Margaret Mee

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Margaret Ursula Mee (Chesham, England, 1909 - England, 1988) was a botanical artist who specialized in plants from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. She studied art at St. Martin's School of Art, the Centre School of Art, and the Camberwell School of Art in London, England, receiving a national diploma in painting and design in 1950.

She moved to Brazil with Greville, her second husband, in 1952 to teach art in the British school of São Paulo, then became a botanical artist for São Paulo's Instituto de Botanica in 1958, exploring the rainforest and more specifically Amazonas state from 1964, painting the plants she saw as well as collecting some for later illustration. She created 400 folios of gouache illustrations, 40 sketchbooks, and 15 diaries.

Mee died in England in 1988, from a car crash. In her honor, the Margaret Mee Amazon Trust was founded to further education and research in Amazonian plant life and conservation, by providing scholarships for Brazilian botanical students and plant illustrators who wish to study in the United Kingdom or conduct field research in Brazil.

[edit] Books by Margaret Mee

Bromélias brasileiras
The Flowering Amazon: Margaret Mee Paintings from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Flowers of the Amazon
Flowers of the Brazilian Forests
Margaret Mee's Amazon: Diaries of an Artist Explorer
Margaret Mee In Search of Flowers of the Amazon Forests: Diaries of an English Artist Reveal the Beauty of the Vanishing Rainforest
Margaret Mee: Return to the Amazon
Margaret Mee's Amazon: Paintings of Plants from Brazilian Amazonia