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1920 North Forest Avenue, Orlando, Florida USA 32803 407-246-2620
Current Exhibit
Val Littlewood "My Thirty Five Dollar Garden" April 7 - June 23 Garden House Gallery
Artist's Statement
Gradually the Gardens became my second home and the blog accidently turned into a record of the many different and wonderful plants I find here.
The plants have given me so much pleasure over the last year. Their fascinating stories have taken me all over the world and back to the very dawn of time. In over 400 drawings I have barely scratched the surface of what Leu Gardens have to offer. This project could keep me busy for many more years to come. I particularly want to thank all the gardeners who not only make the Gardens such a delight but have also provided me with so much extra advice, information and some wonderful things to draw. It is the best $35 I have ever spent. Valerie Littlewood The drawings and paintings here and from the blog are for sale. Please contact Val if you are interested or would like a painting of your favorite flower.
Upcoming Exhibit
Moth Art and Photography Photographs by Joseph Scheer Dates: June 23 – September 16, 2009 Garden House Gallery
He has published two books about his work; Night Visions, the Secret Designs of Moths, published by Prestel and Night Flyers, published by Nexus Press. We are pleased to display Professor Scheer’s photographs in Harry P. Leu Gardens Garden Gallery. For more images please visit thegreengalleries.com.
Permanent Collections at Leu Gardens
Otfinoski Sculpture for new Home Demonstration Gardens
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It
was just over a year ago that I found myself here in Orlando, an
admittedly hesitant transplant from Europe. With a botanical
painting course to follow, and new fauna and flora to discover, I
joined Harry P Leu Gardens in February 2008 and started recording my
discoveries in an almost daily online blog which now has readers
from all over the world.
300
years ago a fellow English visitor, Mark Catesby looked in wonder at
the beauty and variety of the Southern States, and in a small way I
have been able to share that wonder, wandering around the garden,
encountering both native and
With the
financial support from the Friends of Leu Gardens, Inc., seven metal
sculptures were commissioned for the Leu Gardens’ Home Demonstration Gardens.
Leu Gardens’ Director Robert Bowden discovered Peter Otfinoski and his
pioneering and innovative work at the Maitland Art Festival in 1999. The City
of Orlando’s Public Art Coordinator Frank Holt and Mr. Bowden visited Mr.
Otfinoski’s studio in West Palm Beach to see more of his handiwork. 
landscape design and sculpture as art forms. Both have their own definition of
color, form and texture and when placed together within the context of a large
garden ‘room,’ the individual characteristics of each enhance the other.” | A
self trained naturalist he traveled throughout Mexico, discovering 200 new
species of bromeliads in addition to species of amaryllis, cacti, palms and
peperomia. His discoveries include Aechmea fosteriana (bearing his name) and Aechmea
orlandiana, named after the city of Orlando. Mr. Foster introduced the Tabeuia tree to Orlando and their large yellow blooms can be seen blossoming around many Orlando city lakes. He was awarded the Herbert Medal in 1951 for his work in promoting amaryllids. |
 Mulford Foster Aracae (Ariod Family) 1992 Oil on canvas Gift of the Foster Estate |
 Mulford Foster Cactaceae (Cactus Family) 1992 Oil on canvas Gift of the Foster Estate |
He published
articles in National Geographic, The Smithsonian Annual Report, and The
Journal of the Bromeliad Society. He published a book with his wife
Racine, on their plant collecting travels to Brazil. He was the leading figure of
the formation of the Bromeliad Society in 1948. He served as its
president for twelve years and edited its bi-monthly bulletin. He died
at the age of 89 as the "father of Bromeliads" and a
world-renowned horticulturalist. These abstract works of M.B. Foster earned him the name "passionate plant philosopher" and have been on display at the Maitland Art Center, and shows in New York and Pennsylvania before finding its permanent home at Harry P. Leu Gardens. The Foster Estate presented the paintings as a gift to the City of Orlando in 1992. |
Frank Farmer
Flowers For Janette
Enamel and Aluminum
Rose Room
Flowers For Janette is a six-foot buy ten-foot piece by artist Frank Farmer in 1995. Frank Farmer’s pieces are well known in Miami, Philadelphia and New York. Created by painting enamel flowers on aluminum, this piece resembles an impressionistic rendering of flower groupings, yet the colors are strong and bold.
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Frank Farmer was quoted as saying he is "so happy to have the painting in such a splendid location- the room, the building and the garden. I hope visitors will enjoy it …and that the painting will become not only a focal point but, part of the fabric of a pleasant and civilized setting.
Claire Garret
Dreaming Trees IV
Ficus benjamina and mixed media
Claire
Garret graduated form Cornell University and the School of the Museum of Fine
Arts In Boston. Her three dimensional pieces have been described recreations
of sculptural forms as they once related to nature.
Garrets primary medium is the aerial roots from the Ficus benjamina, a tree indigenous to Florida. She also uses other natural mixed media. Her uses of natural fibers cause us to examine their relationship to the manufactured space the piece is being shown in. Not only concerned in the relationships the piece conjures, Garret also focuses with the emotional or spiritual resonance of nature. Dreaming Trees was purchased by the City of Orlando for Harry P. Leu Gardens in 1992
Garry Mealor
Palm Halves
Watercolor
Palm
Halves was purchased by the city in 1992 from Gary Mealor. It is a
representational image of the well-known Florida Palm. Mealor is a
water-colorist from Tampa. In the past twenty years he has been selected in
numerous juried exhibitions, winning awards in over half.
He has received commissions for two sets of limited prints, one of 90 and the other of 50. Some recipients of the prints are Sears, Abbot Laboratories and GTE. His work can be seen in the permanent collection of Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, WI and the Tampa Public Art Collection. He is a transparent watercolorist so he does not use white or opaque color in his palette. He uses sable as well as airbrush in his application of transparent wash.
Richard Carner
Evidence of Organsity
Wooden Vessel
Carner
became interested in art and the development of craft related skills while
pursuing his Ph. D. in Counselor Education from the University of
Florida.
Carner moved to North Carolina in 1978 and established a cabinet making business that specialized in restoration, where he first began working with lathe wood. In 1987, his work in the Mental Health community brought him to St. Augustine where for the past several years he has been perfecting his technical skills. Working with logs that can initially weigh 800 pounds he transforms them into wooden vessels with walls sometimes less than a ¼ inch thick.
Carner likens this transformation from log to form to a "chrysalis". He "cherishes the moments in which his clarity of vision is successfully translated into concrete action."
Bill Rollo
Camellias
Watercolor
John Catterall
Grove Diptych
Chrissie Mervine,
Tree of Life
Mosaic
Sarah Owens, Cillia-Pod
Stoneware
Why are we given a mouth if we are
not to taste? Why are we blessed with skin if we were not to feel? If we are
to enjoy anything out of life, it should begin with a celebration of the
sensual.
These forms began with nothing but the intentions of showing the sensuality
of the clay body in its raw honesty. This included incorporating elements
such as the stoneware's rough texture, the naturally deep warm-orange color,
and the way the clay lends itself to twisting, turning, bulging, and
curving. The appreciation for these elements is directly related to my own
experience with nature and a desire to appeal to our truest, uninhibited
state of being.
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