SHIRLEY SHERWOOD GALLERY

2008 - ?

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew, the world’s first dedicated botanical display space. The gallery has held many exhibitions, welcomed more than a million visitors, and has become the hub of the worldwide renaissance of botanical art. After 20 years of collecting and exhibiting botanical art all over the world, Dr Shirley Angela Sherwood (1 July 1933-) realised that she was running out of space and needed somewhere to share her growing collection with the public and provide a protective environment for the works, many of which were fragile watercolours. Dr Sherwood already had a relationship with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew so, when Kew asked if she would be willing to support the construction of a dedicated gallery, she was thrilled. The gallery opened in 2008 with the intention of displaying pieces from Dr Sherwood’s collection alongside works from Kew’s historical archive of over 200,000 botanical paintings. Its walls have seen paintings by renowned artists such as Margaret Ursula Mee (1909-1989) and Rory McEwen (1932-1982), collections from Brazil, Spain, Italy, South Africa, the US and Australia, Japanese woodblocks, graphite drawings of the UK’s oldest oak trees by Mark Frith, an immersive installation by British artist Rebecca Louise Law (1980-), and sculptures by Dale Chihuly (1941-) and David Nash (1945-). Set between the Victoria Gate and Lion Gate inside Kew Gardens, just steps from the beautifully restored Temperate House, it is connected to the Marianne North Gallery and is free to enter for all visitors to Kew Gardens. Suffolk artists who have exhibited at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery include Toni Hayden and Rachel Pedder-Smith.

---

Works by This Artist