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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 51| June 2001


The Banksias—Watercolours by Celia Rosser
from the Monash University Collection

14 June – 5 August 2001
Exhibition Gallery, National Library of Australia

Bansia Iemanniana

Celia Rosser. Banksia lemanniana 1988. watercolour and pencil on paper; 55.8 x 76.2 cm
Monash University Collection

 

Internationally renowned botanical artist Celia Rosser has worked continuously and exclusively on The Banksias project, managed by Monash University, for the past 25 years. Now, for the first time, her 76 exquisitely detailed life-size watercolours documenting all the known species of banksias will be displayed together, along with some preliminary drawings and a Banksia serrata tapestry from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. The original, on which this work is based, was painted for the Australian Academy of Science in 1969 and was presented to the Royal Society of London to mark the beginning of the bicentenary celebration of Captain Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific.

The results of Celia Rosser’s dedication were published successively in three volumes in 1981, 1988 and 2000. The coordinators of The Banksias project have described Rosser as ‘a modern exponent of botanical art in the tradition of Parkinson and Bauer’—a judgment that was recognised at the highest level in 1997 when she was the first Australian to be awarded a Linnaeus Society medal for her contribution to botanical art.

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