“Cypripedium reginae, Showy lady’s slipper,” watercolor and graphite by Kate Furbish, American, 1834-1931. Gift of the artist, Bowdoin College Library.
Kate Furbish continues to inspire new generations of botanists, artists, and others with her watercolor and graphite illustrations of the flowering plants of Maine.
1,300 of her botanical portraits are part of the Bowdoin College Library’s George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives. More than thirty of these works are now on display as part of the Museum’s new exhibition, Kate Furbish and Edwin Hale Lincoln: New England Botanical Studies.
The exhibition is a collaboration with the New York Public Library, which holds the work of fellow botanist and photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln. Melissa Cullina a research botanist at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens also partnered in the creation of this exhibition. Cullina first discovered the Furbish’s work as a graduate student at the University of Maine in 1996. Over the years, she has developed a deep knowledge of Furbish and her botanical watercolors. Cullina will present a noon-time gallery talk on November 7 at the Museum.
