![](data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns="//www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" height="2000px" width="1881px"></svg>)
The Gorgeous Nothings: A Floral Exhibition at Chatsworth House
Coinciding with The Summer Season at Sotheby’s London, ‘The Gorgeous Nothings’ explores various artistic approaches to flower motifs over centuries.
F lowers occupy a rare place within the pantheon of art history. They are not only one of art’s most consequential subjects, but also act as a frequent muse. For centuries, artists have drawn on floral designs, st🌄udies and especially blooms themselves as creative guideposts – immortalizing them in the likes of indigenous rock paintings and in paintings highlighting the sensuality of their natural shapes, as Georgia O’Keeffe did. Artists have repeatedly looked to florals as potent signifiers, too, capable of🃏 encompassing decay, growth, fertility and even death.
Although humans’ fascination with flowers stretches back to the days of cave painting, their popularity within art itself has ebbed and flowed over time. Dutch still life painters working in the 17th century were entranced by florals, for instance, particularly with their inherently ephemeral nature. But florals fell out of fa🔴vor as an artistic form until roughly the 19th century. When painters began working more within sumptuous Impressionist traditions during the 1800s, they created works that notably accentuated everyday wonders, including the vibrant spectacle of water lily ponds and the floral patches dotting lush gardens. Florals continued to transfix artists working within Art Nouveau, Pop Art and other artistic styles throughout ensuing decades, leading up to the present.
Highlights from Sotheby's Summer Season
Yet there is perhaps no place more fitting for floral artworks to live than Chatsworth in Derbyshire. The garden 🌠at Chatsworth brims ꦯwith an exuberant array of flora and fauna that includes primroses, rhododendrons, camellias and other colourful bulbs spread across its 105 acres. Stone fruits, including peaches and apricots, are mere moments away from blossoming as the season turns to summer. The breadth of Chatsworth’s astounding florals – long helmed by a cohort of dedicated botanists, gardeners, landscape designers and scientists, and today cared for by the Chatsworth House Trust charity, which Sotheby’s proudly sponsors – has also come to inform its artistic programming in a recently opened exhibition.
Conceived by Lady Burlington, The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth is informed by Chatsworth’s rich lineage of flowers, which have long entranced visitors and those who have studied them within the Devonshire Collections. The expansive show includes works of painting, assemblage, collage, cut-out prints and other mediums, all of which have been inspired by these florals. In a way, though, The Gorgeous Nothings has been centuries in the making. The exhibition’s title steไms from a scintillating collection of Emily Dickinson poems, which she scribbled on the backs of envelopes. Moreover, Allegra Pesenti, who curated the Chatsworth exhibition, says that “the seeds for the show lay more specifically in the collection of plant specimens that were gathered from lands close and afar from the 1700’s onwards. Preserved for centuries within volumes and portfolios, these were the ‘gorgeous nothings’ from which the exhibition developed.”
To coincide with the opening of The Gorgeous Nothings, Chatsworth House partnered with Sotheby’s to showcase stunning, floral-inspired paintings currently at auction in 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:The Summer Season in London. Included in the exhibition is a lovely interpretation of begonias by the late Scottish still life painter Anne Redpath and poppies as seen through the idiosyncratic abstract imaginings of Ivon Hitchens, the English artist. The exhibition also features a whimsical take on 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:water lilies by Pop Art provocateur Roy Lichtenstein, American artist Ann Craven’s perspective-bending look at 168开奖官♈方开奖网站查询:a floral bouquet juxtaposed before a moon-lit sk🧸y and two of Bernard Buffet’s striking Expressionist forays into roses and 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:other blooms. Another highlight includes Scottish polyglot Rory McEwen’s stunning painting Tulip Petal III, on loan from Chatsworth House. A student of floral illustrations, McEwen went on to create his own paintings and botanical studies, both of which were hugelﷺy influential on how flower paintings came to evolve later in the 20th century. Through his intimate work with florals – particularly his fixation with tulips – McEwen aspired to “paint flowers as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth,” as he once said.
While these floral works can exude a sense of timelessness, the timing of the exhibition’s opening feels especially poignant at this moment. “The exhibition evokes the resilience and persistence of nature at a time of great environmental urgency and crisis,” Pesenti explains of The Gorgeous Nothings. “There is no bﷺetter moment than now to raise awareness of the beauty of flowers and the threats they can be associated with.”
Florals remain equally as riveting for artists now as they did during the Impressionist era. As such, they “echo the character and temperaments of human nature and artists have found ways to render these visible,” Pesenti adds. “There is the beauty and seductive quality of flowers, but there is also horror and deterioration, there is sensuality but there is also threat and repulsion, there is flesh but also a more ethereal, ghostly quality.” Ultimately, the staying power of flo🍬rals proves that artists need not be surrounded by state-of-the-art materials in order to create something magnificent. All they need is to keenly observe what’s growing around them.
“The exhibition evokes the resilience and persistence of nature at a time of great environmental urgency and crisis.”
- Curator Allegra Pesenti, ‘The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth’
The Story Café
1–2 St George Street, W1S 2FF
We are delighted to announce the reopening of the Story Café, now beautifully refurbished and reimagined as a place where art meets coffee. Nestled in the heart of Mayfair, our café offers a tranquil oasis where guests can explore the stories of art and culture while enjoying coffee in an inspiring setting. To celebrate the reopening and our partnership with Chatsworth and their newest exhibition, The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth, Sotheby’s Story Café has been transformed into a captivating experience that delves into Theꦺ Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth’s rich archive of botany, exploring the beauty and symbolism of the natural world th༺rough flowers in all their forms.
The Restaurant
34–35 New Bond Street, W1A 2AA
The Restauꦬrant at Sotheby’s is a culinary haven at the heart of the art world, set in our New Bond Street galleries. The Restaurant has become a favourite with the art lovers of Lꦜondon, catering to discerning tastes, inspired by the seasons – with a focus on sustainable, locally sourced organic produce.
