Marianne North

Marianne North (1830 – 1890) was a British Victorian botanical artist and explorer renowned for her extensive collection of plant paintings from around the world. She was notable for her plant and landscape paintings and illustrations, her extensive foreign travels, and her writings. She is also the founder of a gallery of botanical art at Kew Gardens. North’s unique style departed from the tradition of sketching a watercolour flower individuated onto a plain background – instead, her oil paintings are rendered in vivid detail each brushstroke capturing her botanical specimens in their own immediate, thriving microcosm. Her work was part of the Naturalism art movement.