Press Release - Traveling Exhibition of Botanical Illustrations Comes to The Huntington June 13

Works by international artists showcase nature's oddities

SAN MARINO, Calif.—The eccentric beauty of the plant kingdom will be celebrated in a traveling exhibition of contemporary botanical illustrations running June 13–Aug. 23, 2015 (Saturdays and Sundays only), at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. “Weird, Wild & Wonderful: The New York Botanical Garden Second Triennial Exhibition” is curated by the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA). The juried show includes 47 works, selected from a field of nearly 240 submissions, created by ASBA artists from Australia, Canada, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The show will be on view in the Flora-Legium of the Brody Botanical Center and is included with general admission to The Huntington.

“Botanical artists have traditionally depicted conventionally beautiful flora,” said Robert Hori, gardens cultural curator and program director at The Huntington. “This exhibition is meant to showcase nature’s oddities—plants of charismatic quirkiness that have a bizarre beauty all their own.”

The visually stunning artworks, from the bristly Violet Hedgehog Mushroom (Sarcodon fuscoindicum) by Lucy Martin to Asuka Hishiki’s charmingly misshapen Heirloom Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), are rendered in a range of media, including watercolor, oil, tempera, graphite, gouache, acrylic, aquatint etching, and pen and ink. Each artist’s behind-the-scenes story of their work can be found at asba-art.org/exhibitions/weird-wild-wonderful. 

“Weird, Wild & Wonderful” made its debut at The New York Botanical Garden in spring of 2014. Additional venues include the Reedy Gallery at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (Feb. 6–May 17, 2015) and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (Oct. 10, 2015–Jan. 3, 2016). The New York Botanical Garden developed an audio tour which accompanies the exhibition. A full-color catalog is also available.

In conjunction with the exhibition, The Huntington will co-host a symposium July 23–26, 2015, offering a broad view of all that is weird, wild, and wonderful in the plant kingdom. The symposium is presented in partnership with the ASBA and the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California (BAGSC, the local ASBA chapter). 

An adjunct exhibition of approximately 60 works by local BAGSC members also will be on view in the Brody Botanical Center Aug. 1–9. This supplemental show will extend the theme of weird and wonderful plants through educational outreach activities for children and families, demonstrations in different media, informal workshops, displays of botanical curiosities, and “Find Me in the Garden” links between the exhibitions and the botanical collections. During the week of this display, both exhibitions will be open to visitors daily (Wednesday through Monday) during public hours.