Past Exhibitions
Insect Photography Exhibition
Works by Dr. Edward S. Ross
April 10–15, 2024
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of insects at this unique exhibition of work, presented in partnership with Essig Museum of Entomology.
Don’t miss this exhibition of photographs by Edward S. Ross (1915-2016), a pioneer in close-up photography. Ross traveled around the world to capture images of arthropods, plants, mammals, people, and natural landscapes.
Dr. Ross received his PhD in 1941 with the Department of Entomology at UC Berkeley, where he was a teaching assistant for E.O. Essig. Before finishing his degree he was offered the position of Curator of Entomology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco in 1939, and two years later became chair of the entomology department, a position he held for 41 years.
His images appeared in numerous publications including National Geographic Magazine, Insects Close Up, and Insects and Plants. In 2018, Ed’s collection of 100,000 35mm slides were generously donated to the Essig Museum of Entomology by his wife, Sandra Miller Ross, to be digitized and made available for research, education, and outreach.
Gallery hours:
April 10–13/15: 10:00 am–4:00 pm daily.
April 14: 11:00 am–4:00 pm
Free with admission.
Plants Illustrated 2024
Edible California Native Plants
15th Anniversary!
January 17–February 4, 2024
The University of California Botanical Garden is pleased to present the 15th annual Plants Illustrated Exhibition in partnership with Northern California Society of Botanical Artists. This year’s exhibition theme is Edible California Native Plants.
California’s diverse ecological offerings such as plants, mushrooms, and sea kelp have a rich history of human use. Some of these have become treasured for their culinary and medicinal uses, and their beauty. Visit this fascinating exhibition featuring 30 botanical illustrations highlighting both familiar and a few surprising edible plants!
Participating artists:
Gina Baretta, Mary Batchelder, Martha Bennett, Béatrice Bergemont, Bonnie Bonner, Janice Byer, Sophie Chartier, Margi Connelly, Ruth Cox, Clytia Curley, Catherine Dellor, Tamira Elul, Maria Cecilia Freeman, Kaye Herbranson, Susan Hill-McEntee, Laurence Hills, Mimi Kearns, Jenny Kennedy, Mary Ellen King, Heather Kostrzewa, Gwyn Lewis, Andrea LoPinto, Lisa Martin, Lee McCaffree, Dolores Morrison, Sally Petru, Laura Sawczuk, Sylvia Sykora, Barbara Ward, Catherine Watters
Gallery hours: 10:00 am–4:00 pm daily except Tuesdays, when the Garden is closed.
Image credit: Fragaria californica by Susan Hill-McEntee
Views of Berkeley–150 Years of Campus Art
August 16–20, 2023
August 20, exhibition closes at 2:00 pm
Come see Berkeley—the campus, the town, and the Botanical Garden—interpreted through the eyes of artists over the past one hundred and fifty years.
The works on view display a range of media including paintings, prints and photographs—all depicting the landscape of Berkeley. The artists represented mostly lived locally, and range from anonymous to famous. They include William Keith, Edwin Deakin, Chiura Obata, Pedro Lemos, Dorothea Lange, and Eugen Neuhaus (founder of the UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice), among others. Community historian and history writer Steven Finacom has curated the exhibition from local private collections.
In 1873, the young University of California moved from its temporary quarters in downtown Oakland to the permanent Berkeley campus where two new academic buildings stood. It was surrounded by a few scattered homes and farms near the campus. Nature still largely prevailed in the form of sweeping views across the San Francisco Bay, rolling fields and meadows and winding streams lined with native riparian trees and centuries-old oaks. All set against the dramatic backdrop of the Berkeley Hills split by the cleft of Strawberry Canyon.
Visitors will enjoy an immersive exhibition showcasing the beauty and grandeur of the evolving landscape of the UC Berkeley Campus and surrounding city. The exhibition will be on display in the Julia Morgan Hall from Wednesday, August 16–Sunday, August 20. Gallery hours are 10:00 am–4:00 pm, except on Sunday, August 20, exhibition closes at 2:00 pm.
Image 1: Marie Guelld, The Japanese Pool at the UC Botanical Garden, date unknown, watercolor.
