Author(s): Alex George

Art

With their bold flowering and fruiting spikes, banksias remain a favourite among artists and gardeners alike. A Banksia Album features over 90 stunning full-colour reproductions of watercolours, pencil and sepia-wash drawings, colour prints and early hand-coloured engravings and lithographs of banksias from the National Library of Australia's collections. A Banksia Album covers over two centuries of botanical illustration, from 1770 when the Endeavour's artist, Sydney Parkinson, was the first European to make drawings of banksias at Botany Bay, to 2007 with two prints of Banksia rosserae by Celia Rosser.