WEN member, Gerard Brender à Brandis has produced hundreds of drawings, watercolors, and engravings of plants, landscape, buildings and musical instruments. Gerard’s garden and studio are in Stratford, Ontario Canada. This wood engraving is titled Dodecatheon meadia. Commonly called “shooting star,” this wild flower grows naturally from southern Manitoba through Wisconsin, west to Pennsylvania, D.C. and further south.
Three of Brander à Brandis’ engravings will be included in Art of the Plant exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Stone Wall Gallery, in Ottawa, from May 10th to October 14th, 2018. The exhibit features work by Canadian botanical artists and native Canadian plants. It will coincide with the opening of the world-wide botanical art exhibition in May 2018 and be part of the online exhibition along with nineteen other participating countries. They will be linked electronically, so that visitors to each exhibition will be able to see virtual tours of the others on a large screen.
Brander à Brandis has been doing wood engravings of native plants for many years, a good number of which were combined in a limited-edition letterpress book, found in the collection of the National Library of New Zealand. One of Gerard’s prints was chosen and donated by the National Library of Canada as a gift to represent Canada when New Zealand established their national library.