Image 2: Robert Kasimir, untitled, 1936, etching
Images courtesy of Steven Finacom
Plants Illustrated 2023: Drought Resilience
January 13–February 2, 2023
The University of California Botanical Garden is pleased to present the 14th annual Plants Illustrated Exhibition. This year’s exhibition theme is “Drought Resilience,” and features a diverse selection of species that thrive in low-water conditions. The exhibition includes images of California Native plants, along with a selection of species from around the world. This exhibition continues the Garden’s partnership with the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists. Gallery hours: 10:00 am–4:00 pm daily except Monday-Tuesday, January 16-17, when the Garden is closed.
Participating artists:
Nina Antze, Cindy Barber, Gina Barretta, Mary Batchelder, Beatrice Bergemont, Bonnie Bonner, Cynthia Byrne-Margetts, Ruth Cox, Clytia Curley, Catherine Dellor, Shelly Euser, Maria Cecilia Freeman, Mary Ellen Grimes, Elizabeth Hansell, Kaye Herbranson, Laurence Hills, Kristin Jakob, Mimi Kearns, Patricia Larenas, Tina Locke, Andrea LoPinto, Susan Mark-Raymond, Lisa Martin, Lee McCaffree, Susan McEntee, Anna Milogorodskaya, Dolores Morrison, JoAnne Osberg, Judy Paris, Sally Petru, Jan Reddick, Sylvia Sykora, Connie Van Ness, Barbara Ward, Catherine Watters
Visit the Garden Shop to purchase the Plants Illustrated set of four notecards.
Some work in the exhibit is available for sale directly from the artists. Pricing information is included in our Virtual Exhibit slideshow. Click button below.
Plants Illustrated Virtual Exhibition
Image: Barbara Ward, California spicebush (Calycanthus occidentalis)
UCBG Florilegium Exhibition
November 18–December 1, 2022
The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley Florilegium. A florilegium is a collection of illustrations featuring plants growing in a specific area such as a botanical garden. This Florilegium 2022 exhibition featured twenty illustrations of plants in the collection by 18 artists, who selected their subjects from a list of iconic plants. Centuries before digital or analog photography was commonplace, people relied on detailed botanical illustrations to identify plants and flowers. The 18 participating artists are continuing this rich legacy. Through a range of media, the works on view capture the plant information from root to leaf tip, and more. Viewers enjoy the delicate beauty of each artwork, its subject painstakingly rendered; a testament to the artists’ technical skill and love of plants.
The project was conceived by renowned botanical illustrator and instructor, Catherine Watters, and developed with the support of staff and Advisory Board members Laura Sawczuk, Gina Baretta, and Katherine Greenberg. Advisory Board Member and former Director of Collections Chris Carmichael and Curator Holly Forbes developed the list of iconic plants from the collection for inclusion in the project.
We invite the public to explore The UCBG Florilegium—where art, history and science tangibly intersect. The exhibition is hosted for two weeks in November. Free with Garden admission.
Participating 2022 artists include: Rubi Abrams, Latifat Apatira, Cindy Barber, Gina Barretta, Mary Batchelder, Hyunjin Cho, Elaine Goldstone, Elizabeth Hansell, Erika Hargesheimer, Linda Kam, Deborah Kass, Heather Kostrzewa, Lynne Lyle, Lisa Martin, Lee McCaffree, Sally Petru, Vi Strain and Catherine Watters.
This was the first in a series of several annual exhibitions, culminating in a publication of the UCBG Florilegium that will include all works in the collection. The 2023 show is scheduled for November 3-16, 2023.
Watch the online slideshow to see all the 2022 artwork from the UCBG Florilegium exhibition.
Image: Latifat Apatira, Blechnum penna-marina
Dana Gardner: Fauna
October 25 – 31, 2022
Fauna, is an exhibition of work by Bay Area artist Dana Gardner. Gardner’s interest in nature, and specifically birds, is informed by his childhood spent in the wooded river valleys of southeastern Minnesota. Gardner’s engaging illustrations provide a glimpse in to a variety of birds, mammals and insects within their natural habitats. Over 60 works will be on view including two richly detailed watercolor images featuring the abundant fauna of the Garden. The animal life of the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley has always been a source of interest for visitors. Created exclusively for the Garden, the watercolor illustrations are featured on puzzles and Giclée prints, available in the Garden shop. Also available for purchase in the Garden Shop is the “Illustrated Guide to Common Animals of the East Bay Hills,” a beautiful pocket field guide with original illustrations by Dana Gardner. We invite visitors of all ages to enjoy the beauty and wonder of faunal life through the work of Dana Gardner.
