Photo Gallery
Related Exhibition
Rory McEwen: Nature’s Song
8 Oct 2025 - 25 Jan 2026
Exhibitions
Join us for an evening to celebrate the unique artistic talent of Rory McEwen, with an esteemed panel of guests.
To coincide with the end of the beautiful exhibition of McEwen’s delicate botanical paintings, this event will see Nicola Shulman, author of the illustrated exhibition catalogue, joined by art critic and brother of the artist, John McEwen, and Rory’s friend and collaborator, botanist Martyn Rix.
If you’re curious to hear what ignited McEwen’s interest in botanical painting, or keen to learn more about his technique for painting on vellum, then this special event is well worth attending. McEwen was an artist who could produce minutely detailed and accurate paintings of petals and dying leaves, whilst experimenting with abstraction and mixed media sculpture; the impressive diversity of his work will be discussed.
Rory lived a full life in which folk music and painting were abiding passions. This panel of speakers will discuss his story and the people who influenced his art.
Speakers
Author: Contemporary artist monographs, bird books with Carry Akroyd.
Former art critic: Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Art in America.
Current: ‘Bird of the Month’ with Carry Akroyd, Oldie magazine.
Martyn Rix studied botany at Trinity College, Dublin, and then at Cambridge, studying Fritillaria in the eastern Mediterranean. After this he worked on water plants in Zürich and as botanist for the RHS at Wisley, where he continued his interest in fritillaries.
While enquiring who would be able to paint portraits of fritillaries for a proposed book, he was told “Rory McEwen is the person you need.” This was the beginning of a close collaboration and friendship which lasted until Rory’s death. The proposed book, to be published by the Basilisk Press, never materialised, but Rory drew a large number of fritillary species, and was fascinated by their subtle colouring and romantic wild habitats; four of these fritillaries, from Thessalian Mount Olympus, the Caucasus, the Kopet Dag and Stratfield Saye are on view in the current exhibition.
Recently Martyn contributed to the book, Rory McEwen. The Colours of Reality, based on the exhibition at Kew in 2013, and the catalogue of the recent exhibition, Rory McEwen. A new perspective on nature which has been touring in the USA.