cover image An Artist's Garden

An Artist's Garden

Raymond Booth, Peyton Skipwith. Callaway Editions, $65 (132pp) ISBN 978-0-935112-54-2

If he had been better at science, claims British botanical artist Booth (Japonica Magnifica), he would have become a biologist. Instead, at age 70, he remains a revered illustrator of plants and animals, which he renders with a lushness and precision on prominent display in this oversized Eden. Booth works with oil on paper, not the typical choice of medium by artists for whom capturing every exacting detail is critical, but these 80 color plates show that Booth's ""single-mindedness of purpose and practice"" (""Give me time"" is apparently his frequent lament) have paid off. Director of the Fine Art Society in London, Skipwith (The Great Bird Illustrators) notes in the introduction that, atypically for botanical illustration, Booth's work is ""unabashedly pictoral""; it most often places its subjectsDflowers, trees, birds, squirrels, owls, etc.Dwithin recognizably forest-like settings, which may bear some resemblance to the artist's garden in Leeds. Despite its hefty price, this book is sure to win the hearts of gardeners who will thrill to exact-scale renderings of Jasminum nudiflorum and Fritillaria tubiformis, and to surprise some art lovers, who will find it more Audubon (Callaway repeatedly makes the comparison in the press chat) than Bob Ross. As Booth explains, it's just ""so interesting to be outside all the time."" (Nov.)