Visit to the Marianne North Gallery

February 18th, 2009

After many cold weeks, the Friends made an attempt to usher in spring with a trip to Kew Gardens on February 18^th to visit the Marianne North Gallery. The gallery displays the paintings of Marianne North (1830-1890), who had spent many years travelling the world to paint flowers in their native habitats. She was a friend of Charles Darwin, who encouraged her to travel to Australia and New Zealand to continue her study of flora and fauna. She also travelled extensively in North America, Brazil, and the Far East, painting hundreds of intricately detailed paintings of trees, plants, and flowers that she encountered on her travels. After an exhibition of her paintings in 1872, Marianne decided to leave her works to the Royal Botanical Gardens, offering to provide a suitable building for their display - her friend the architectural historian James Fergusson designed the gallery, which Marianne decorated with decorative stencil work and exotic wood inlays. 832 of her paintings were arranged in frames in geographical order to completely cover the walls. The gallery opened to the public in 1882.

In 2008 the RBG Kew began a project to fully restore the building and its artworks. The building has suffered from water ingress and a lack of environmental controls has left the paintings vulnerable. In 2008 the Heritage of London Trust offered the gallery a grant of £5,000 towards the restoration of the painted doorcases. It was therefore a great pleasure for the Friends of the Trust to be given an opportunity to visit the gallery and see how the restoration work was progressing. Conservator Jo O'Shea explained the conservation process for each painting, which included a full condition assessment, the removal of acidic backing boards (which could do serious damage to the paintings if left in place) and a light cleaning. Where there is little or no deterioration this work can be completed in a few days, while in other cases the restoration process has been more painstaking, particularly where the paintings have been affected by damp or the backing boards have stuck to the paper and must be removed slowly with a scalpel.

After this interesting talk on the conservation of the paintings and viewing some of the pictures that have recently been conserved, the group donned protective clothing and went to see how restoration work was progressing in the gallery itself. Site Manage David Slater guided us onto the scaffolding to see the newly re-plastered ceiling and to show us the delicate stencil decoration. A heating system is being installed for the first time, which will ensure that the pictures are properly protected in future. It was a thoroughly fascinating visit and the Friends look forward to seeing the gallery re-opened in Autumn 2009.

Photos (counter-clockwise from top): The Gallery before restoration work began. Photo copyright Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew; Conservator Jo O'Shea explains the conservation of the pictures to the Friends; Detail of stencil decoration around the gallery ceiling; the Friends discuss the restoration work with site manager David Slater (foreground).