An exhibition of prints from hand-coloured engravings opens at Dorset Wildlife Trust's Wild Seas Centre at Kimmeridge from Saturday 3 September to Sunday 2 October. High and Dry: The Almost Forgotten World of Late Georgian and Early Victorian Artists and Engravers will showcase artworks by anonymous artists and hand colourists from that period which appeared in the first edition of The Naturalists Library by Sir William Jardine, the Scottish naturalist. Images from the book which has belonged to the same family since it was originally published in 1840 were digitally restored during the recent lockdowns. 

The exhibition has been organised by Dorset Wildlife Trust volunteer, Nicholas Aldridge who is also restoring the artwork and says, "Images from these books were created by some of the best-known naturalist artists of that time including James Stewart and Edward Lear. Pioneers in their fields, the pictures were engraved by William Lizars, who was arguably the best engraver in Britain, and then hand coloured by an anonymous platoon of watercolourists".  

Julie Hatcher, Marine Awareness Officer at the Wild Seas Centre, says "This exhibition is unlike anything we’ve hosted before. Kimmeridge is a good place for this exhibition because the famous Clavell Tower was built at around the same time that the Naturalist’s Library was published. Sir William Jardine also spent time in Dorset and stayed in Weymouth where he hunted for fossils on the nearby coastline". 

The exhibition will also feature work from Nicholas Aldridge’s Jurassic Coast series including black and white prints and some striking colour work.

The Wild Seas Centre at Kimmeridge is open seven days a week from 11am – 4pm. For more details, please visit our events page.