The Drawing Center

Ocean Flowers: Impressions from Nature was a groundbreaking exhibition, curated by Catherine de Zegher and Carol Armstrong, tracing the role of drawing and botany in the development of early photography in the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on a period of tremendous advances in graphic media, the exhibition featured over 300 beautiful natural-history illustrations from the Victorian era. Ocean Flowers highlighting the fertile exchange between drawings, "nature prints" (direct imprints from plants), hand-colored prints, mounted specimens, and "photogenic drawings" (photographs made without a camera).