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Passionate Customer Service Museum Quality Art Prints Customization Options AvailableIn retrospect, it is a story of confusion and mistaken identity. Almost at the same time and in the same place lived two botanists named William Hooker, both famous, both unrelated. One, Sir William Jackson Hooker, lived from 1785 to 1865 and was director of the world-famous and now World Heritage Royal Botanic Garden in London's Kew district. Like most botanists of his time, he was able to explain and depict plants pictorially, but he became famous for shaping the botanic gardens at Kew into what they are today. The other William Hooker lived from 1779 to 1832 - and he is the subject of this article. He became world famous as a natural history illustrator of plants and fruits. Only: On the Internet and also in the "old" media, his great works of art are usually attributed to the noble namesake and Kew director, both are referred to as "William Hooker" and their life dates are usually also colorfully mixed up.
The importance of natural history illustrations can hardly be underestimated: They show functions and structure of (human) body parts, plants and animals. At a time when there was no photography, electron microscope photos or computer graphics, prints, drawings and watercolors were the only way to illustrate the interrelationships of nature. Often the lithographs were hand-colored. So at that time it was not so much about decorative illustration, the illustrations required profound knowledge of natural history and the best illustrators were considered great artists and scientists. The illustrators were therefore usually naturalists or botanists themselves, experts in dissection, preparation and analysis of the objects to be depicted.
Hooker was a student of Franz Bauer (1758-1840), an Austrian botanist and one of the greatest illustrators of his time, who spent the last decades of his life at Kew. William Hooker became the official illustrator of the Royal Horticultural Society and illustrated The Paradisus Londinensis (sometimes called Colored Figures of Plants Cultivated in the Vicinity of the Metropolis), published between 1805 and 1807, with 117 illustrations of new exotic plants found in London and the surrounding area. Probably best known are Hooker's fruit illustrations ("Pomona Londinensis," produced between 1816 and 1818). A selection of them were, and still are, published as "Hooker's Finest Fruits", earning him the reputation of being one of the greatest "pomological artists of all time". The images are so "real" - you almost want to bite into the fruit. Or as the eminent British botanist William Stearne, who died in 2001, described it: The illustrations are "possibly the finest illustrations of fruits ever published, so lifelike and appetising that one almost feels that they could be picked off the plate." Incidentally, William Hooker even gave his name to a particular shade of green: Hooker's Green, a dark, deep green. And to honor him, a genus of plants was named after him: the genus Hookera. Sir William Jackson Hooker, who was elevated to the peerage, gave his name to the mosses of the genus Hookeriales.
In retrospect, it is a story of confusion and mistaken identity. Almost at the same time and in the same place lived two botanists named William Hooker, both famous, both unrelated. One, Sir William Jackson Hooker, lived from 1785 to 1865 and was director of the world-famous and now World Heritage Royal Botanic Garden in London's Kew district. Like most botanists of his time, he was able to explain and depict plants pictorially, but he became famous for shaping the botanic gardens at Kew into what they are today. The other William Hooker lived from 1779 to 1832 - and he is the subject of this article. He became world famous as a natural history illustrator of plants and fruits. Only: On the Internet and also in the "old" media, his great works of art are usually attributed to the noble namesake and Kew director, both are referred to as "William Hooker" and their life dates are usually also colorfully mixed up.
The importance of natural history illustrations can hardly be underestimated: They show functions and structure of (human) body parts, plants and animals. At a time when there was no photography, electron microscope photos or computer graphics, prints, drawings and watercolors were the only way to illustrate the interrelationships of nature. Often the lithographs were hand-colored. So at that time it was not so much about decorative illustration, the illustrations required profound knowledge of natural history and the best illustrators were considered great artists and scientists. The illustrators were therefore usually naturalists or botanists themselves, experts in dissection, preparation and analysis of the objects to be depicted.
Hooker was a student of Franz Bauer (1758-1840), an Austrian botanist and one of the greatest illustrators of his time, who spent the last decades of his life at Kew. William Hooker became the official illustrator of the Royal Horticultural Society and illustrated The Paradisus Londinensis (sometimes called Colored Figures of Plants Cultivated in the Vicinity of the Metropolis), published between 1805 and 1807, with 117 illustrations of new exotic plants found in London and the surrounding area. Probably best known are Hooker's fruit illustrations ("Pomona Londinensis," produced between 1816 and 1818). A selection of them were, and still are, published as "Hooker's Finest Fruits", earning him the reputation of being one of the greatest "pomological artists of all time". The images are so "real" - you almost want to bite into the fruit. Or as the eminent British botanist William Stearne, who died in 2001, described it: The illustrations are "possibly the finest illustrations of fruits ever published, so lifelike and appetising that one almost feels that they could be picked off the plate." Incidentally, William Hooker even gave his name to a particular shade of green: Hooker's Green, a dark, deep green. And to honor him, a genus of plants was named after him: the genus Hookera. Sir William Jackson Hooker, who was elevated to the peerage, gave his name to the mosses of the genus Hookeriales.
.jpg "Wilmot")
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.jpg "The Trumpington Apple by William Hooker")
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![Map of the City of New York [as far north as East 53rd Street], 1885 by William Hooker](/kunstwerke/300px/William_Hooker_-_Map_of_the_City_of_New_York_as_far_north_as_East_53rd_Street_1885_(black_ink_wit_-_(MeisterDrucke-207724).jpg "Map of the City of New York [as far north as East 53rd Street], 1885 by William Hooker")
![Map of the City of New York [as far north as East 53rd Street], 1885 by William Hooker](/kunstwerke/400w/William_Hooker_-_Map_of_the_City_of_New_York_as_far_north_as_East_53rd_Street_1885_(black_ink_wit_-_(MeisterDrucke-207724).jpg)
.jpg "The Beauty of Kent by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Purple Gooseberry by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Loquat by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Poonah Grape by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Wilmot")
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.jpg "The Romana Melon by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Tartarian Crab Apple, 1819 by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Nectarine: Neals Early Purple by William Hooker")
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![Plan of the City of New-York [as far north as East 31st Street], 1817 by William Hooker](/kunstwerke/300px/William_Hooker_-_Plan_of_the_City_of_New-York_as_far_north_as_East_31st_Street_1817_(black_ink_on_-_(MeisterDrucke-184348).jpg "Plan of the City of New-York [as far north as East 31st Street], 1817 by William Hooker")
![Plan of the City of New-York [as far north as East 31st Street], 1817 by William Hooker](/kunstwerke/400w/William_Hooker_-_Plan_of_the_City_of_New-York_as_far_north_as_East_31st_Street_1817_(black_ink_on_-_(MeisterDrucke-184348).jpg)
.jpg "The Scarlet Beurree Pear, 1819 by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Primula Sinensis by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Noblesse Peach by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Pear-Shaped Service Crab Apple by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Dutch Medlar by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The May Duke Cherry, 1815 by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The New York Washington Plum by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Green Gooseberry, 1815 by William Hooker")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-210764).jpg "The Galande Peach by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Cob Nut, 1816 by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Conudray Nectarine, 1820 by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Cypress Leaf and Nuts by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Chaumontelle Pear by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The Damsha Marrow by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Rhododendron Wightii, from Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya by J.D. Hooker by William Hooker")
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.jpg "Palm Tree by William Hooker")
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.jpg "The D")
.jpg "The Kerry Pippin, from")
.jpg "La Royale Plum, 1815 by William Hooker")
.jpg "The Dutch Codlin by William Hooker")