BIO/CV
Coral G Guest 2020
BIO
Coral G Guest is an English painter and essayist. She is known for her devotional works on the flower kingdom and her visionary monochrome drawings on spacetime, landscape, gravity and the angelic presence.
This site represents one aspect of her work as an observational flower painter. As a part of this historic genre, Guest has redefined the traditional practice by pioneering techniques that were decisive to a new methodology for the emerging Botanical Art genre in the 1980s. Her work has since developed as an unwavering timeline of devotional depiction of the natural world that challenges outmoded viewpoints towards the flower motif, working with weather patterns and phenological studies.
Guest’s early training encompassed experimental and academic figure drawing and perspective theorems with Margaret Priest and Ken Howard OBE RA, at the ground breaking Harrow School of Art (Westminster University). Thereafter, she trained in Fine Art (Painting) and Art History at Chelsea College of Arts (London University), where she studied abstraction with Sean Scully RA, and expressionist visionary painting and historic technical methodologies with Ken Kiff RA.
Receiving the Chelsea Drawing Prize and the Chelsea Travel Scholarship as a student, she consequently trained in large brush calligraphy at Seitai-ji Temple in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, spending a year in seclusion.
Renown for forging a series of techniques imported from the 18th century landscape painting schema, and spontaneous processes based on her training in large brush calligraphy, Guest works with both explored and unexplored working processes.
Her reputation as an flower painter was developed within the cloistered arena of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. When in 1991, Brinsley Burbidge took the unprecedented step of inviting her, as a painter from a fine art background, to work as Flower Painting Tutor. She taught at Kew until 2002, before embarking on a world tour of Master Classes for the global art collector and philanthropist Shirley Sherwood.
Guest’s Flower Painting work is represented in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Shirley Sherwood Collection, the Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library, and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh.
CV
b. 1955 London
EDUCATION
1978-9
Large Brush Calligraphy Seitai-ji Temple Yamanashi Prefecture Japan
1974-7
BA hons Fine Art (Painting) and Art History at Chelsea College of Art & Design (London University)
1972-4
Foundation Diploma Harrow College of Art London
AWARDS
1986
Royal Horticultural Society Gold Medal
1984
Royal Horticultural Society Gold Medal
1977
Chelsea College of Art Travel Scholarship
1974
Chelsea College of Art Drawing Scholarship
LANDMARK COMMISSIONS
2020
Commissioned by Lifescaped.com to produce the worlds first Structural Colour painting
2018
Commissioned to paint the 1,000th painting for the Shirley Sherwood Collection - Davidia involucrata, the Pocket Handkerchief Tree
MAJOR COLLECTIONS
2020
The Department of Paintings and Drawings, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Three works
2019
The Andrew Parker Collection
Eight Works
1992 - 2019
The Shirley Sherwood Collection of Botanical Art
Nineteen works
2000
The Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library
Three Works
1986
The Hunt Botanical Institute, Pittsburg, USA
One work
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Naturally Brilliant Colour
Shirley Sherwood Gallery RGB Kew
2021
Botanical Rainbow, Shirley Sherwood Gallery RGB Kew
2019
Modern Masterpieces of Contemporary Botanical Art Shirley Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2017
Sketch Open, Rabley Drawing Centre Wiltshire
British Artists, Shirley Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2016
A Collector’s Collection by Dr Shirley Sherwood, Strawberry Hill House Twickenham
Works from the Shirley Sherwood Collection Singapore Botanic Gardens
2014
Botanical Art in the 21st Century, Shirley Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2013-14
Botanical Art into the Third Millennium, Museo Della Graphica Pisa Italy
2013
The Legacy of Rory McEwen, Sherwood Gallery, RBG Kew
Hidden Treasure, Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2010-11
Gallery Artists, Tryon Gallery London
2010
Mutis Collection, Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2009-10
The Art of Plant Evolution, Sherwood Gallery RBG Kew
2009
Jubilee Exhibition, Tryon Gallery London
2008
Treasures of Botanical Art, Sherwood Gallery Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
2006
The Shirley Sherwood Collection, Seiji Togo Museum of Art Japan
2005
Treasures from the Royal Horticultural Society, Ueno Museum Tokyo
1000 years of Botanical Art, Ashmolean Museum Oxford
