Photo Gallery
21 Feb 2026, 10:30am - 12pm
Gardens have a special place in art history, they are a constant source of inspiration to artists and have continually been explored as an aesthetic and symbolic motif by art historians.
Artist Melissa Scott-Miller celebrates the precious parks and gardens of our capital city.
Join us to hear Melissa Scott Miller in conversation with esteemed gallerist, Chris Beetles, to hear about her process for painting en plein air in London parks and gardens. Melissa meticulously captures the urban landscape of London from the perspective of a lifelong local to Islington, and has created a new series of paintings for her current exhibition at the Garden Museum, based on our gardens in Lambeth. Surrounded by nature, amidst the public and often confronted by the elements, her work paints a vivid portrait of life in the city.
In this talk, Melissa will discuss her career, her art, and how parks and gardens have become her muse.
Talks will take place in our Clore Learning Studio on Saturday mornings and will include light refreshments from our cafe. There will be an illustrated talk followed by a Q&A to explore these fascinating subjects together.
Melissa is an acclaimed painter of meticulously detailed urban landscapes and portraits of people in their surroundings.
Melissa Scott-Miller grew up in Kensington, London, and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. She was taught by Anthony Green, Lucian Freud, and Jeffrey Camp; who said of her work:
‘A child prodigy is rare in music or mathematics but very rare in painting. For Melissa, the picture comes whole, erasure and overpainting seem unnecessary. The visible world is easily grasped. The multiple components are handled with the assurance of a virtuoso.’
Since graduating in 1981 with a first class degree, Melissa Scott-Miller has shown work at numerous galleries and with such leading exhibiting societies as the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and the New English Art Club. Her urban landscapes focus on the London streets she frequents, with the ability to keenly observe detail as both artist and local.
Her portraits have been exhibited five times at the National Gallery as part of the annual Portrait Awards. She has featured in shows across the UK at the Albemarle Gallery, Grosvenor Gallery, Mark Jason Gallery, and the Twenty Twenty Gallery. She has also exhibited in America at the Acquavella Galleries in New York, and the Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky.
Among the numerous awards that she has received is the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize in 2008. She is a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the New English Art Club.
Melissa teaches at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art and the Royal Drawing School. In March 2023 Chris Beetles Gallery held her first solo, sell-out exhibition, and they have continued to show regular displays of her work ever since.