley Sherwood Collection, the Atlanta Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the American Orchid Society's headquarters in Florida. She has received numerous awards and commissions, and her work is often reproduced in books and journals on orchids. She is currently creating textile designs for the Home Collection at Polo Ralph Lauren.
Rose Pellicano has exhibited in numerous group shows, and her work is included in the permanent collections of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she is a fellow of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society. She teaches botanical painting at Old Westbury Gardens and, with Art Botanica, has collaborated in numerous exhibitions, including the group show Camellias of Planting Field Arboretum, which won a silver medal from the Royal Horticultural Society.
Alice Tangerini has been staff illustrator and curator in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, since 1972. She is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and has participated in many of the Guild's exhibits. She has taught at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C.; Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona; and the Smithsonian Resident Associates Program.
Major support for this exhibition is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.