2004
Photosynthesis, Royal Albert Museum Exeter
2003
A Passion for Plants, Smithsonian Museum Washington USA
2002
A Passion for Plants, Denver Botanic Garden Colorado USA
2001
Marciana Library, Venice Italy
Botanical Artists of the World II, Tryon Gallery London
1999
Gallery Artists, Tryon Gallery London
1998
Botanical Artists of the World I, Tryon Gallery London
Works from the Shirley Sherwood Collection, Yasuda Kasai Gallery Tokyo Japan
Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens, Cape Town South Africa
1997
Art from the Shirley Sherwood Collection, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
1996
Botanical Artists, Kew Gardens Gallery RBG Kew
1996
Artist’s Prints, Sloane Graphics London
1995
Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Mall Galleries London
1994
Nature's Harvest, Kew Gallery RBG Kew
1991
Orchid Paintings, The Hunt Botanical Institute Pittsburgh USA
1990
Creation Festival, Nature in Art Gallery Gloucestershire
1986
Botanical Art, Royal Horticultural Society London
1986
Plant Drawings, Sothebys London
1985
Society for Wildlife Art Inaugural Exhibition, Guild Hall London
1985
6th Int. Exhibition of Botanical Art, Hunt Botanical Institute Pittsburgh USA
1984
Botanical Art, Royal Horticultural Society London
1978
Young Contemporaries, Acme Gallery London
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2006-14
Phenology Study Work, artist's studio and garden
1993
Study Works, The Pump House Battersea Park London
1990
HV Allinson Gallery New York
1986/8
Oliver Swann Gallery London
LECTURES AND MASTERCLASSES
2019-2020
Online Voluntary Workshops during the Covid 19 Pandemic
2003 - ongoing
Private Mentoring
2002
Master Class 5 Day for Dr Shirley Sherwood, Keswick Hall Charlottesville USA
1999
Master Class 5 Day for Dr Shirley Sherwood, Cipriani Hotel Venice Italy
1999
Lecture Fruit Painters of 18th Century Europe, Cipriani Hotel Venice Italy
1999-02
Sketching in the Field Summertime Classes, RBG Kew
1998
Master Class 5 Day for Dr Shirley Sherwood, Cipriani Hotel Venice Italy
1997
Master Class 5 Day for Dr Shirley Sherwood, Reid’s Hotel Madeira
1994
Master Class at Monet’s Garden, Giverny France, for The Artist magazine
1994
Contemporary Flower Painting Lecture, for The American Horticultural Society
1994
Colour Theory and Abstraction in Painting, 3-day class for NIA Gallery Gloucestershire
1991-2002
4 Day Workshop Painting Flowers in Watercolour RBG Kew
ONLINE INTERVIEWS
2017
Botanical Art - An Interview with the Plantcurator.com
2012
The Renaissance of Botanical Art - An interview with Artplantaetoday.com
MUSICAL TRACK COVERS
2021 The image of the Study Work of Amaryllis ‘Denver’ becomes the March’21 Track Cover for The Sweetness of the Morning by musician Joel Pike aka Tiny Leaves
TELEVISION
2004
BBC4 Wales Painting Flowers Series, with Monty Don directed by Ceri Sherlock
1997
BBC1 Out and About Series on location at RBG Kew
IMAGES, WRITINGS AND BOOKS PUBLISHED
2021
Naturally Brilliant Colour
Author: Andrew Parker, 112 pages, 280 x 240 mm, paperback, ISBN 9781842467336. Kew Publishing, 2021
2019
The Shirley Sherwood Collection
Botanical Art Over 30 Years
Author - Shirley Sherwood, RGB Kew Publications
2019
Treasures of Botanical Art
Authors - Shirley Sherwood and Brian Rix, RGB Kew Publications
Reprint
2017
SKETCH Drawing Prize Exhibition Catalogue Rabley Drawing Centre
2015
Sketching 365
Author - Katherine Tyrrell, Apple Press
2013
Botanical Art in the 21st Century
Author - Shirley Sherwood, RBG Kew publications
2013
Botanical Art into the Third Millennium
Authors - Shirley Sherwood & Lucia Tongiorgi
Exhibition Catalogue - Museo della Grafica, Palazzo Lanfranchi, Pisa
2013
Rory McEwen - The colours of reality Author-Martin Rix, RBG, Kew
2011
A Tulip Anthology
Author- Ron Van Dongen, PQ Blackwell Publishers
2009
The Art of Plant Evolution
Authors-WJ Kress & Shirley Sherwood, RBG, Kew Publications
2008
Treasures of Botanical Art
Author- Shirley Sherwood and Brian Rix, RGB Kew Publicationa
2006
Artists in Britain since 1945
Author -John Buckman, Art Dictionaries Ltd
2005
A New Flowering
Author - Shirley Sherwood, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
2002
A Passion for Plants
Author-Shirley Sherwood, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
2001
Painting Flowers in Watercolour - A Naturalistic Approach
Author - Coral G Guest in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Published by A&C Black (hardback UK)
Timber Press (softback USA)
2000
January Article - The Golden Section
The Artist Magazine
1997
Contemporary Botanical Artists
Author-Shirley Sherwood, Cassell & Co Publishers
COMMENTARY
2004
Tate Modern Commentary on Monet Water Lilies for the Audio Guide to the display of paintings, on the 3rd floor
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