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- Tairāwhiti Museum celebrates a talented botanical artist.

A special exhibition showcases the work of Sarah Featon, one of New Zealand’s best botanical artists.

Watercolourist Sarah Featon, who undertook her best-known work in the 19th century, is the focus of a major new exhibition at Tairāwhiti Museum. Colours Deluxe: The Art Album of Sarah and Edward Featon of Gisborne opens on November 27.

Gisborne historian Jean Johnston, who has written a book to accompany the showing and worked with museum director Eloise Wallace on exhibition research, says she too had never heard of Sarah (who was, at one time, a local heroine) until coming across a reference to The Art Album of New Zealand Flora when researching another book saying that a delegation led by suffragist Margaret Sievwright asked premier Richard Seddon when he visited Gisborne in 1894 for a copy of the Featons book to be put in every New Zealand school.

“So I went to Gisborne Library to see their copy of the book and realised what a treasure it is,” says Jean. “When I looked at old copies of the Poverty Bay Herald, I realised how proud Gisborne was of them. It was very touching to read.”

Sarah and her husband Edward were both born in England, migrated separately and married in New Zealand before moving to Gisborne in 1875. Their crowning achievement was the 1889 publication of The Art Album. Using 40 of Sarah’s paintings of flowering plants and Edward’s descriptions, the couple wanting to dispel “the mistaken notion that New Zealand is particularly destitute of native flowers”.

The book was so highly regarded that in 1897, on behalf of the citizens of Gisborne, Louisa Seddon, wife of the New Zealand premier, presented a copy to Queen Victoria to mark her diamond jubilee. The special edition had a new frontispiece painted by Sarah and came in a wooden box commissioned by Gisborne mayor J. Townley, himself a cabinet-maker.

The presentation copy then went on display in London with other jubilee gifts.

This isn’t the first showing of Sarah’s watercolours – 18 were exhibited at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa

Tongarewa in 2019, an event that coincided with the release of a set of NZ Post stamps featuring Sarah’s artwork – but it is the largest with 28 of Sarah’s botanical studies on show until June 25 next year. Some, held by the family, have not been on public display before.

The exhibition also includes three copies of The Art Album of New Zealand Flora, letters, original print blocks and family memorabilia.

Untangling Sarah’s life hasn’t been easy, says Jean, although she has been able to correct some published “facts”, including discovering Sarah’s birth year to be 1847. “There’s also been confusion around the fact that both her parents, who weren’t related to one another, had the surname of Porter.”

There had been no known public images of Sarah and Edward, but Jean was delighted to find photographs in family hands and was, at long last, able to put faces to the names and to have the photos in the exhibition.

“Edward was certainly a man about town in Gisborne,” Jean says, “and much more is known about him but I’ve tried to dispel the notion that he was the dominant partner – they worked very much as a team and appreciated each other’s skills. Sarah was completely au fait with botanical terms and corresponded with eminent botanists of the day, such as John Buchanan.

“The Featons purchased plant specimens from other collectors or plant nurseries, all sent to their home in Gisborne, even from some of the sub-Antarctic islands. In one letter to John Buchanan, who was planning a trip to Stewart Island, Sarah asked him to find someone who might post specimens to her, while in another letter she describes receiving a box from the island that had taken just 10 days to arrive, and remarking on how well packed everything was.”

In 1919, having been widowed for a decade and apparently in need of money, Sarah sold her collection of 134 paintings for £150 to what is now Te Papa Tongarewa.

“It might seem like a sad ending,” Jean says, “but she was very purposeful over a long period in keeping the collection together and intact.”

A new exhibition and book shine a spotlight on one of our leading botanical artists, whose achievements since her death in 1927 have been largely forgotten.

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