The Exquisite Craft of Mary Delany

January 11, 2022 8:31 AM

"Mary Delany’s stunning works are a remarkable combination of art and science. Often mistaken for watercolours, they are in fact carefully constructed paper collages, or ‘mosaicks’ as she called them. Surprisingly, the story starts when the artist was 72, after she noticed the similarity between a geranium and a piece of red paper that was on her bedside table. The realisation prompted Delany to pick up a pair of scissors and imitate the petals in paper."

Almost a thousand of Delany's works are available online.

She was also an accomplished designer of embroidery patterns.

posted by jedicus (19 comments total)

Oh, I love her - I found a set of blank notecards with her art on them when I was holiday shopping.

Wow, that embroidery is amazing.

Thank you for posting!
posted by needlegrrl at 8:39 AM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

These are stunning. I had never heard of her, thank you for posting.
posted by Cuke at 8:43 AM on January 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

This is incredible.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:48 AM on January 11, 2022

Oh, man, what gifts, what an inspiration, how she by example keeps hope alive. For us all or so should I hope.
posted by y2karl at 9:12 AM on January 11, 2022

I love I love I love! It would be so fun to do a watercolor in her style and try to make it resemble paper.
posted by mochapickle at 9:47 AM on January 11, 2022

Lovely! I am very into following paper artists on insta these days, and she would fit right in.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:31 AM on January 11, 2022

I can’t get over how fantastic these are.
posted by brachiopod at 10:57 AM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I can only aspire to this level of collage. Fantastic.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:09 AM on January 11, 2022

Amazing
posted by bq at 11:39 AM on January 11, 2022

These are shockingly lovely. And new to me, so thanks for that.

That she did it all with scissors is extra daunting.
posted by janell at 12:41 PM on January 11, 2022

Thank you for posting, both links were really beautiful and interesting.
posted by winesong at 1:53 PM on January 11, 2022

Amazing, thank you!
posted by rpfields at 2:19 PM on January 11, 2022

Oh wow, these were lovely and I'm so glad I learned about this today!
posted by TwoStride at 2:29 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Fresh even 244 years later. Thanks for this bright spot in the day!
posted by chrisglass at 2:44 PM on January 11, 2022

Fresh is right. Beautiful!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:32 PM on January 11, 2022

These are lovely! I also found a short video about her work
posted by piyushnz at 4:38 PM on January 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Delany's paper collages are so amazing. I have the Molly Peacock biography, and it is lovely. The embroidery is exquisite and it's very cool that she transferred her botanical knowledge over to a new medium.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 9:14 PM on January 11, 2022

These are amazing, thank you for posting them!
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:04 AM on January 12, 2022

Just incredible. I could look at these for hours. Thanks for posting!
posted by Majorita at 10:45 PM on January 19, 2022