• Home
  • About

ArtPlantae Today

Connecting artists, naturalists, and educators

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« ¡Go Tropical!
Ancient drug making and novel medicines »

Hungarian illustrator creates lithographs, contributes to Dendrological Atlas Project

October 20, 2015 by Tania Marien

Pinus strombiformis, No. 6/20

Pinus strobiformis, No. 6/20

Earlier this year the Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens and the American Society of Botanical Artists collaborated to create the Weird, Wild & Wonderful Symposium, an art and science symposium bringing attention to the links between botany and botanical art. One of the organizations participating in the symposium was the International Dendrological Research Institute (IDRI). The IDRI team of botanists, photographers and botanical illustrators introduced the Institute’s work and taught workshops about photography and botanical illustration.

Two of the illustrators working on the Dendrological Atlas Project participated in the symposium — Li Aili and Fanni Vámos. Today’s column is about the work of Fanni Vámos. The biographical information that follows is provided by Dr. Zsolt Debreczy, botanist and co-author of Conifers Around the World. I would like to thank Dr. Debreczy for his help in gathering and translating this information.


Fanni Vámos, Botanical Illustrator

Fanni Vámos was born in Budapest in 1982. Her childhood, however, was spent a few miles away from the capital among the green gardens and flowering meadows of Nagytarcsa, where the old Danube riverbeds still hold ponds with constantly changing surfaces of fascinating colors. In addition to a passion for learning languages and mathematics, her talent for creating art with pencil and brushes surfaced as early as elementary school. Instead of going on to gymnasium (i.e., a college prep school), she went to the Barcsay Art School, a special school for applied art in Budapest, where she continued her training. Fanni was particularly fascinated both by the beauty of nature and by historical architecture, and these were major subjects of her artwork. In 2005 she traveled across Western Europe illustrating plants and classical architecture. In 2007 she visited the herbarium of the International Dendrological Foundation (IDF, sister institute of the International Dendrological Research Institute [IDRI, MA, USA] in Hungary) and joined the illustrator team of the Dendrological Atlas. She also joined the team of botanists and illustrators working on the two-volume reference, Conifers Around the World.

In 2009 IDRI sent her to its supporter in Mexico, Boone Hallberg of Ixtlan de Juarez, Oaxaca, to complete illustrations of Mexican conifers.

Fanni’s botanical drawings are spectacular – both artistic and botanically absolutely precise. She has developed into one of the most talented and knowledgeable botanical illustators of the Dendrological Atlas Project.

While in Mexico, Fanni also worked for art galleries and took private commissions for paintings. More recently, she has refreshed her knowledge of the classical methods of lithography, and with the help of one of the Oaxacan art galleries, has taken on the painstaking task of creating lithographs of her drawings of Pinus veitchii (collected above San Pedro Nexapa on the slopes of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl), and Pinus strobiformis (made while working in Budapest and based on refreshed herbarium collections made by the Dendrological Atlas team in Durango, Mexico in 2004). Fanni’s use of classical techniques has imparted a special artistic character to her original drawings. Her Pinus veitchii is rendered in classic black and white; in contrast, her Pinus strobiformis lithograph – printed in Mexico City – is in vivid color.

A limited selection of Fanni’s lithographs are now available at ArtPlantae’s store. Proceeds benefit the research and illustration team of the Dendrological Atlas Project.


Link Update (June 2016)
:
The ArtPlantae store is closed.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Teaching & Learning |

  • I’m curious about…

  • What Readers Are Reading Now

    • California
    • Earn a Professional Certificate in Natural Science Illustration at the University of Washington
    • Scientific Illustration in the Elementary School Classroom
    • Today's Botanical Artists On Using Photographs
    • Dry Brush Technique for Botanical Artists
  • Plants & You

  • Featured Guests

    Wendy Hollender (interview)

    Wendy Hollender

    Gilly Shaeffer

    Today’s Botanical Artists

    Society of Botanical Artists

    Billy Showell (interview)

    Billy Showell

    Sarah Simblet (webinar)

    Robin Brickman

    Mark Granlund

    Wendy Hollender (webinar)

    Diane Cardaci

    Katie Lee (webinar)

    Bruce L. Cunningham (webinar)

    Jane LaFazio (interview)

    Jane LaFazio

    Mally Francis (interview)

    Kandis Elliot

    Anne-Marie Evans

    Margaret Best

    Elaine Searle

    Mindy Lighthipe

    Niki Simpson

    Anna (Knights) Mason

    Helen Allen

    Birmingham Society of
    Botanical Artists

    Hazel West-Sherring

    John Muir Laws

    Martin J. Allen

    Institute for Analytical Plant Illustration

    Mairi Gillies

    Georgius Everhardus Rumphius

    Liz Leech

    Valerie Littlewood

    Heeyoung Kim

    Anna Laurent

    Linda Ann Vorobik

    Shawn Sheehy

    Gary Hoyle

    Katie Zimmerman

    Mariella Baldwin

    Anita Walsmit Sachs

    Ruth Ava Lyons

    Katie Zimmerman

    Kellie Cox-Brady

    Jennifer Landin

    Laurence Hill

    Gretchen Kai Halpert

    Susan Leopold

    Tina Scopa

  • Global Impact

    Botanists and illustrators strive to document conifers around the world.

  • Nature Near You

    Global Directory of Botanical Gardens
    Botanic Gardens Conservation International
    Search for a Garden

    National Park Service
    Search for national parks at the National Park Service website.www.nps.gov

    National Environmental Education Foundation's Nature Center Guide.
    Find Your Nature Center

    Rails-to-Trails
    Find a trail for hiking, walking, cycling or inline skating. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and its volunteers work to convert unused railroads into trails for healthful outdoor activities.
    Search their national TrailLink database to locate a trail near you.

    Sierra Club Trails
    Locate trails for hiking, cycling, climbing, and many other outdoor activities.
    Search Sierra Club Trails

  • © 2007-2022 by Tania Marien. All rights reserved.
    Contact Tania

    Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Artists retain the copyright to their work.

    The ArtPlantae® logo is a registered trademark.

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • ArtPlantae Today
    • Join 1,788 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • ArtPlantae Today
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: