Mid Century Margaret Stones print, Iris flowers, vintage artwork

Margaret Stones (Victoria), Iris Bouquet, mid-20th century, colour offset lithograph on paper, bearing the artist’s printed name lower centre and presented in a period vintage green-and-gilt frame. An elegant botanical arrangement of purple iris, pale green hellebores, rose hips and richly autumnal foliage, displaying Stones’ celebrated combination of scientific precision, graceful composition and beautifully restrained colour.

42cm x 42cm frame overall 

Artist biography: Margaret Stones AM MBE (1920–2018) was an Australian botanical artist born in Colac, Victoria, and is recognised as one of the most accomplished botanical illustrators of the twentieth century. After studying art in Melbourne and developing an interest in botany through the University of Melbourne, Stones moved to England in 1951 and subsequently worked extensively for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. From 1956 she became principal contributing artist to Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, producing hundreds of meticulously observed botanical illustrations, and later created the monumental illustrations for the six-volume The Endemic Flora of Tasmania. Her career received international recognition, including an MBE and appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia, while her works are held in major institutional collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Kew and the University of Melbourne. The NGV presented a major retrospective of her work, Beauty in Truth: The Botanical Art of Margaret Stones, in 1996.