Group Exhibition: Raja Ram Sharma • 18th & 19th Century European Garden Plans • 19th Century Herbaria • The Island Of Rota

Opening October 22 and on view through January 10, 2011, The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to assemble three bodies of work and an artist’s book that represent varied and sometimes overlapping expressions of reverence for the natural world, and landscape and horticulture in particular. In one room, a collection of 18th and 19th Century European Garden plans commissioned for ambitious private estates is paired with contemporary miniature landscape paintings by Raja Ram Sharma, a resident of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Concurrently, the gallery will present The Island of Rota, a limited-edition artist’s book published by The Library Council of The Museum of Modern Art with text by Oliver Sacks, cliché-verres by Abelardo Morell, and design by Ted Muehling. This tactile volume that considers the unique natural history of a particular island in Micronesia will share the gallery’s intimate front room with a collection of pressed plant specimens by 19th-century amateur and professional botanists. Seen altogether, these works of art, design and natural history celebrate wonders of nature in the hands of refined practitioners.

See below for full press release and selected works.