Artists

Thalia Lincoln studied Fine Art at the University of Cape Town and worked as a commercial artist before turning to botanical art, only in her 40s. Unusually, she worked with many layers of painstakingly applied Derwent coloured pencil crayon, unlike most botanical artists who use watercolour paint to create their work. Although she drew from specimen plants in her studio, she always insisted on experiencing the plant’s natural habitat in the wild, even if that meant trekking to remote difficult-to-access Cape mountain sites to study rare species.

She was voted The Star Woman of the Year in 1982 for her collaboration with botanist John Rourke on the monograph Mimetes: An Illustrated Account of Mimetes salisbury and Orothamnus pappe, Two Notable Cape Generea of the Proteacea (Tiyan, 1982) and received the Kirstenbosch Biennale Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Her work is represented in many public and private collections including the First Rand, Standard Bank and Shirley Sherwood Collections.