By Judy Carmack Bross
Guest Curator Ruth Stiff and key planner Joe Gromacki Opening Night at the Driehaus.
Called by Bunny Mellon, one of his early collectors who loaned two of his works to the White House in 1962, “the preeminent botanical artist of the 20th century”, Scottish artist Rory McEwen is featured on three levels throughout 10 rooms at the Driehaus Museum in an extraordinary show of his interpretation of 20th century modernism through his flowers, leaves and vegetables. Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, which opened this weekend and runs through August 17, offers breathtaking works on velum whose smooth surface adds a pure vitality to the watercolors, and includes sculpture and manuscripts. The arts and crafts wallpapers at the Museum furnish a perfect backdrop as if selected particularly for the works. The Driehaus team also made the lighting just right but going on the roof to cut off some of the sunlight which pours through the domed ceiling. The results are stunning.
Rory McEwen
McEwen was also folk revival musician in both the United States and London where he hosted the wildly popular 1960’s Hullabaloo. When he toured the US in 1956, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show twice, performing his unique blend of Leadbelly’s Southern blues and his own music of which Van Morrison said: “If there hadn’t been a Rory McEwen, I would have been a vet.” McEwen walked away from the London folk world in 1964 siting the infighting in the business, saying that his real talent lay in his painting. He died at 50 in London following a diagnosis of brain cancer.
At a recent Preview lecture at a private Gold Coast Club, Driehaus Museum’s Executive Director Lisa Key said that many other Chicago institutions are planning to celebrate McEwen soon, including his music at the Old Town School of Folk Music. “Everyone should be ready to ‘tiptoe through the tulips’ with McEwen,” she said. “Our tulip garden is past its prime, but a large tulip sculpture out front hopefully will attract many guests.”
Driehaus Executive Director at a recent preview lecture on Rory McEwen.
Joe Gromacki, a Driehaus Board Member instrumental with Barbi and Tom Donnelley in bringing the show to Chicago, called Key “a major force in advancing Chicago’s cultural landscape” when introducing her at the recent lecture.
Lisa Key said:
“Rory McEwen’s work sits at the poetic intersection of art, nature, and music—and we are honored to bring this exhibition to Chicago in a way that reflects the full richness of that vision. Our partnerships with Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods, the Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago Scots, the Mag Mile Association, The Morton Arboretum, Old Town School of Folk Music, and The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum allow us to extend this exhibition beyond our walls and into the heart of the city. Together, we’re creating a citywide celebration that invites Chicagoans to experience McEwen’s legacy through art, botany, music, learning, and community.”
Environmental leader Jerry Adelmann told us that he is working with Barbi Donnelley and Scotsman Gus Noble to create “a McEwen Festival this summer in Chicago” bringing together nature, music and 1000 bagpipers honoring the McEwen clan.
Key described to us the impact McEwen’s watercolors will have for visitors to the Driehaus:
“This exhibition invites visitors to see the Driehaus Museum in a new way that harkens back to its domestic origin. The works are installed in an intimate way, allowing visitors to experience the space—and the art—with fresh eyes. By installing walls in the Maher Gallery for the first time, we’ve reshaped the space to encourage a more intimate kind of looking—one that mirrors the quiet intensity of Rory McEwen’s works. What makes Rory McEwen’s work so extraordinary is that it demands close looking—some of his most refined pieces are just inches tall, capturing the delicate essence of a single flower or insect with breathtaking precision. One of our galleries that features teal wall coverings, in particular, has been transformed into a jewel-box setting where the colors of the room and the artworks speak to one another in unexpected harmony. These pieces don’t just sit in the museum—they belong here and I think we’ve served Rory McEwen’s legacy well.”
Old English Striped Tulip Sam Barlow1974 – 76. Watercolour on vellum, ©The Estate of Rory McEwen
At the private lecture Ruth L.A. Stiff, the Show’s Guest Curator and Curator of International Exhibitions, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, told the audience that Chicago seemed just right for the grand finale of the show which began at Kew Gardens in 2013. The exhibition includes works on loan from McEwen’s family as well as works drawn from numerous private collections, most of which have never been seen by the American public.
Ruth Stiff with Flora McEwen Brooks, daughter of Rory McEwen and in from England for the opening, and Barbi Donnelley.
“From the early planning stage, Chicago was a much-desired location for the Rory McEwen exhibition. The opportunity for it to be hosted by the extraordinary Driehaus Museum in downtown Chicago couldn’t have been a better fit. The quality of the beautifully restored mansion, combined with the breadth and astonishing beauty of McEwen’s exquisite paintings, will be sure to thrill visitors.
“Chicago, with its long history as one of the world’s most notable jazz and blues destinations, would, I’m sure, have greatly pleased McEwen. His musical journey across the US was a significant period, both personally and musically, and laid the foundations of the next stage of his life. As he later conceded to a friend, “I came to modern art largely, it seems, through twentieth century music…I am glad that I was so long learning to see, after I had learned to hear.
“With his all-embracing perspective on modern art, McEwen’ concept of the natural object reflected, over time, the diverse influences in his growing understanding of artistic creativity.