About the Artist:
Local artist Dana Gardner grew up in a small town in the wooded river valleys of Southeastern Minnesota. His time spent in this rural environment inspired his life-long fascination with nature, especially birds, and in painting and drawing. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he was introduced to the tropics while serving in the army in the Panama Canal Zone. While in Panama, he met renowned ornithologist, Alexander Skutch, with whom he worked for the next 28 years. Following his military stint, he traveled the world, spending time in Colombia, Costa Rica and Thailand. He has illustrated over two dozen books, including guides to the birds of Costa Rica, Belize and Malaysia, to name a few. Gardner currently resides in Berkeley, California.
Plants Illustrated 2022: The Beauty of Leaves Exhibition
January 14 – February 3, 2022
The University of California Botanical Garden proudly presents our 13th annual Plants Illustrated exhibition, a celebration of botanical art in partnership with the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists. View an exquisite array of botanical illustrations by local artists, featuring a diversity of plant subjects, in our online virtual gallery here.
Botanical Entanglements: An ecological art exhibit
March 12 – 18, 2022
Botanical Entanglements is a site-specific ecological art exhibition that explores embedded histories in plant form. With this work, artist, and ecologist Dr. Juniper Harrower is interested in the ethnobotanical histories and localized ecologies of specific plants at the botanical garden and in her Berkeley neighborhood. She asks, how have colonialism and development fractured these human-plant relationships? What are the roles that plants play in constructing our identities and how do we in turn influence their ways of living? Read the Berkeleyside article here.
The Book of Life: A Photographic Bibliography
February 8th through 22nd
Each plant has a story to tell. Each plant is not just a bundle of striving molecules like us, but a set of ideas-made-flesh, a library in bloom. In the exhibit The Book of Life: A Photographic Bibliography, Artist-in-Residence Becky Jaffe pairs her photographs of the UC Botanical Garden with books on ecology, evolutionary biology, and ethnobotany in a visual ode to Nature’s spellbinding storytelling.
Plant Fiber Enclosure: Origins by Maria Paz Gutierez
May 2017
Plant Fiber Enclosure: Origins comprises a two-semester seminar where graduate architecture students have explored methods to integrate traditional and digital craft in fiber enclosures. Students first studied fabrication techniques with plant fibers originated in primitive habitats. The installation developed in the Spring semester consists of a fully natural fiber 3D printed and 3D woven six feet height structure inspired by the process of construction of a weaver bird’s nest.
Local Color: Seeing Place Through Water Color with Mimi Robinson
April 5 – April 12, 2017
Come celebrate the colors of Spring at the UC Botanical Garden. Please join us for a special installation of Mimi Robinson’s artwork documenting the unique colors of our special garden at this time of year.
DISPERSAL: Seed Pod Photography by Anna Laurent
January 17 – 30, 2017 | 10 am – 4 pm
Individually, each photograph is a fine art portrait of a unique botanic specimen; as a series, it is a scientific inquiry into the diversity of botanic design. Each includes companion text about the specimen’s form & function.
Anna Laurent is an artist with a unique insight into the natural world. In her series Dispersal, she explores the myriad forms through which plants reproduce. To the uninitiated, Laurent’s close up portraits of flora and seeds could easily be mistaken for works of abstract art or images of contemporary sculpture. From samples collected as far afield as Hawaii and Kurdistan, Laurent’s work serves as a stunning reminder of the diversity, beauty and fragility of the natural world.
Contained Measures of a Kolanut
May 14, 2016
Contained Measures of a Kolanut presents an array of tables with diagrams, maps, and images, among other things, that explore the rituals and cultural histories associated with the kolanut: a bitter nut from the kola tree indigenous to tropical African rainforests that is a natural source of caffeine. Over the course of four hours Nkanga sits at one of the tables surrounded by various pictures and materials and asks participants to sit with her, while she engages them in discussion and invites them to partake in her variation of a kolanut ceremony.
