ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: GILLIAN CONDY

J. Stephen Boatwright (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)

Gillian Sara Condy (1952-) was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and attended primary school in Kampala, Uganda, during which time her love of the outdoors was nurtured. In 1964 she returned to the UK with her parents, where she completed high school, after which she attended Bournemouth Art College for the Foundation course, then studied Graphics and Scientific Illustration at Middlesex Polytechnic, with distinction. This was followed by a Master’s Degree at the Royal College of Art, London with a thesis on ‘British Poisonous Plants’.

After graduating, she freelanced in London and in spring 1977 was the accompanying artist on a five-week botanical expedition to Andalusia in Spain organised by J.W. Carr. Her herbarium and botanical art from this journey are now housed at Reading University (RNG).

She then applied to the International Voluntary Services UK, which took her back to Botswana for two years, after which she took up a contract with the Botswana Department of Education, Primary Curriculum, based at the Lobatse Educational Centre. On completion of her contract, she returned to the UK to await work permits for a contract with the South African National Biodiversity Institute (formally the Botanical Research Institute) as resident botanical artist at the National Herbarium, Pretoria, which began in 1983. A three-year contract turned into 35 rewarding years of service. Her artwork has appeared in many SANBI publications, including more than 400 plates for Flowering Plants of Africa. She also curated the SANBI art collection, organized nationwide art exhibitions and presented art courses. She illustrated two books by Charles Graib, Geophytic Pelargoniums (2001) and South African Grass Aloes in the Veld (2005), where all species were drawn in their natural habitat, something she still loves to do. Gillian also provided most of the biographical entries for South African Botanical Art: Peeling Back the Petals (2001) and eight plates for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. She retired from SANBI in December 2017.

During her career, Gillian also remained active as a freelance artist, contributing to dozens of scientific publications and has organized several botanical art exhibitions across the country, many linked to local and international conferences. She has participated in over 250 group exhibitions worldwide, including those of the Royal Horticultural Society in London, 7^th Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, USA 1992, was awarded gold and silver medals at Kirstenbosch Biennale Exhibition of Botanical Art (2000 – 2010), worked on Exact Imaginations: 300 years of botanically inspired art in South Africa, Standard Bank Johannesburg 2014; curated the 21^st World Orchid Conference Botanical Art Exhibition, Johannesburg 2014; and the South African leg of Botanical Art Worldwide 2018 and 2025 which brought together 30 countries across the world. She has five paintings in the Shirley Sherwood Collection in London.

One of her paintings features in the prestigious Highgrove Florilegium vol. 1, commissioned by His Royal Highness, King Charles along with 4 works in his Transylvanian Florilegium, and works in the Sydney Botanical Garden’s Florilegium, the Sydney Cook and Solander Florilegium and South Africa’s Grootbos Florilegium. She has designed 14 sets of stamps for Botswana Post Office and 4 sets for South Africa. In 1996 she presented a painting of ‘Mandela’s Gold’ to President Nelson Mandela.

Gillian was a founding member of the Botanical Artists Association of Southern Africa (BAASA) in 1999, and current Gauteng Chair. She has received a number of awards for her artwork, including the Jill Smythies Award from the Linnean Society of London (1990); the Beeld Stamp Design of the Year award (1992), the Cythna Letty Medal from the Botanical Society of South Africa (2002), Honorary Life Membership of BAASA (2017), and Certificate of Merit from The South African Association of Botanists (2018). In addition, the cliff-dwelling grass Aloe, Aloe condyae from the Barberton area in Mpumalanga, was named after her.

Since retiring at the end of 2017, she was invited to join the ‘Artist in Residence’ programme at the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve painting plants and a few mammals over a calendar year. She is also currently involved with a project ‘Butterflies and their host plants’, and illustrations for a book on the genus Barleria (Acanthaceae). She continues illustrating for Flowering Plants of Africa and is preparing artworks for the RHS botanical art exhibition.

Watercolor of Erythrina zeyheri Harv.

Watercolor of Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet.

Line drawing of Caesalpinia gilliesii (Hook.) D.Dietr.