Matilda Smith (1854-1926) is a botanical artist whose work appeared on Curtis's Botanical Magazine for over forty years. He became the first artist to describe the New Zealand flora in depth, the first official artist of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, and only the second woman ever elected in the Linnaean Society.
Video Matilda Smith
Biography
Matilda Smith was born in Bombay, India, on July 30, 1854, but his family emigrated to England when he was a child. His interest in botany and botanical art was fostered by second cousin Joseph Dalton Hooker, whose daughter Harriet would also become a botanical illustrator. Hooker was then the director of Kew Gardens and a talented photographer in himself, and he took Smith into the Garden to be trained as an illustrator.
Smith especially admired the work of Walter Hood Fitch, who was then the main artist for Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Despite his limited artistic training, Hooker encouraged him to show the magazine his own work, and in 1878 he first published one of his drawings. A dispute about the fee between Fitch and Hooker - for whom Fitch has prepared illustrations for several books - caused Fitch to leave a long-running magazine in 1877. One consequence was that Smith quickly became a key illustrator in the magazine, initially working with Thiselton- Dyer. In the period 1879-1881, each problem included about 20 drawings, and in 1887 he almost became the sole illustrator for the magazine. In 1898, he was appointed as the sole official single of the magazine. For forty years between 1878 and 1923, Smith attracted over 2,300 dishes for magazines - just 600 fewer than Fitch, though he received far less recognition for this achievement in his own life. Until the mid-20th century, art teacher Wilfrid Blunt, in his book The Art of Botanical Illustration, dismissed him as a low-skill artist, praising him little for his charm, his work ethic, and his use in creating crop records otherwise clear. In this case he followed the pattern first seen in the Victorian era of botany and the botanical art that progressively devalued when women entered the field professionally. However, other writers, both now and in his day, have admired the clarity and accuracy of the picture, and his four decades of work in the center of the botanical world of England testify to the continuing value of his skills.
In the course of Smith's long relationship with Kew Gardens, he created 1,500 dishes for the volume of Icones Plantarum, a monumental survey of the Kew plant and then edited by Hooker. Beginning with 1354 Plate, he is the sole artist for this series, with funds provided to keep him in this role as long as he chooses to do so. He also made a reproduction of lost plates from an incomplete volume at Kew's library, and he became the first botanical artist to broadly portray New Zealand's flora. He is especially admired for his ability to create credible illustrations of specimens that are drained, flattened, and sometimes imperfect. His remarkable contribution to Kew Gardens led to his appointment as Kew Gardens' first official botanical artist in 1898. In 1921, the year he retired from Kew, he was named associate of the Linnean Society - only this second woman has achieved this honor. He was also awarded the Silver Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society for his botanical life and for his contribution to Curtis's Botanical Magazine in particular.
Smithiella (i.e. Smithiella ), synonym of Smithanha (in the family of Gesneriaceae) named for his respect.
Smith died in 1926 and is buried in the Richmond Cemetery.
Maps Matilda Smith
The publication is illustrated by Smith
- Cheeseman, T. F. (1914) New Zealand flora illustration . Wellington, John Mackay.
References
External links
- www.plant.illustrations.org/artist.php?id_artist=106 Gallery 4663 plant illustrations by Matilda Smith. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
Further reading
- Matilda Smith and paint titan arum Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society Newsletter January 2018.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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