David Lance Goines
March 26 – April 7, 2016 | April 13 – 24, 2019
The UC Botanical Garden is pleased to host an exhibition of the artwork of David Lance Goines in the historic Julia Morgan Hall. His work has been exhibited around the world from the Museum of Modern Art to the Smithsonian. He has long-standing ties to Bay Area treasure Chez Panisse, and we are thrilled to bring his work to the Garden.
Foods of the Americas
Explore our annual exhibit filled with colorful displays of foods first cultivated by ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Incan cultures. These include corn, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, squash, peppers, amaranth, quinoa and chocolate. Take an ethnobotanical tour of our Mexico, Central and South American collections, and special Crops of the World Garden and Tropical House.
The Alcatraz Floreligium
January 16 – 29, 2016 | 10 am – 4 pm
The Northern California Society of Botanical Artists (NCSBA) in collaboration with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Garden Conservancy has created a florilegium, a series of botanical paintings, to document the plants of The Gardens of Alcatraz. The UC Botanical Garden is thrilled to welcome the NCSBA to exhibit this special showing of the Alcatraz Florilegium, with over 70 drawings and paintings, in our beautiful Julia Morgan Hall.
Biotic Portal at Strawberry Creek
Spring 2015 – Fall 2016
In collaboration with Denise Newman & Hazel White and Chris Carmichael & Deepa Natarajan of the UC Botanical Garden, witha generous grant from the Creative Work Fund. For us, it was a chance to take poetry off the page and work with a community—to produce a substantial public poem (the index). It changed us, providing an experience, for almost two years, of poetry as a practice alive outside ourselves and wrestling with contemporary matter.
Plein Air Blitz: Painting Exhibition & Demonstration
November 11, 2015
Live painting demonstrations in the Garden by members of the Glover Group, a group of dedicated plein air artists and students of the late and renowned artist Pam Glover, and a special one-day exhibition of work. Associated sale proceeds benefit the UC Botanical Garden’s education programs.
Art Exhibition: Watercolors by Gary Bukovnik
August 25 – September 3, 2015 | 10 am – 4 pm
Bay Area watercolorist, Gary Bukovnik, has brought the artist’s eye to interpreting flowers for more than 30 years. At a time when modern American artists seem to have abandoned floral works, Bukovnik has made an illustrious career painting vibrant compositions of flowers.
Bukovnik’s work has appeared in many major art museums including the de Young, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian, and others, Bay Area residents may recognize Bukovnik’s work from the San Francisco Symphony’s annual poster, which he has contributed to for the past 29 years.
Following in the Bartram’s Footsteps
December 15, 2014 – February 15, 2015
This major art exhibition curated by the American Society of Botanical Artists, includes forty-four original artworks based on the native plant discoveries made by John and William Bartram in their renowned and influential travels throughout the Eastern wilderness between the 1730s and 1790s. The UC Botanical Garden will be the only West Coast showing of this exhibition.
Natural Discourse
July 14, 2012 – January 20, 2013
Natural Discourse: Artists, Architects, Scientists & Poets in the Garden is a collaborative project between The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG) and a multi-disciplinary group of artists, writers, architects and researchers who have been invited to spend time in UCBG’s extraordinary collection of plants, engage with the horticulturalists and develop new site specific work. The resulting works are as varied and multi-dimensional as the individuals who created the pieces.
Participating artists are Mary Anne Friel, Todd Gilens, Matt Suib, Nadia Hironaka, Hazel White, Denise Newman, Deborah O’Grady, Ron Real, Viginia San Fratello, Gail Wight, Nami Yamamoto, Mitch Maher, Shirley Watts, Shane Myrbeck and Jane Flint.
Artist in Residence: Marion Brenner
March 8 – March 15, 2013
The Garden presents a selection of renowned photographer and Berkeley resident Marion Brenner as our first Artist in Residence. Ms. Brenner has created a body of work featuring the beautiful plants and landscapes of the Garden and we are pleased to display this work in a one-woman show at the Garden.
Planting Comics
June 21 – July 30, 2010