The UCT Irma Stern Museum, Cecil Road, Rosebank, is celebrating the arrival of spring with a botanical art exhibition, Flora Old and New, until Saturday October 1.
The exhibition brings together artwork from established artists of Cape flora with new artwork that was commissioned for the exhibition.
It is also part of the special public programme to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of the internationally renown-ed South African artist, Irma Stern.
There will be contemporary botanical paintings by members of the Western Cape branch of the Botanical Artists’ Association of Southern Africa (BAASA) and older works, dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries, on loan from UCT’s Manuscripts Department and Bolus Herbarium Collections.
The herbarium, established in 1865, is the oldest functioning herbarium in South Africa, holding a collection of over 350 000 specimens and recognised for its representation of the Cape Flora.
“The Irma Stern Museum lends its space so perfectly to an exhibition on botanical art; the juxtaposition of well-known artists with new art and specimens from the Bolus herbarium that have never been exhibited before.
“We are tremendously grateful to the artists who have submitted their works for the exhibition. We invite young and old, botanical art lovers and the general public; everyone who has an interest in Cape nature and its flora, to visit and to meet the artists at one of our walkabouts and talks,” said Mary van Blommenstein, curator at the Irma Stern museum.
The museum is open from Tuesday to Friday, from 10am to 5pm; Saturday, from 10am to 2pm; and there are walkabouts at 11am. For details, visit www.irmastern.co.za or call 021 685 5686.