Malcolm Ian Howie

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Malcolm Ian Howie
Born(1900-03-26)26 March 1900 [1]
Creswick, Victoria,[1] Australia
Died21 January 1936(1936-01-21) (aged 35) [1]
Frankston, Victoria,[2] Australia
Example of an illustration by Howie, featuring blue pincushions (Brunonia australis) and running postman (Kennedia prostrata). Originally painted for, and published by the Weekly Times in 1934.
Example of artwork painted by Malcolm Howie, held by the State Botanical Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.

Malcolm Ian Howie (1900–1936) was an Australian self-taught commercial and botanical watercolour artist and Methodist local preacher.[3]

Life[edit]

From the age of 16, Howie was unable to walk due to Spinal muscular atrophy.[2][4] He was often accompanied on his preaching engagements by the botanist James Hamlyn Willis, who had married Malcolm's sister, Mavis Eileen Howie.[3] An accomplished debater, he wrote "verse and short plays," and entered the Royal South Street Society literary competition in 1933, winning second place.[1]

By 1926 Howie was employed as a commercial painter, supplying artwork featuring birds and wildflowers, for calendars and suedework.[1] By 1931, James Hamlyn Willis and Ethel McLennan had encouraged Howie to expand his repertoire to include fungi, and his paintings increasingly appeared in scientific publications.[1][5] Approximately 200 watercolours of fungi, produced between 1931 and 1935, have survived.[6] Paintings by Howie are held in the State Botanical Collection of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.[4] A further 84 paintings are held by the University of Melbourne Herbarium.[7][8][2]

Publications[edit]

Howie's watercolour illustrations of fungi and ferns were published in the following works:

  • James H. Willis. 1934. The Agaricaceae or 'gilled fungi'. Some species common in Victoria. Victorian Naturalist 50: 264–298.[9][8]
  • Richard W. Bond and Charles Barrett. 1934. Victorian ferns: descriptions of all the species occurring in the State (Melbourne: Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria).[1][8]
  • James H. Willis. 1941. Victorian fungi: a key and descriptive notes to 120 difference toadstools (family Agaricaceae) with remarks on several other families of the higher fungi. (Melbourne: Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria).[3][10]
  • A series of paintings were published in The Weekly Times Wild Nature Notes column.[11][12]

Exhibitions[edit]

His work has been posthumously exhibited, particularly in Melbourne. Exhibitions include:

  • Hidden in Plain View: The Forgotten Flora Australian touring exhibition curated by Teresa Lebel, Josephine Milne, and Karen Beckmann, from 2007 to 2009.[13][14]
  • The Eternal Order in Nature: the Science of Botanical Illustration at the Domain House and Gallery between 18 July and 7 August 2011.[15]
  • Artists' depictions of Natural History: Fungi, Ferns and their Allies at the Domain House and Gallery in October 2013.[8]
  • From botanical illustrations to research: Watercolours from the University of Melbourne Herbarium at the University of Melbourne in 2015.[16]
  • Still Life at Buxton Contemporary in 2022.[17][18]

Influence[edit]

Howie has also been cited as an inspiration for The Red Room Company poet Bonny Cassidy.[19]

Examples of paintings[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Barrett, Charles (June 1936). "A Painter of Fungi". The Victorian Naturalist. Melbourne: Brown, Prior, Anderson Pty. Ltd. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Howie, Malcolm Ian (1900–1936)". Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria, Australian National Herbarium, Biographical Notes. Australian National Herbarium. 10 June 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "James Hamlyn (Jim) Willis (1910–1995)". Willis, James Hamlyn (Jim) (1910–1995). Australian National University. 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2022. He accompanied Malcolm and his sister Mavis Eileen Howie to preaching engagements and on wildflower collecting excursions. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  4. ^ a b May, Tom (Autumn 2014). "Bringing Mushrooms Alive: Malcolm Howie Watercolours in the State Botanical collection" (PDF). Botanic News. Melbourne: The Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  5. ^ "The study of Australian fungi: The twentieth century". Australian National Botanic Gardens. Australian National Botanic Gardens and Australian National Herbarium, Canberra. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  6. ^ "Malcolm Howie Watercolours". School of BioSciences. The University of Melbourne. 6 February 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  7. ^ Clarke, I.C. (1990). "The history of the herbarium, School of Botany, University of Melbourne". History of systematic botany in Australasia. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Systematic Botany Society. pp. 13–21. ISBN 9780731684632. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d Sanger, Sandra; McDiarmid, Pam (Spring 2013). "From the Forest to the Foreshore" (PDF). Botanic News. Melbourne: The Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  9. ^ Willis, J.H. (June 1934). "The Agaricaceae or Gilled Fungi: Some Species Common in Victoria". The Victorian Naturalist. Melbourne: Brown, Prior & Co. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  10. ^ Pouliot, Alison (2018). The Allure of Fungi. Clayton South: CSIRO Publishing. p. 124. ISBN 9781486308576.
  11. ^ "Wild Nature Notes". The Weekly Times. Melbourne. 14 April 1934. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  12. ^ "Wild Nature Notes". The Weekly Times. Melbourne. 20 January 1937. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  13. ^ Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (2008). Curiosity Cabinet. South Yarra: Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. p. 4.
  14. ^ "Hidden in Plain View : the Forgotten Flora". State Botanical Collection of Victoria Library. Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Retrieved 28 January 2022. The exhibition comprised principally original works of art, specimens, and other objects from the State Botanical Collection, plus some material borrowed from private individuals. The exhibition toured to: Horsham Regional Art Gallery (9 January-4 March 2007); McClelland Gallery and the Australian Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne (7 April-11 June 2007); Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery (20 August-7 October 2007); Gippsland Art Gallery (13 October-11 November 2007); Domain House, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (24 November-17 December 2007); National Museum of Australia, Canberra (13 March-9 June 2008); Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston (16 August-16 November 2008); Gordon Gallery, Geelong (25 February-8 April 2009); Museum of Economic Botany, Adelaide Botanic Garden (5 June-30 September 2009).
  15. ^ "The eternal order in nature : the science of botanical illustration / curated by Mali Moir and Amanda Ahmed". Deakin University Library. Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Retrieved 9 June 2023. Catalog of an exhibition held at Domain House, Dallas Brooks Drive, South Yarra, from 18 July to 7 August 2011
  16. ^ "From botanical illustrations to research: Watercolours from the University of Melbourne Herbarium". Baillieu Library. The University of Melbourne. 27 March – 28 June 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2022. The watercolours, also from the Herbarium, were produced by gifted commercial and natural history artist, Malcolm Howie (1900–1936).
  17. ^ "University of Melbourne Herbarium". Facebook. The University of Melbourne. 2 June 2022. Retrieved 3 June 2022. The exhibition also features the beautiful fungi watercolours by Malcolm Howie and botanical models from our collection.
  18. ^ Rhonda Dredge (7 September 2022). "Overlooked species on our doorstep". Southbank News. Hyperlocal News Pty Ltd. Retrieved 9 June 2023. Twenty watercolours from the collection at the University of Melbourne Herbarium are currently on show in Still Life at the Buxton Contemporary in Southbank.
  19. ^ "New Shoots: Bonny Cassidy Draws Inspiration from the Herbarium". The Red Room Company. 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2022. I decided that Howie's life and images would feature in my poem as perhaps a narrative or ekphrastic allusion.
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