Sketch celebrates 200 years of the National Gallery with a budding floral takeover

As London’s National Gallery prepares to celebrate its 200th birthday in 2024, art-focused restaurant Sketch is throwing the perfect bicentenary bash. The tenth annual edition of ‘Sketch in Bloom’ takes over the destination’s Grade ll*-listed, 18th-century building in May, with a series of floral installations transforming the neoclassical interiors into an immersive exhibition that nods to the National Gallery’s most notable artists, from Alfred Sisley to JMW Turner.

Journey through 'Sketch in Bloom'

Sketch is known for turning its interior architecture into a canvas for artists and designers, from Martin Creed to David Shrigley, Yinka Shonibare and India Mahdavi. and a recent Pearl Lamb Galleries takeover. 

Now paying tribute to the National Gallery, Sketch embraces the work of four floral artists, whose installations feature throughout the space.

On entering, you are greeted by the work of floristry duo Rebel Rebel, which has adorned the arched reception with botanical wallpaper. Fifteen prints inspired by National Gallery favourites stand proud. Each week the duo will present new bouquets – with blooms mostly cut from their Norfolk garden – as a still-life arrangement. The centrepiece is an interpretation of Edouard Manet’s portrait of muse and painter Eva Gonzalès, which is surrounded with a gold frame suspended from the ceiling, an allows visitors to become part of the painting.

Journeying through to the Lecture Room and Library, Lucy Vail from Lucy Vail Floristry has crafted an installation in tribute to the ‘forgotten impressionist’ Alfred Sisley, who gathered his inspiration from the British landscape and English heritage. Titled Pastoral Inspiration, the floral centrepiece of delicately pressed flowers is a reimagining of Sisley’s The Small Meadows in Spring.

Taking over The Glade’s lofty ceiling, JamJar Flowers combines delicate knots and textiles that drape down into the space. The south London design studio worked with fabric installation artist Mia Sylvia, and utilised botanical materials, from flax fibres to elephant grass, to recreate the colour and movement of JMW Turner’s Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus.

Floral designer Yan Skates showcases Plant Beings, his take on the National Gallery’s A Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. Skates’ floral characters have seemingly leapt off the painting in a human form, and are positioned throughout The East Bar and Pods, with curation by Artistic Statements 

Each artist's playful floral interpretations of iconic paintings immerse visitors in the gallery’s rich cultural legacy.

‘Sketch in Bloom’ will be on display until 27 May 2024 sketch.london