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LaMcEwen’s life was not limited to painting. In the 1960s, he was
a major player in the folk revival. His London home, which he shared
with his wife, became a vibrant hub where musicians, poets, and pain-
ters from around the world met. Educated at Eton, he exhibited in New
York in 1962, where he achieved immediate success.
Two of his watercolors of tulips, acquired by Bunny Mellon, were then
exhibited at the White House. It was at this point that he chose to aban-
don music and television to devote himself entirely to painting. Several
decades later, his legacy has lost none of its power. Shirley Sherwood, a
major collector of botanical art, considers him the «avant-garde of to-
day’s botanical artists.»
More than half of the painters in his collection acknowledge his in-
fluence. After traveling for two years in the United States, from Charles-
ton to Chicago, via Boston and Palm Beach, his works finally return to
London for this major exhibition.
Rory McEwen has continually pushed the boundaries
of a genre often confined to scientific rigor.
His luminous canvases reveal beauty in the ephemeral.
By suspending his subjects against a pristine white background,
McEwen transformed a simple leaf or flower
into a fragile apparition,
as if nature were still breathing on the page.
www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
Rory McEwen,
DyingTulip