Hyperreal Pomological Watercolours by Ellen Isham Schutt, 1910

In 1887 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Division of Pomology began hiring artists like Ellen Isham Schutt (1873-1955) to render illustrations of fruit varieties for lithographic reproduction in USDA articles, reports, and bulletins.

 

Colour lithography was used to help the farmer to better understand the subjects mentioned in official publications. As a historic botanical resource, this collection documents new fruit and nut varieties, and specimens introduced by USDA plant explorers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The collection spans the years 1886 to 1942. The majority of the paintings were created between 1894 and 1916. The plant specimens represented by these artworks originated in 29 countries and 51 states and territories in the U.S. There are 7,497 watercolour paintings, 87 line drawings, and 79 wax models created by approximately 21 artists.

All these images and more from Ellen are available as prints in our shop.

 

 

Ellen Isham Schutt

 

At the United States Department of Agriculture was pat of a group of illustrators that included Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Newton, Royal Charles Steadman, J. Marion Shull, and Elsie Lower. There from 1904 to 1914, Schutt painted over 700 watercolours of fruits and nuts. Her subjects ranged from the everyday to the then-exotic, and some show fruit damage from insects, and disease.

Beginning in 1911, the University of California commissioned Schutt to paint watercolours of mostly apples grown locally and showing damage from conditions ranging from disease and insect damage to storage injury. The full series of 286 watercolours painted between 1911 and 1915 is held by the University of California, Davis.

 

 

This way to our Prints Shop for high-quality art.