Bio/CV

BIO/CV

Coral G Guest 2020

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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