With almost 200 entries in floral design, horticulture, botanical arts and photography, Art Blooms! 2015 Beauty Reigns attracted entrants from Akron, Cleveland, throughout Ohio and as far as Houston, Seattle and Maine and had 450 visitors.  The show took inspiration from the museum’s January 24-May 3 exhibition, Beauty Reigns:  A Baroque Sensibility in Recent Painting, which featured the work of 13 emerging and mid-career abstract painters.  Arrayed throughout the galleries were 23 artistic floral designs inspired by works at the museum.  There were 39 classes of horticultural specimens, 16 entries of botanical arts, three dozen nature photographs of fine-art quality and a conservation exhibit about pollinators.

West Side Leader, May 7, 2015,   Akron Garden Club Announces Flower Show Winners >

Akron Beacon Journal, April 10, 2015,  Great Fakes:  Plant Materials Masquerade as Gems in Botanical Arts >

Photo credit:  Joe Levack