We are pleased to announce that the Capturing Nature exhibition at the Botanical Art Gallery, Singapore Botanic Gardens is now open. The exhibition on nature printing runs until 31 March 2024.

Co-curated by Capturing Nature: Matthew Zucker, Pia Östlund and the Singapore National Parks Board: Dr. Michele Rodda and Martina Yeo

The exhibition features works from Europe, but also India, Japan, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, and is based on the award-winning book Capturing Nature (Zucker Art Books, 2022). A range of works and techniques are featured, dating from 1748 to the present. The earliest precursor to photography, Nature Printing is the practice of taking impressions directly or indirectly from the surface of natural objects such as leaves, flowering plants, ferns, seaweed, snakeskin, and more, to produce an image on paper or cloth.

Highlights from the exhibition include a giant Akita-Fuki print from Japan. This giant butterbur leaf was most likely printed using the plant’s own sap. The poem on the scroll was written by Okubo Shifutsu (大窪詩仏), a famous poet and calligrapher of the late Edo period (1603–1868). The subject of this poem is the Japanese butterbur itself. In the poem, Okubo compares the size of the plant’s leaf to an umbrella, and its stem to a pillar.

The exhibition also features rare copper electrotype printing plates developed by Alois Auer and Andreas Worring in Vienna in the 1850s and contemporary electrotypes by Pia Östlund, who after years of experimenting in the nature printing field has revived the Viennese Naturselbstdruck method.

Welcome!

Throughout summer, a selection of rare nature printed works from Zucker Art Books will be on display in the Herbarium Room at Oxford Botanic Garden, co-curated by Matthew Zucker and Pia Östlund. Nature printing was popular with botanists in the 18th century as an aid in their study of useful and medicinal plants. By printing directly from the specimens themselves, they were able to represent the plants in an affordable way and to great effect. In the 19th century, the desire for creating lifelike scientific images in combination with technological innovations led to new forms of nature printing.

Come and enjoy these beautiful and curious prints of plants, mosses, meteorites, starfish, and a bat. Highlights include: A rare early 18th century direct nature print of a meteorite that fell to Earth sometime between 1350 and 1430. The Loket Meteorite weighed 191 kilo and stayed intact until it was sliced to make this print using a newly discovered technique. An akita fuki nature print of Japanese giant butterbur, printed using green mineral-based (malachite) ink on cloth. Bristol-born artist Richard Long’s Mud Hand Nature Prints (1984), using mud from the River Avon.

The exhibition is part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of Oxford Botanic Gardens.

Reading 8 Aug 2022 – A truly fascinating exhibition. Provides new perspectives on human behaviour through the ’desire to be remembered’.

Testimonials

“A truly fascinating exhibition. Provides new perspectives on human behaviour through the ‘desire to be remembered’.” — Reading, Berkshire

“I turn 10 tomorrow! These plants and animals are beautiful. This art is beautiful whilst also capturing nature.” — Louisa, USA

“I am a print technician at Birmingham City University and have found this exhibition truly inspirational.The descriptions of printing techniques are exceptionally done and I will be recommending your book to the university. Beautiful work.” — Ruth, Birmingham, U.K.

“I am 13! I had a great time and I learned a lot. I am inspired to try printing my own leaf printing at home!” — Lincoln, USA

“Very interesting and beautiful and also because as a child I had a wooden press to make direct impressions of flowers and plants! Which I was very proud of.” — Antwerp, Belgium