Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature is an exhibition exploring the trailblazing career and legacy of Scottish artist Rory McEwen, whose work is considered one of the major turning points in the development of contemporary botanical art. Presenting over one hundred works, including sculpture and manuscripts, the exhibition reveals how McEwen forged his own personal interpretation of 20th century modernism, portraying flowers, leaves, and vegetables as individual subjects worthy of their own portraits. In tandem with the exhibition, the Driehaus Museum will partner with organizations across Chicagoland on public programs, classes, and exhibits, including Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods, Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago Scots, the Magnificent Mile Association, The Morton Arboretum, Old Town School of Folk Music, and The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature will be on view at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie Street from May 16 to August 17, 2025.

Using the exhibition as a catalyst, the Driehaus Museum has reached out to cultural institutions across Chicagoland to present a series of programs to expand perspectives of nature. From the city to the suburbs, visitors can connect to Rory McEwen through companion exhibitions and displays at the Brushwood Center, Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago Scots, The Morton Arboretum, and The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum; classes and workshops at the Driehaus Museum, Chicago Botanic Garden, The Morton Arboretum, and The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum; concerts in the Driehaus Museum’s Murphy Auditorium in partnership with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Brushwood; a summer concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music; and much more. For a full list of programs and updates, visit driehausmuseum.org.

“Central to the strategic vision of the Driehaus Museum is building community through partnerships and I am proud of the strong city and suburb partnerships we have cultivated around Rory McEwen,” says Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lisa M. Key. “This includes events, classes, workshops, musical performances, and companion exhibitions at partner organizations that complement McEwen’s exquisite visual art with other compelling perspectives into nature and music. We are always looking at ways to broaden the visitor experience and our many partnerships are a great illustration of that work.”

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

McEwen’s vibrant paintings balance the scientific detail of traditional botanical art with a modernist perspective influenced by other visual artists of his time. A student of the Old Masters as well as his contemporaries, McEwen developed a distinctive style over the course of his career, painting on vellum and using large empty backgrounds on which his plant portraits seem to float.

In his paintings, he forged his own personal interpretation of twentieth-century modernism, portraying individual flowers, leaves, and vegetables as subject matter, “as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth, my truth of the time in which I live.” McEwen was a modern-day Renaissance man, whose artistry extended to sculpture, poetry, and most notably, music, where he was a successful folk revival musician and host of the popular 1960’s music show, Hullabaloo!

“The ability to give life and luminosity to a spectrum of emotions is what gives Rory McEwen’s art those qualities that distinguish it from the ordinary,” says Ruth L. A. Stiff, guest curator. “As Rory McEwen conceded to Wilfrid Blunt, his drawing master at Eton, ‘I have never really been interested in botanical illustration per se, but rather in that moment when painting starts to breathe poetry.’ “

Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature offers viewers an unparalleled context to explore McEwen’s pioneering artistic vision. The exhibition presents works by McEwen alongside works by the 17th and 18th century painters whom he studied—such as Nicolas Robert, Pierre Joseph Redouté, Georg Dionysius Ehret, and Claude Aubriet—as well as early illuminated manuscripts and folio volumes drawn from the Mellon Collection, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Establishing McEwen’s role in shaping new generations of artists, the exhibition also features the work of contemporary botanical artists who continue to shape McEwen’s artistic legacy. By encompassing a rare ability to see a plant as more than “just” a plant—to imbue his paintings with a sense of his subject’s “soul”—his techniques have had a lasting impact on botanical artists today.

The exhibition includes works on loan from McEwen’s family as well as works drawn from numerous private collections, most of which have never been seen by the American public. Loans from the extensive contemporary botanical collection of British botanist and philanthropist, Dr. Shirley Sherwood, showcase contemporary artists following in McEwen’s techniques and styles.

The Driehaus Museum’s presentation of Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature is generously supported by Greg Cameron and Greg Thompson in memory of Jeff Cameron, the Driehaus Trust Company, LLC., and the Kovler Family Foundation.

Additional support provided by Barbi and Tom Donnelley, Joseph P. Gromacki, Susan and Harlow Higinbotham and The USA Education Charitable Trust, Leslie Hindman, Marjorie K. Staples and Friends of Rory McEwen.

Programming for the exhibition is sponsored by the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.

The exhibition is curated by Ruth L. A. Stiff, Curator of International Exhibitions, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) and accompanied by a full-color catalogue produced by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. It is presented in association with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Virginia) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew with tour management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA. Major support is provided by the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation.

Rory McEwen, (Scottish, 1932-1982) Tulip ‘Julia Farnese’ rose feather, 1976. Watercolor on vellum ©The Estate of Rory McEwen

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Tags: A New Perspective on Nature, Chicago, Lisa M. Key, Loop, Rory McEwen, The Richard H. Driehaus Museum