Obituary: STS Alumna Anna Laurent

Obituary:

With sadness, we have to announce the death of Anna Laurent, History and Philosophy of Science MSc, class of 2018.

Anna had a passion for research at the art/science interface. Before joining STS, Anna wrote a brilliant book, Botanical Art from the Golden Age of Scientific Discovery (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Afterwards, she continued work in the same direction.

Anna's special historical interest was giant botanical wall charts and technical posters, the kind used extensively in science teaching during the 19th and early 20th centuries. She seemed to know everything about the printers, the printing, and the aesthetics of those representations. She deserves special credit for re-discovering sole surviving copies of some while ferreting in storage rooms and forgotten basement lockers.

I cannot look at these type of posters without thinking of Anna’s work. That will not change. I shall always be grateful to have crossed paths with Anna. Her later work led Anna to create many original pieces. These are impressive additions to the art/science conversation.

Anna described herself thusly,
“I am a flora-focused artist and author, especially interested in the visual depiction of plants - as an author, throughout history, and as an artist, in contemporary practice. My photography is in the permanent collections of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, London; the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles; and is interred in a mountain in northernmost Norway, alongside Svalbard Seed Vault. In 2019 I was awarded a UK visa as an Artist of Exceptional Talent.”

www.annalaurent.com

Words By Joe Cain