A new exhibition featuring Beatrix Potter’s original artwork The Language of Flowers will open in Hawkshead next week.
The Language of Flowers, at the Beatrix Potter Gallery, explores the author’s relationship with flowers through her art and life and invites visitors to look beyond her beloved characters, to see the colourful and realistic flowers around them, showing her talent as both an artist and scientist.
Bringing together her books, sketches, watercolours and decorative items, the exhibition looks at flowers as medicine and food, and the significance of Beatrix’s flower-filled Hill Top garden in her world-famous books.
The exhibition traces Beatrix’s love of flowers throughout her life, from her early botanical studies and lessons in flower painting, to her flower press from Hill Top showing her keen interest in gardening. Illustrations from The Tale of Samuel Whiskers and The Tale of Two Bad Mice highlight the inspiration she took from cultivated flowers. Floral ceramics from her childhood home are also on display following recent conservation work funded by the Royal Oak Foundation.
The downstairs space in the gallery has also been transformed to give visitors an overview of Beatrix’s life, legacy and ‘little books’ and her journey from artist and illustrator to farmer and conservationist.
A specially commissioned map, created by Kendal-based illustrator Evelyn Sinclair, gives a sense of the scale of the land she left to the National Trust. Visitors will also be able to see Beatrix’s teenage journals, written in her secret code, and the key to Hill Top, a hugely symbolic item representing the independence she gained with its purchase.
The exhibition has been created by the new curator for National Trust properties Hill Top and Beatrix Potter Gallery, Dr Alice Sage.
A historian and curator of childhood, with expertise in early 20th century art and illustration, Dr Sage said: “The Language of Flowers brings together Beatrix Potter’s talents as an artist and a scientist and highlights her love for gardens and nature. Through the exhibition we want to encourage visitors to look beyond the characters in Beatrix’s illustrations to see the colourful and accurate flowers around them, demonstrating Beatrix’s skill as an accomplished botanical artist with a knowledge and passion for flowers. It’s a pleasure to curate this exhibition in such a quirky space and start to get know the treasures of this incredible collection.”
The Language of Flowers exhibition opens on March 27 and runs until October 30. Pre-booking is recommended, but not required.
