Botanical art and botanical art instruction books
at the Victoria Plaze shop at Kew Gardens
at the Victoria Plaze shop at Kew Gardens
| Name of Art Bookshop: Kew Gardens - Victoria Plaza shop |
| Summary: A bookshop to go to if you have a special interest in botanical art, botanical artists and/or drawing and painting gardens, flowers, plants or trees. It's useful and good but could be even better. |
| Address: Kew Gardens (inside the gardens to the right of the Victoria Gate (see pdf map of Kew) |
| Website: Gardens: http://www.kew.org/ Victoria Plas Shop http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/visit-information/shopping/index.htm |
| Shop hours: Kew Gardens opening times - Kew opens at 9.30am every day except 24/25 December. Closing times vary by season. |
| Telephone: None given |
| email: None given |
| Of interest to: emerging and experienced botanical artists and those who like botanical art |
Highlights:
|
Think Again?
|
There aren't many places you can go and be sure of finding botanical art books - but the Victoria Plaza shop at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew is one of them. Alongside its vast and extensive range of books about gardens, plants trees and flowers and all things botanical are the shelves for the botanical books
One of the highspots of my regular trips to Kew is ending up in the shop, next to the Victoria Gate, just before I leave to see what's new on the botanical art shelves. Or to see sometimes what's now on display which hasn't been around for a while.
My visits suggest there is usually one complete set of shelves devoted to botanical art books - about the art and the artists - including most of the good books about contemporary botanical art published in recent times. This now includes the catalogues from the two or three exhibitions each year at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. It also includes Dover publications of etchings and fine art prints of botanical art from the past - which I find quite fascinating.
Books range from the very expensive through to the very reasonable. I've ummed and ahhed over quite a few in my time but very varely leave without at least one new book! I'm one of those people who needs to see some books in my hands before I buy them. When that's the case I invaribaly always buy them from the shop that's taken the trouble to stock them rather than online - on the basis that if we don't do that we soon won't be able to see them before we buy!
Another set of shelves is devoted to art instruction books with many of the popular books about botanical art. It also includes more general books about painting landscapes and trees.
It is however a botanical art bookshop which could be even better. I could improve the selection they keep in regular stock if they'd let me make suggestions! For example there are some really excellent botanical art instruction books which are not on display (see my Book Review: Botanical Illustration by Valerie Oxley). I also couldn't see the Society of Botanical Artists books this time around which is unusual. Stock levels also looked rather lower than usual.
Links:
- Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
- A compendium of Botanical Art - includes links to all my information sites about botanical art and botanical artists
No comments:
Post a Comment