Raymond C Booth 1929 - 2015
British horticultural, wildlife, natural history &
surrealist painter and illustrator.
Raymond Booth was perhaps the greatest botanical artist and
illustrator of his generation, and his passion for the natural world shines
through in his highly detailed studies of flora and fauna. His exquisite
botanical paintings were studies of plants that he himself had cultivated and his
intense, yet intimate landscapes almost always depict the woods and fields
around his home in Leeds.
Booth also created a body of work which expressed his deep psychological
connection with the natural history of his beloved Adel Woods and the
surrounding countryside. These images move across both expressionism and
surrealism, they still maintain his exquisite attention to detail, but the
finished works are movingly lyrical.
Booth was a young child when his family moved from the urban
streets of central Leeds to the leafy suburb of Roundhay in the north of the
city, close to Roundhay Park – the second largest urban park in Europe. His
father, a keen rambler, instilled a lifelong love and respect of the British
countryside in Booth, and set him on a path to which he would dedicate his
life.
Accepted into Leeds College of Art in 1946, Booth put his
studies on hold for two years whilst completed his National Service with the
RAF in Egypt. Despite being criticised by his tutors for rejecting the
modernist principles they were teaching, Booth stuck to his guns and worked in
the traditional and precise manner to which he felt an affinity. After
graduating in 1953, he was struck down by tuberculosis, which he had contracted
in Egypt; however, the long months of recovery afforded him the opportunity to
hone his skills as a botanical artist.
His career began in earnest when he submitted work to a
Royal Horticultural Society exhibition in London, and he attracted the
attention of the likes of Sir George Taylor, Director of the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew, and Dr Harold Fletcher, Director of RHS Wisley. After being
commissioned to illustrate a 2-volume book on Camellias, he went on to exhibit
at the Walker Galleries until they closed in 1961. His was picked up shortly
afterwards by the Fine Art Society, where he would exhibit for over fifty years.
A retrospective of his work was held in 2002 at Leeds Art Gallery, followed by
another held by the Fine Art Society in 2011 to celebrate fifty years of
exhibiting with the gallery, which subsequently toured numerous galleries in
Yorkshire.
An intensely private man who rarely left his home in
Alwoodley, Leeds, Booth only attended one of his own private views, and only
once visited the Fine Art Society. He spent his life tucked away in his home,
exploring the woods and fields around Alwoodley and growing numerous specimens
in his garden. He rarely painted anything that he had not observed through at
least one growing cycle. Indeed, in executing his most ambitious commission to
paint 85 illustrations of Japanese flowers for ‘Japonica Magnifica’ with plant
hunter Don Elick, he was sent specimen plants by Elick from Japan which he
planted and grew in his garden. The project spanned twelve years.
Since his death in 2015, his work has commanded increasing
prices at auction – his record for an oil stands at a hammer price of £26,900
in September 2022 and for a pencil drawing £8,500 in October 2023. His first
solo exhibition was in 1975 and since then he has had numerous solo shows both
in the UK and abroad. In 2015 a memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art
Society to celebrate his life, his work and his extraordinary career. Examples
of his work are held several public collections throughout the UK.
“Nothing delighted him more than the freedom to put a few
basic requirements in a backpack and explore the countryside, sleeping under
hedgerows or in woodland, and developing his intimacy with bird and animal
life”.