A new book and exhibition on the multi-talented Mrs Delany prompts Nicola Gordon Bowe to call for a reassessment of the contribution made by women to Georgian cultural life
This handsome, beautifully designed and profusely illustrated book claims to be “the first to survey the full range of Mrs Delany’s creative endeavors” while revealing “the complexity of her engagement with natural science, fashion and design”. Amy Meyers and Tim Knox, the directors of the exhibition it accompanies, want their respective shows to question “the nature of scientific practice, the value of accomplishment, … the place of the amateur” and “gender and class as constituent parts of one woman’s life and practice”, while Mark Laird, one of the book’s co-editors, has intended to extend the scope of Ruth Hayden’s popular British Museum publications, Mrs. Delany, Her Life and Her Flowers (1980) and Mrs. Delany and Her Flower Collages (1992).
