Mary Anning

Key aspects of her life and work:

• Intrepid Traveler: After her father's death in 1869, at the age of 40, the unmarried North used her inheritance to travel the world alone from 1871 to 1885. This was highly unusual for a Victorian woman. She visited countries including Brazil, Jamaica, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile, often in difficult conditions, to document plants in their native environments.

• Unique Artistic Style: North rejected the traditional watercolor and plain-background style of Victorian botanical art. She worked in vivid, vibrant oil paints and depicted her subjects within their complete natural landscapes, a method that provided both artistic and scientific value. Her work offered a colorful snapshot of faraway places years before color photography became practical.

• Scientific Contribution: Her detailed and accurate paintings were highly regarded by eminent scientists like Charles Darwin and Sir Joseph Hooker, then director of Kew Gardens. She discovered several plant species previously unknown to science, some of which were named in her honor, such as the pitcher plant Nepenthes northiana.

• The Kew Gallery: North offered her entire collection to Kew and also provided the funds to build a dedicated gallery to display them. The Marianne North Gallery opened in 1882 and remains the only permanent solo exhibition by a female artist in Britain. She designed the interior and the unique, dense hanging scheme herself, grouping the paintings by geographical location. 

Her autobiography, Recollections of a Happy Life, published posthumously, details her adventures and provides insight into her independent spirit and dedication to documenting the natural world.