Overview: Join us at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation for an exclusive behind-the-scenes exploration of our exhibition, Painting the Tulip: Beauty, Science, and Speculation.
Guests will enjoy a guided tour of the Oak Spring Library, featuring a special curated display of rare tulip-related manuscripts, botanical illustrations, and archival materials from the collection that are not included in the main exhibition. The experience continues with an intimate walk through the gallery alongside featured artist Sarah Horowitz, who will share insights into her delicate watercolors, copperplate etchings, and fieldwork documenting historic tulip cultivars from Bayntun Flowers in Wiltshire, England. Along the way, discover how Rachel "Bunny" Mellon incorporated sweeping, tapestry-like tulip plantings into the landscape at Oak Spring. The gathering will conclude with a seasonal fall drink and time for casual conversation in the gallery and shopping in the Oak Spring gift shop.
About Sarah Horowitz: Sarah Horowitz lives at the base of the eastern Cascade Mountains in Leavenworth, Washington where she has her printmaking studio. She previously lived in Portland, Oregon where she was a member of Atelier Mars printmaking studio for fifteen years, and worked as a printmaking and drawing instructor at Portland State University for seven years. Horowitz creates prints, drawings, and produces hand printed and bound artist's books under her imprint Wiesedruck. Her work focuses on formal aesthetics and the natural world, with an emphasis on the ephemeral and memory.
Horowitz recently attended residencies at ArtBellwald in Bellwald, Switzerland, in Twisp, Washington as part of an Icicle Fund program, and drew historic tulips at Bayntun Flowers in Wiltshire, England. Her work can be found in collections nationally and internationally including The Library of Congress, Stanford University, New York Public Library, Boston Athenaeum, and Yale University Bienecke Library. She produces the annual prize for the Yale University Windham-Campbell Prize for Literature.
About Oak Spring Garden Foundation: The Oak Spring Garden Foundation (OSGF) is a philanthropic foundation based at the former primary estate of the late Paul and Rachel Mellon, who were major philanthropists in the U.S. of the arts, humanities, and sciences in the second half of the twentieth century. OSGF is located in the northern Virginia Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains region (ca. one-hour drive from Washington, D.C.). Led by Sir Peter Crane, the Foundation’s inaugural President, OSGF provides workshops, short courses and supports residencies for artists and scholars. Its celebrated Library comprises rare books, manuscripts and works of art relating to horticulture, landscape design, botany and natural history. It is becoming a new center of stimulation of all things botanical, from fundamental research in plant evolution and conservation, to horticultural and plant conservation practice, to the history and art of plants, gardens and landscapes.
Photo Release Statement: By attending this event, you consent to your likeness and image being used for ongoing promotional and marketing efforts.
Availability: This event will be capped at 15 participants. Registrations will be accepted on a rolling basis through Zeffy until full.
Header Image: Jacob Marrel (German, 1614-1681). Selected drawing from tulpenboeken. Utrecht, 1642. Manuscript comprising of 95 water- and bodycolor drawings. Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia.
Select Images of Tulips from Sarah Horowitz
Sarah Horowitz (American)
Tulipa “Archeron” 1913 from Historic Tulips
2024. Etching.
11 3/4 × 8 5/16 inches.
Sarah Horowitz (American)
Tulipa “Lac van Rijn” 1620 from Historic Tulips
2024. Etching.
11 3/4 × 8 5/16 inches.
Select Images of Tulip Collection from the Oak Spring Garden Library
Johanna Helena Herolt (German, 1668-1723)
Two Tulips (Tulipa cf. stellata and Tulipa schrenkii) and two Irises (Iris foetidissima and Iris graminea plena)
Not dated.
Water- and bodycolor on vellum, 15 x 12 ¼ inches.
Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia
Gerard van Spaendonck (Dutch, 1746-1822)
Six studies of tulips
Not dated.
Watercolor and pencil, 14 x 20 5/8 inches.
Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia.