Botanical artist, Jessica Tcherepnine was born in Sussex, England and as a child, drew and painted flowers that she found in her family’s garden. After attending a girls’ boarding school in England, she traveled to Florence, Italy where she studied drawing and watercolors. Tcherepnine worked first at Christie's Auction House in London and then at Christie’s in New York City. She married investment manager Peter Tcherepnine in 1973. The couple split their time between Manhattan and their farm near Millbrook, New York, where she maintained a garden. It wasn’t until 1982, after leaving Christie’s, that she began painting botanicals in earnest. Largely self-taught, her garden provided a cornucopia of subjects for her wonderfully detailed watercolors--exactingly captured on paper with her highly discerning eye. Tcherepnine herself stated that “I'm always looking down and up, for bark and dead leaves, as well as flowers. It's the shape and the color you look for. You paint what is, but you are allowed to choose the elements.” James White, Past Curator for the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, has said that “Her work is intense as well as being decorative and scientifically accurate.” She was a founding member of the American Society of Botanical Artists. Tcherepnine had solo exhibitions in New York, London, Paris and Palm Beach, Florida and has won gold medals at the Royal Horticultural Society in London, England. Her works appears in Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, in Pittsburgh; the British Museum of Natural History; Royal Horticultural Society; Lindley Library; Shirley Sherwood Collection (London), and the Benois Family Museum (Peterhof, St. Petersburg, Russia). In 2003, one of her watercolors was presented to Princess Anne, to commemorate her visit to launch the British Memorial Garden in New York City.

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Jerry Hawk, Bedford Fine Art Gallery