Hunt Institute: Register of Original Botanical Art

Register of Original Botanical Art

Database Introduction

© 2002 by Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. All Rights Reserved.

This preliminary guide attempts to record the location of original botanical paintings and drawings from any time period done in traditional media such as watercolor, pastel, ink or pencil mostly in public collections. It only can be considered a rough draft that will never be complete. No such guide exists; indeed one is fortunate to locate printed catalogues of any institutional botanical art collections.

The database contains information about scientific illustrations of plants, and any artworks that accurately depict plants as their main subjects and may be of taxonomic importance. Information about still-life, impressionistic and traditional oriental paintings is of secondary importance for this survey. Though it is difficult sometimes to distinguish between these two categories, we have, for example, included some flower paintings by such artists as Martin Johnson Heade and Charles Demuth when the information was provided. Flower paintings by Nolde and Redon, however, seem less pertinent to our register. We hope this register will be valuable to those seeking to know the whereabouts of illustrations by particular artists or of specific plants and the contents of collections in particular cities or museums.

San Francisco artist Gary Bukovnik generously provided funds in 1994 for copying a questionnaire and for postage to each herbarium listed in Patricia K. Holmgren and Noel H. Holmgren’s Plant Specialists Index: Index to Specialists in the Systematics of Plants and Fungi Based on Data from Index Herbariorum (herbaria), edition 8 (Königstein, Koeltz Scientific Books, 1992). The herbaria were asked if they had artworks with botanical themes and if so to describe them as thoroughly as possible, citing especially artists, titles, media, publications (if pertinent) and dates. Several hundred positive responses were received. The information received, varying from only a simple "yes" to detailed lists accompanied by exhibition catalogues, was the basis for this database. Particularly frustrating in our responses are the many vague terms to describe original artworks (including painting, watercolor drawing, plate, print, picture) and inevitable inconsistencies in describing the subjects and media. Except for the most blatant typos, I have attempted to retain the original terminology from the sources quoted.

An arduous further phase of the project would be contacting the many art museums as well as scientific institutions and gardens without herbaria. We have gleaned information on non-herbaria collections from a plethora of sources — articles, books, correspondence, hand-written lists and index cards from libraries. And we have contacted a few of these American art museums. But postage alone to all these institutions would be prohibitive, even if no follow-up communication was anticipated.

Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt's goal was to own an original painting by each of the artists represented in her important library of illustrated books. This was an impossible task, of course. This guide originally seemed an impossible task until Mr. Bukovnik offered his gift. I also wish to acknowledge the assistance of each curator who responded to the survey, and particularly to those who went to extraordinary pains to provide detailed information. Gavin D. R. Bridson provided advice and permission to lift freely from his (and Valerie C. Phillips and Anthony P. Harvey’s) Natural History Manuscript Resources in the British Isles (1980) and Bridson and White’s Plant, Animal and Anatomical Illustration in Art & Science: A Bibliographical Guide from the 16th Century to the Present Day (1990). Robert W. Kiger, Director of the Hunt Institute, provided encouragement of this project. Frank A. Reynolds, Graphics Manager, and especially Kristina Lamothe, Research Assistant, advised and assisted in designing the computer database into which data was entered.

When searching for botanical artworks, don’t fail to examine the Catalogue of the Botanical Art Collection at the Hunt Institute. Also note the Smithsonian Institution’s Catalog of Botanical Illustrations at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botart/

We welcome additional information on the artworks listed or on other collections. The database will be updated as information becomes available. For detailed information on the artworks, please contact the institution that houses the artworks. To submit corrections to the database, send email to James J. White at jw3u@andrew.cmu.edu. To submit new information for the database, please download the questionnaire below.

Register of Original Botanical Art Questionnaire

After completing it, please mail to

James J. White
Curator of Art
Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890

URL for this page: huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu /HIBD/Departments/DB-INTRO/IntroOrigBot.shtml