This book is magnificent. It’s California history. It’s botanical art history. It’s botany. It’s one person’s efforts to connect people to plants and fifty-six public gardens in California. It’s the only time I’ve ever said “Wow!” about an oleander.
The serigraphs featured in this book were created in the 1970s by Gene Bauer, who then served as the native flora chairman and the chairman of arboretums and botanical gardens of California Garden Clubs, Incorporated. From 1972-1974, Bauer created The Golden Native series comprised of 27 booklets. The Golden Botanical Gardens series followed, and was comprised of 29 booklets printed from 1976-1978. Each booklet was printed by hand and mailed to officers of the her garden club. Bauer printed about 80 copies of each booklet and used knotted yarn to attach the pages of each booklet. In the book’s introduction, Bauer describes how she makes a serigraph, which is a hand-printed silkscreen image.
Original serigraphs by Gene Bauer are in the permanent collections of The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, The Missouri Botanical Garden, The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, Strybing Arboretum, and The Sherman Library and Gardens.
Botanical Serigraphs: The Gene Bauer Collection is available at your local bookstore.
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