Flowers exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery

Detail from Rebecca Louise Law’s full room installation at the Saatchi Gallery

3 April 2025. I went along to the Saatchi Gallery to see the Flowers exhibition today, it was an exploration of the many flowers, incorporating different techniques, media and scale. It covers the love of flowers from the boom of Dutch Flower painting in the 17th and 18th centuries to the 19th century Arts & Crafts movement which incorporated floral design in to paintings, architecture, books, furniture and decorative arts and everyday life, as well as how flowers have been used by contemporary artists.. Here are some of my favourite works of art from the exhibition.

1) Immersive installation of dried flowers. Rebecca Louise-Law. (Above)

2) Daffodil. 1990. Mary Fedden (1915-2012). Watercolour. A student of the Slade between 1932-36, Mary chose to draw everyday objects like cats, flowers and fruit, making each an object worthy of contemplation.

3) Meconopsis and Butterflies. 1998. Elizabeth Blackadder (1931-2021). Hand coloured etching. My favourite out of all the pieces, I’m drawn to blue flowers especially Meconopsis and I love the sketchy style of Elizabeth’s etchings.

4) Flowers Series: Iris, Rose, Tulip, Orchid, Chrystanthemum, Carnation. Michael Craig-Martin, 2023. Screenprint. Michael began to focus on flowers during Lockdown when he noticed the same varieties of domensticated flowers in supermarket stores.

5) Metal Flowers: Tulips. 2023. Michael Craig-Martin. Simple and beautiful pieces.

6) Pimpernel in Midnight/Opal. Wallpaper. Morris & Co. Sanderson’s swinging 60’s take on William Morris’s 1876 Pimpernel design.

7) Three Feet High and Rising. De La Soul’s 1989 album cover incorporating flowers. Designed by Tony Mott.

8) Tulips. 2019. Kate Gibb. I enjoy looking at the different screen printed layers in this piece of artwork.

9) Herald of Spring. 2021. Amy Shelton. Using pressed flowers in a lightbox, she includes the following plants: Lesser celandine, Winter aconite, Celandine, Wood-anemone, Dog’s Mercury, Early sand-grass, Dandelion, Primrose, Cowslip, Wild daffodil, Snake’s Head Fritillary, Spring crocus, Hairy bittercress, Butterbur, Winter heliotrope, Cowslip, Silverweed, Ransons, Wood sorrel, Daisy, Speedwell, Muscari, Early Dog-violet, Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem Gorse, Sweet violet, Myosotis arvenius, Hazel, Stinking Hellebore, Green Hellebore, Early Star-of-Bethlehem.

10) Vivienne Westwood and Malcom McClaren collaboration (detail).

I was also interested in the theme of flowers and mathematics: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) noticed that many wild flowers are pentagonal in shape and the leaf positioining conforms to numbers appearing in the Fibonacci sequence where each number is the sum of the previous two (ie 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144, etc). Buttercups have 5 petals, Delphiniums have 8, Corn Marigolds have 13, some Asters have 21 and Daisies often have 34, 55 or 89 petals.