Dumbarton Oaks Museum Presents Botanical Painter Margaret Mee

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Dumbarton Oaks Museum is featuring Margaret Mee: Portraits of Plants, 20 stunning paintings of Amazonian flora by the artist, explorer, and environmentalist Margaret Mee (1909–1988) in the Dumbarton Oaks rare book collection.

These works, acquired by Dumbarton Oaks founder Mildred Bliss in 1966 and 1967 and dating to  Mee’s first three expeditions in the Amazon, have never been displayed together.

The exhibition draws on manuscript and print works from the rare book collection to situate Mee within a tradition of women botanical artists and illustrators  that stretches back to the seventeenth century. Portraits of Plants also interrogates the enduring interplay between art and science through a variety of media (botanical illustration, watercolor, photography) extending to the present day, with works by contemporary photographer Amy Lamb, scientific illustrator Alice  Tangerini, and botanical artist Nirupa Rao.

This exhibition is curated by Yota Batsaki, Executive Director, and Anatole Tchikine, Curator of Rare Books, with assistance from Leib Celnik, Postgraduate Curatorial Fellow.

View online exhibit here.