Wild Green Things: The Art of Anne Ophelia Dowden
Andersen Horticultural Library
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
January 18 – May 2, 2012
Anne Ophelia Todd was born in Denver and grew up in Boulder, Colorado spending her early years roaming the foothills of the Rockies. Dowden says, “I collected and drew any living thing that came my way, especially insects and flowers, and the study of nature was my absorbing hobby.”
© 2008 Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. All Rights Reserved.
After graduated with an art degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology, the artist moved to New York City in 1930, and taught drawing for more than 15 years. During that time, she married fellow artist Ray Dowden. Dowden began her botanical illustration work in the early 1950s, when magazines began to use her artwork on their covers and in their articles. She was in her 50s when she wrote, designed and illustrated her first book, Look at a Flower.
After 60 years in New York City, Dowden moved back to Boulder in the early 1990s to be near family and her beloved mountains. She set up her studio and published her last book, Poisons in Our Path: Plants That Harm and Heal, in 1994, when she was 87 years old. Dowden died in 2007 at the age of 99.
Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden’s artwork will be on view in the Andersen library, the Snyder Building lobby and the skyway ramp between the Visitor Center and Snyder Building. There also will be works in an Oswald Visitor Center display case.
A special insiders look at the art of Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden by exhibit curator, Lucie Taylor, will occur when Wild Green Things opens next week. Visitors will have the opportunity to view Dowden’s books, original sketches and original paintings during a one-hour presentation scheduled for Wednesday January 18 from Noon – 1 PM in the Snyder Building. Limit: 30. Cost: $7.50 members, $10 non-members. Register Online
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is located in Chanhassen, Minnesota on State Hwy 5, nine miles west of the intersection with I-494. The largest public garden in the Upper Midwest, the Arboretum is part of the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. Open 363 days a year, admission is $9 adults; free for members and ages 15 & under.
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