A Forgotten Explorer
Regular price $35.50Sydney Parkinson: A Forgotten Ethnobotanical Explorer and Early Predecessor of Today’s Interdisciplinary Approach to Art, Science, and Exploration
Join The Explorers Club for a special lecture recognizing a long-overlooked ethnobotanist who vividly depicted the botanical findings of Cook’s Endeavour voyage.
Sydney Parkinson (ca. 1745 – 1771) was a young botanical artist who served Captain Cook’s Endeavour expedition as a “draughtsman,” a creator of sketches and paintings depicting the landscapes, flora, fauna, and people the voyage would encounter during their three-year circumnavigation of the world. He produced some of the earliest and most complete images and descriptions of islands in the South Pacific before contracting the tropical disease that would claim his life before the voyage concluded. Parkinson’s artwork was regaled as lovely and scientifically accurate and readers found his textual descriptions thorough and insightful, but his contributions were neglected by later scientists due mainly to his vocation as an artist, his youth, and his holistic approach to recording the observations made during his explorations that today we might call “interdisciplinary.” This response can be viewed as indicative of a modern tension between the arts and the sciences that would have been unknown in Parkinson’s era of the well-rounded “natural philosopher,” but that continues to hamper our understanding of the natural world today. Recently, Parkinson has been formally acknowledged as a botanical authority on certain species he observed, a posthumous recognition that represents a step toward the full honor that Parkinson’s brief life of exploration deserves.
In-person tickets are $20 for Members, and $35 for the General Public.
Check-in will begin at 6:00 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 6:00 – 7:00 pm