Fortifying snapshot of the gardener’s year: Saatchi Gallery’s RHS Botanical Art show reviewed

Elizabeth Blackadder, who died last month at the age of 89, was probably the most distinctive botanical artist of our time. Her paintings of lilies and irises, of cats poking their heads imperiously between poppies and freesias, are more alive than any such chocolate-box description could convey. The first woman to be elected to both the Royal and the Royal Scottish academies, Blackadder showed that botanical painting did not need to be twee and parochial. It could be as vibrant and interesting as narrative.

The 15 artists and 19 photographers participating in this year’s Royal Horticultural Society exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery follow in Blackadder’s tradition. The Saatchi may not be the most obvious place to display their closely observed works from life, but then, it is in Chelsea, and the two week-long exhibition is timed to coincide with the Chelsea Flower Show just around the corner. Where the garden show, postponed from May, is a celebration of early autumn colour, the art show offers an understated yet strangely fortifying snapshot of the gardener’s year through the seasons.

The two branches, painting and planting, are closely entwined. The botanical artist is often also the gardener, the grower, the manipulator of the specimen they intend to transfer to paper. Derbyshire-based artist Bernard F. Carter planted his splendid tulips in containers to control their growth before choosing his moment to paint them. Hideko Kamoshita, of Tokyo, spent four years cultivating yams before ending up with anything worthy of her pencil. Once a plant is in flower, it is a race against time to capture it before its petals crumple and brown.

While some artists seek the optimum moment to pounce — photographer Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood has shot a morning glory in near-bursting bud, twisting, more plastic than organic against a solid black background — others are more interested in the life cycle and mutation.