We’re launching a crowdfunding campaign! Help us save a 17th century Mortlake tapestry and display our earliest depiction of a woman gardening
Last year with the help of the Art Fund we were able to acquire this Mortlake tapestry dating from the 1630s. The tapestry is the Garden Museum’s earliest depiction of a woman gardening, but due to its age and delicate wool and silk composition, it is too fragile to display in its current condition.
But with your help, we will conserve the tapestry so it can be proudly and permanently displayed to visitors. In partnership with the Art Fund, we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise £20,000 needed to undertake the conservation to put this unique piece of gardening history on display.
Support the campaign: https://www.artfund.org/savethetapestry
This week Garden Museum Director Christopher Woodward has set off on his 100km sponsored swim in the Peloponnese islands, in support of our project to build a new park for London, Lambeth Green. On Monday, Christopher was joined for the first mile by 15 friends and supporters of the museum. The group swam from Kardamyli around the rock which the late writer Patrick Leigh-Fermor swam each day.Now two days in, Christopher has swam over 20km! Over the next few days he will be stopping off at Hydra, Poros and Aegina on his horticultural odyssey. Support the swim and help us make Lambeth Green: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/swimforlambethgreen/
Gardening Bohemia: Vanessa Bell's garden at Charleston, Sussex
There was little boundary between the house and garden at Charleston. Vanessa would gather flowers and vegetables to paint in the studio, with her art revealing a vibrant and unconventional domesticity.
The garden, now helmed by Head Gardener @harry.saxatalis, was originally designed by artist Roger Fry, a walled garden with intersecting paths, hedges, a lawn, a pond, and overflowing flower beds.
Learn more in our current exhibition Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors.
🗓️ Open until 29 September: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/gardening-bohemia-bloomsbury-women-outdoors/
British Flowers Week: Visiting Blooming Green Flower Farm with Debrah J Flowers
Visiting a flower farm 🌸 in preparation for #BritishFlowersWeek, we joined floral designer Jennifer Debrah J Flowers on a visit to Blooming Green flower farm in Kent.
Founder Jen showed Jennifer around the farm to have a look at some of the seasonal flowers available to use in her installation at the Garden Museum this week.
We also learned about their sustainable approach to flower growing, and how the Flowers From The Farm network links up growers and designers, championing the whole of the British flower supply chain from field to florist.
Come and see what Jennifer creates with her flowers from Blooming Green at our British Flowers Week exhibition opening this Thursday!
🗓️ 6-10 June
🌼 Friends go free!
🔗 Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/british-flowers-week-2024/
Gardening Bohemia: Vanessa Bell's Garden at Charleston
Gardening Bohemia: Vanessa Bell’s garden at Charleston, Sussex
We visited Charleston in Lewes to meet Head Gardener Harry Hoblyn and discovered the artist’s garden in full spring bloom.
Vanessa Bell shared the farmhouse, studio and garden at Charleston with her partner, fellow Bloomsbury group artist Duncan Grant, and her sister Virginia Woolf lived nearby at Monk’s House. Charleston was a gathering place for friends, a sanctuary for experimental thinking, art, gardening and writing.
Find out more in our current exhibition Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors, open until 29 September.
🔗 Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/gardening-bohemia-bloomsbury-women-outdoors/
#gardeningbohemia
Lucian Freud: Wasteground, Paddington (1970)
Would you call this a garden painting?
Wasteground, Paddington (1970) depicts a view from the window at 227 Gloucester Terrace in London which was far from bucolic. Painted when Lucian Freud was in his late 40s, this abandoned garden in Paddington—then a rundown and densely populated area just north of Hyde Park—captures a story of human and plant resilience.
Not been to see #FreudPlantPortraits yet? The exhibition is still open till 5 March!
🎟Friends go free
🔗Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lucian-freud-plant-portraits/
Digital partner Patch plants
✨A year of art and gardens! We are so excited to share our 2023 exhibitions programme:
🎨Private & Public: Finding the Modern British Garden
22 March – 25 June
In partnership with Liss Llewellyn
🌼Jean Cooke: Ungardening
19 July – 1 October
🌴Frank Walter’s Climate
18 October – 21 January
Fancy coming to them all for free? Join as a Garden Museum Friend from just £36 a year and enjoy unlimited free entry, discounts on events and in our shop, among lots more benefits.
🎄Or how about gifting membership to someone who loves art and gardening for Christmas?
Find out more and become a Friend: www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
Lucian Freud: 'Two Plants' (1977-1980)
What happens when you spend three years on a plant painting?
Lucian Freud painted ‘Two Plants’ from 1977-1980, capturing growth, movement, new life, and death. Curator Giovanni Aloi explains what this experimental painting can teach us about Freud’s original approach to plant portraits.
🌿 #freudplantportraits is open until 5 March
🎟 Friends go free!
🔗 Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lucian-freud-plant-portraits/
Digital partner Patch plants
Lucian Freud: Small Fern (1967)
🪴Lucian Freud’s ‘Small Fern’ (1967): this unusual composition encapsulates Freud’s approach to painting plants. Placed on the floor and seen from above, this Boston fern sits snug in the modesty of its terracotta pot.
Curator of Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits Giovanni Aloi explains what we can learn from this seemingly simple painting.
🌿 #freudplantportraits is open until 5 March
🎟 Friends go free!
🔗 Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lucian-freud-plant-portraits/
Digital partner Patch plants
Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits
The master of the modern nude, Lucian Freud was also a prolific painter of plants.
In the first exhibition to dig into Freud’s paintings of plants and gardens, we explore how he depicted plants throughout his life with the same gritty, unfiltered style as his human subjects.
Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits is open until 5 March.
Friends go free!
Book your vist: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lucian-freud-plant-portraits/
Lucian Freud's Cyclamen Mural in a Chatsworth Bathroom
Did you know Lucian Freud painted a cyclamen mural in a bathroom at Chatsworth House?
We recreated the bathroom in our new exhibition Lucian Freud: Plant Portraits. So to find out more about the real thing, we visited Chatsworth where Senior Curator Dr Alexandra Hodby shared the story of this little-known masterpiece.
🗓 #freudplantportraits is open until 5 March
🎟 Friends go free!
🔗 Book your visit: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/lucian-freud-plant-portraits/
Watch the full film in our online exhibition: digital partner Patch plants
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