Women Who Shaped Garden History
Marianne North spent 13 years traveling the world alone, painting plants in their natural habitats across six continents. Her gallery at Kew Gardens, which she designed and funded, contains over 800 paintings and was the first permanent solo exhibition of a woman artist in Britain.
North was born into a wealthy Norfolk family. After her father's death in 1869, she was freed from domestic obligations and began traveling to paint plants and landscapes. Between 1871 and 1884, she visited the Americas, Japan, Borneo, Java, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Seychelles, always traveling alone and painting prolifically.
Unlike most botanical illustrators, who worked from cut specimens or pressed plants, North painted in the field. She depicted plants in their natural settings, surrounded by the landscapes, insects, and other organisms that formed their ecological context. Her work was artistically accomplished and scientifically valuable: she documented species and habitats that have since changed or disappeared, and several species were named in her honor, including the genus Northia.
In 1882, North offered to donate her paintings to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and to fund the construction of a gallery to house them. The Marianne North Gallery opened that year and remains one of Kew's most popular attractions. It is the only permanent solo exhibition of a woman artist at a national institution in Britain, and its 832 paintings, arranged geographically, form a unique visual record of the world's flora in the late 19th century.