Jekyll, Gertrude (1843 – 1932) – London, ‘Top of Elm Tree, South Kensington’.

This sensitive study of an Elm may have been made when Jekyll was a student at the South Kensington School of Art. Jekyll went on to be the most influential garden designer in British history, working regularly with Lutyens. Her fame as a gardener, however, over shadowed that fact that she practised as a painter - her approach to garden design being strongly influenced by impressionist painting - interior designer, metalworker, wood-carver and embroiderer. Bill Drummond poignantly observed in his entry for this drawing, 'It is sad to see how changed the [London] landscape is now, with hardly an Elm tree surviving'.