Thalia Lincoln – winner of the Kirstenbosch Biennale Lifetime Achievement Award 2010
The Kirstenbosch Biennale Lifetime Achievement Award was the brainchild of Karen Stewart, curator of the 2008 exhibition. It was initiated to celebrate and acknowledge the contribution made by artists to promote botanical art in South Africa. Candidates need to have made a significant contribution to botany or the conservation of South African indigenous flora. This year’s recipient is Thalia Lincoln.
Thalia only started drawing flowers when in her forties, choosing to develop a painstaking technique of placing layer upon layer of dry coloured pencil. The waxy texture achieved conveys the most incredible intensity of colour and meticulous detail.
In 1975, Thalia started to collaborate with Dr John Rourke, then Curator of the Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch, on a project that would take them 9 years to complete, the illustrations for the monograph of the genus Mimetes and Orothamnus. John’s role was to track down the often elusive plants high in the Western Cape Mountains. Thalia insisted on visiting each plant population herself, to see how and where they grew, and experience the warmth of the sun. Back in the studio, it took her around 3 months to complete each of the 14 life size plant portraits. Sadly, the beautiful limited edition book Mimetes, mostly lives hidden away in botanical libraries and private collections.
In 1989 SAPPI (SA Paper and Pulp Industries) commissioned Thalia to draw South African indigenous plants for one of their famed portfolios. Her beautiful compositions have produced some of the most sought after plant portraits of our flora. She was probably the first SA botanical artist to really market and popularize her art through the production of high quality prints and greeting cards. This made them accessible to the public to grace many a wall.
We celebrate Thalia’s significant contribution to SA botanical art and the inspiration and pleasure given to so many artists and plant lovers through her beautiful paintings.
(See an interview with Thalia here.)
(See an interview with Thalia here.)
