Full Summer

Most of Amy Katherine (A. K.) Browning’s paintings of cut flowers arrangements were painted over a period of days in a specific light. Although the fragility and transience of many of her flower paintings give the impression that they were painted at great speed, this was not often the case. She generally made detailed sketches first before taking time to paint the final composition. In her book, A.K. Browning: an Impressionist in the Women’s Movement, Joanna Dunham points out that Browning’s solo exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in 1925 consolidated her reputation as a flower painter but asserts that, combined with her gender, this was a significant way that Browning’s recognition an important artist was denigrated. This was apparently the main reason that Browning signed her paintings without revealing her first name so as to disguise the fact that she was a woman, in order that her work was judged on equal terms with her male colleagues.

Gardening and flowers were an integral part of Browning’s creative life. Her mother, Katherine, created an extraordinary garden at the farmhouse that the family moved to at Kitchen End near Silsoe in Bedfordshire in 1897. Three of Katherine’s daughters inherited her love of gardening and Browning’s own passion revealed itself early in life through her numerous paintings of flowers. In 1927, Browning moved with her husband to Suffolk where they inherited a large, secluded mature garden that continued to provide her with a fresh supply of flowers to paint. Moving to Benhall, Suffolk in 1942 gave Browning access to a walled garden with a herbaceous border and some unusual plants ‘… all very paintable’ as Dunham notes in her biography.