“The ability to give life and luminosity to a spectrum of emotions is what gives Rory McEwen’s art those qualities that distinguish it from the ordinary. As Rory McEwen conceded to Wilfrid Blunt, his drawing master at Eton, ‘I have never really been interested in botanical illustration per se, but rather in that moment when painting starts to breathe poetry’.”
Rose William Lobb 1976 – 78, Watercolour on vellum, Courtesy of ©The Estate of Rory McEwen
We spoke recently with Joe Gromacki about how he first became interested in Rory McEwen.
“I became involved in this project principally through my work for and association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which sponsored an inaugural exhibition of Rory McEwen artwork in 2013. Since then, a number of us have worked in earnest to see this work come to America so that audiences here could be introduced to the remarkable work of this cutting-edge artist. In addition to my service on the Foundation Council board at Kew, I also chair the advisory committee that organized and arranged for the funding of this exhibition. Through this work, I have come to know the McEwen family and developed a profound appreciation for work of the artist who surely is the greatest botanical artist of modern times, drawing on centuries old traditions but infusing his work with a modern sensibility that resonates with global audiences today. My law firm, Jenner & Block, provided pro bono legal services to structure and document the project from a legal perspective.
Red Pepper 1971, Watercolour on vellum ©The Estate of Rory McEwen
“The ability to bring extraordinary compositional distinction and luminous brilliance to his botanical subjects is what differentiates Rory McEwen from earlier masters of this genre. In thinking about him as an artist, I am reminded of what Rory McEwen conceded to his Wilfrid Blunt, his drawing master at Eton, “I have never really been interested in botanical illustration per se, but rather in that moment when painting starts to breathe poetry.” This, to me, is the real magic of this artwork – it transcends reality and achieves a sublimity of both truth and beauty. Rory McEwen is a technical wizard with light, color, and composition. He melds the peaks of botanical illustration and modern art to achieve his poetry.
“Rory McEwen was a brilliant polymath, a person of remarkable wide-ranging talents and interests. From those who knew him, it seems he had a unique ability to draw the best out of those around him, whether that be through conversation, music, or art. He left this world at a far too young age, but he touched the hearts of all who knew or encountered him. His legacy in this world today is his magnificent artwork. It brings me such tremendous pleasure to know that the American public will be introduced to his work at our spectacular exhibition at the wonderful Driehaus Museum in Chicago. I truly believe that my friend, the late Richard Driehaus, would be enormously pleased with this exhibition and the related programming.
HelenJosephine1975, adjusted by Jeff Eden ©Estate of Rory McEwen
“I have had the privilege of visiting Marchmont, the ancestral home of Rory McEwen, located in the Scottish Borders. It is a wonderful place: oday, it is a beautifully restored Palladian mansion with expansive and eclectic collections of art spanning 550 years of art history, that is operated as a center for artists and makers. The house, built in 1750-1755 by Hugh Hume-Campbell, the 3rd Earl of Marchmont, lies at the end of the longest planted avenue in Scotland, surrounded by thousands of acres of beautiful forest, meadow, and farmland. It is easy to understand how such an environment provided inspiration to a young Rory McEwen and thrust him into an artistic career. In connection with this exhibition, the Driehaus Museum is organizing a donor group tour of Marchmont and the surrounding area, to take place later this year.
“The Driehaus Museum is a perfect “grand finale” venue for this exhibition of the artworks of Rory McEwen. Our prior exhibition venues — the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College outside Boston, Massachusetts, and the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida — were each wonderful in their own way. But to see these magnificent paintings installed in the Gilded Age setting of the Samuel Nickerson Mansion will unlock a richness of experience that will undoubtedly delight and inspire visitors to the exhibition. The installation will occur in ten rooms of the Museum, organized in a thematic way that will articulate the artist journey represented by Rory McEwen’s career as well as the legacy he has inspired as the greatest botanical artist of modern times. I am so excited for Chicagoans and others to have the opportunity to see the show and experience this magic.”
The exhibition presents works by McEwen alongside others by the 17th and 18th century painters whom he studied—such as Nicolas Robert, Pierre Joseph Redouté, Georg Dionysius Ehret, and Claude Aubriet—as well as early illuminated manuscripts and folio volumes drawn from the Mellon Collection, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Establishing
McEwen’s role in shaping new generations of artists, the exhibition also features the work of contemporary botanical artists who continue to shape McEwen’s artistic legacy. “By encompassing a rare ability to see a plant as more than ‘just’ a plant—to imbue his paintings with a sense of his subject’s ‘soul’—his techniques have had a lasting impact on botanical artists today,” Ruth Stiff said.
Single Autumn leaves were a favorite series. McEwen wrote: “I don’t think of them as dying but simply showing the marks of time and experience.”
In one of the last rooms of the exhibition an ancient verse is suggested as an epitaph for McEwen.
From Joy springs all creation
By Joy it is sustained
Towards Joy it proceeds and
To Joy it returns.
For more information about the Driehaus Museum’s show through August 17 as well as partner events visit: driehausmuseum.org and connect with the Museum on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
