Art Discovery Tuesday – Women Illustrators
March is Women’s History Month, so I thought it would be great to highlight some art from women illustrators in history. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is celebrating “Her Natural History” and you can check out even more great artists and illustrators here.
First on the list is Elizabeth Gould – who completed more than 650 plates and illustrations. Her husband was a naturalist and author, who wrote books where many of her illustrations were included. This one is from Birds of Europe.
Another illustrator who I find really interesting is Anna Maria Hussey. She produced Illustrations of British Mycology – focusing mostly on the artistic aspects of fungi – but included personal descriptions of where the specimen grew and what it looked like. I just love that she created this book mostly for her own enjoyment. We were always meant to do art for art, I think!
Last but certainly not least or all inclusive of the women illustrators in history is Mary Emily Eaton. She is also British, but spend the later years of her life employed by the New York Botanical Garden as principal illustrator. I couldn’t find a number of how many illustrations she did, but she is thought to have done at least 600 for the New York Botanical Garden, and that doesn’t include the illustrations from The Cactaceae series! Take a look at the incredible detail!
To download any of the images, right-click on the image to open it full size and then right click on it and choose Save Image As, Save Picture As or Download Linked File (depending on your browser!).
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