James Bruce Irwin (17 November 1921 – 4 January 2012) was a New Zealand draughtsperson and

botanical artist Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species. They are generally meant to be scientifically descriptive about subjects depicted and are often found printed alongside a botanical description in boo ...

Biography

Bruce Irwin was born in 1921 in

Whanganui Whanganui, also spelt Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whanganui is ...

. He fell in love with orchids in New Zealand, and attended Whanganui Technical College there. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

began, he was 17 years old and was working at the survey department in

New Plymouth New Plymouth () is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, in Devon, from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. The New Pl ...

. He and his friend Sid Gibson used to collect and draw orchids in nearby

Egmont National Park Egmont National Park, officially known as Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki, is a national park located south of New Plymouth, close to the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The park covers three volcanic cones: Taranaki Maunga and its sl ...

. Despite his military service and a year spent in occupied Japan, he carried out a great deal of work with Sid's son Owen Gibson on

Mount Taranaki Mount Taranaki (), officially Taranaki Maunga and also known as Mount Egmont, is a dormant stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. At , it is the second highest mountain in the North Island, afte ...

and executed a number of orchid watercolors during the war and in the immediate postwar period. Irwin later worked for the Cartographic Branch of the Department of Lands and Survey, where his paintings came to the attention of the botanist Lucy Moore. He quit the Cartographic Branch in 1962 and went to live at his camp in

Marlborough Sounds The Marlborough Sounds (Māori language, te reo Māori: ''Te Tauihu-o-te-Waka'') are an extensive network of ria, sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination ...

. A collaboration with Moore began, which resulted in his illustrating ''Volume II of the Flora of New Zealand'' (1970) and ''The Oxford Book of New Zealand Plants'' (1978). By the 1970s, he had taken a part-time job in the Art Department of Otago Medical School. He largely abandoned watercolors for large-scale pencil drawings, which he felt better illustrated botanical points. After 11.5 years of work on illustrations for ''The Oxford Book of New Zealand Plants'', he retired from his job to pursue orchid cultivation in

Tauranga Tauranga (, Māori language for "resting place," or "safe anchorage") is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty Region and the List of cities in New Zealand, fifth-most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of or roughly 3% of t ...

. In 1986 he did some illustrations for ''Clarkson's Vegetation of Egmont National Park'' and in 2007, Brian Tyler published a book of his drawings. During the last years of his life, he cultivated orchids at the Te Puna Quarry Park. He received a number of botanical awards, and a species of ''

Pterostylis ''Pterostylis'' is a genus of about 300 species of plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. Commonly called greenhood orchids, they are terrestrial, deciduous, perennial, tuberous, herbs found in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caled ...

'' was named after him, '' Pterostylis irwinii''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, James Bruce 1921 births 2012 deaths 20th-century New Zealand botanists New Zealand military personnel of World War II New Zealand expatriates in Japan