Anne Schweizer  (Rose-Innes) is highly regarded as a Botanical Artist, who has a preference for creating big, bold, life-size works in glowing glazes of watercolour that convey a sense of drama.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1930, she was 9 years old when her family re-located from Irene to a farm in the Northern Free State.   She attended Eunice High School, Bloemfontein as a border.  In 1950 she obtained a Bachelors degree in Art History and Languages from Rhodes University, Grahamstown.  Ann returned to Cape Town in 1951 to pursue her art education at the Continental Art School and studied Fine Art Practical Studies under Maurice van Essche.   She obtained a second degree, BA Honours in Archaeology (UCT 1961) and later attended courses in Geography and Botany.  For a year she was employed as a scene painter at the Hofmeyer Theatre, Cape Town. The high point of her formal working career was the years from 1956-1962 when she held the position of resident artist at the SA National History Museum.  From 1963 Ann has pursued a career as a freelance artist producing archaeological and ethnological drawings, book illustrations and posters, designs for silk-screen printing, and botanical and plant paintings.

Since the Inaugural Kirstenbosch Exhibition of Botanical Art in Cape Town in 2000, Ann has been awarded three Gold and two Silver Medals.  Her paintings have been shown at the Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Smithsonian in Washington DC and the Tryon Gallery in London.  Presently two of her works are on display at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art situated in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Examples of her work can be seen in the following Shirley Sherwood publications:

A Passion For Plants;  A New Flowering;  and Treasures of Botanical Art.

Marilyn Noakes
October 2009

The established Kirstenbosch Botanical Art Biennale has become a well loved and attended show, drawing diverse and enthusiastic crowds to the gardens bursting with the promise of spring. The 2010 exhibition supported by Old Mutual will focus on rare, endangered and narrow endemic species indigenous to southern Africa. SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute) intends to highlight and stimulate interest about the plight of these plants to the public through botanical art. The theme provides an invigorating artistic challenge and encourages artists to build relationships with conservation organisations, scientists, artists and horticulturists. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens and affiliated organisations nationally and internationally will assist artists by providing material, where possible, supplying lists of growers, and indicating flowering times.