Charles Storer (1817,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

- 1907) was an American painter, best known for his finely detailed drawings of ''

Orchideae Orchideae is a tribe of orchids in the subfamily Orchidoideae. Historically, it was divided into 2 subtribes, Orchidinae and Habenariinae. The subtribe Orchidinae alone contains about 1,800 species. However, although some phylogenetic studies hav ...

'' and regarded as one of the most prominent floral painters of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. Other than flowers, he was also renowned for

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s and

still-life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...

paintings.

Life

Born to a wealthy Boston family, Storer was a

drafter A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for m ...

who got into both art and orchids in his 60s. In the 1880s he was studying orchids at Langwater farm and

Ames Ames may refer to: Places United States * Ames, Arkansas, a place in Arkansas * Ames, Colorado * Ames, Illinois * Ames, Indiana * Ames, Iowa, the most populous city bearing this name * Ames, Kansas * Ames, Nebraska * Ames, New York * Ames, Oklah ...

family estate collection. At 1883 he made his art debut, exhibiting at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

. In the years 1895-1904 he was a member of the

Boston Art Club The Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts, serves to help its members, as well as non-members, to access the world of fine art. It currently has more than 250 members. History The Boston Art Club was first conceived in Boston in 1854 with the co ...

.Alrich, Peggy & Higgins, Wesley. (2010). Reichenbachia: The Story of a Masterpiece and the People. Orchids. 79. 392-401.
By 1895, Storer had moved to

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

, where he had his studio in the downtown Conrad Building. September 1904 article in

the Orchid Review ''The Orchid Review'', published quarterly by the Royal Horticultural Society, is a magazine 'dedicated to the celebration and deeper understanding of orchids'. It is the world's oldest existing periodical devoted to orchids and each issue feature ...

states Storer provided them with a "handsome" painting of '' Paphiopedilum x rolfei'' from J.E. Rockwell collection. The article also mentioned that Storer had been studying orchids for over twenty-five years. He contributed a painting of '' Cattleya warscewiczii sub. var. rochellensis'' to '' Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described''. A lot of Storer's orchid watercolors found themself in Oakes Ames’ personal collection of orchid paintings (other works there were by the botanist himself, his wife Blanche, J.L. Macfarlane, Putzys, and several unidentified artists). The genera represented in the Ames collection are ''

Cypripedium ''Cypripedium'' is a genus of 58 species and nothospecies of hardy Orchidaceae, orchids; it is one of five genera that together compose the subfamily of lady's slipper orchids (Cypripedioideae). They are widespread across much of the Northern He ...

'', ''

Cattleya ''Cattleya'' () is a genus of orchids from Costa Rica south to Argentina. The genus is abbreviated C in trade journals. Description Epiphytic or terrestrial orchids with cylindrical rhizome from which the fleshy noodle-like roots grow. Pseu ...

'', and ''

Selenipedium ''Selenipedium'' is a genus of the Orchid family (''Orchidaceae'') (Subfamily ''Cypripedioideae''). The genus has been given its own tribe, Selenipedieae, and subtribe, Selenipediinae.Pridgeon, A.M.; Cribb, P.J.; Chase, M.W. & F. N. Rasmussen (19 ...

''. This collection was gifted to the

Massachusetts Horticultural Society The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, sometimes abbreviated to MassHort, is an American horticultural society based in Massachusetts. It describes itself as the oldest formally organized horticultural institution in the United States. In its m ...

Gallery

Still Life of Orchids in an Urn.png, ''Still Life of Orchids in an Urn'' Still Life with Game Bird.png, ''Still Life with Game Bird'' Cypripedium Bellatulum by Charles Storer, 1898, watercolor.jpg, '' Cypripedium bellatulum''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Storer, Charles 1817 births 1907 deaths Botanical illustrators Artists from Boston 19th-century American artists