We are indeed bereft to hear of the passing of Jenny; on behalf of the Society of whom she was a founder member we would like to express our sadness. My recollections of Jenny was that she was always smiling, forever encouraging and immensely talented. I was lucky enough to know her and at times receive good advice and enjoy her company. She will be sorely missed by us all. Our past president has written a short piece on Jenny’s career which is just a snapshot on what was a shining career in art.
Billy Showell PSBA
Jenny was an independent spirit with a forceful personality, an experienced botanical artist, tutor and passionate gardener, frequently opening her vibrant two-acre garden to the public through the National Gardening Scheme.
Jenny painted professionally for forty years. She specialised in botanical illustration and landscape painting but above all she was a passionate devotee of the art of watercolour.
Her work was published in several books and she has painted the Genus Paeonia for a Royal Botanic Gardens Kew monograph, where she also contributed to Curtis’s Botanical Magazine and The Plantsman. A former President of the Society of Floral Painters, Jenny was awarded four Gold and three Silver Gilt medals from the Royal Horticultural Society, and she designed their Chelsea Plate in 1992. She held many solo exhibitions and examples of her paintings are held in private and public collections worldwide, notably the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburg, USA;
the RHS Lindley Library in London;
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the Shirley
Sherwood collection; the Highgrove Florilegium
and, more recently, in the Cedric Morris
Florilegium, Suffolk.
An avid teacher, she ran many courses at home
and abroad and only recently retired as a tutor for the Society’s Distance Learning Diploma Course.
It was my privilege to know Jenny as a fellow artist
and friend and I know she will be missed by many
of our members, past students and friends.
Sandra Wall Armitage PPSBA