GREENWICH, CONN.- Artist Francesca Anderson specializes in capturing natural history in her exquisite illustrations of plants and wildlife. Twenty of her scratchboard and pen-and-ink drawings will be on view in the exhibition Flora and Fauna: Drawings by Francesca Anderson at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT. The show opens on Saturday, July 23, and runs through October 30, 2016.

Flora and Fauna brings together a selection of Anderson's large-scale botanical illustrations for which she is best-known and life-size scratchboard illustrations of birds. The three-foot tall, black-and-white images are striking, meticulously drawn from life in exacting detail. Two new pieces created for this show spotlight mounted birds selected from the Bruce Museum collection -- a red-breasted merganser and a barred owl.

The exhibition’s opening day on July 23 includes a special appearance by the artist, who will lead a Scratchboard Workshop for families from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm. Francesca Anderson will discuss how she captures natural history in her illustrations of plants and wildlife, while families with children aged eight and up have the opportunity to create their own sketches and scratchboard drawings inspired by the exhibition. This program is free with Museum admission but registration is required by July 21, 2016. Please register at http://scratchboardworkshop.eventbrite.com. Space is limited.

Anderson’s work has been featured in prominent scientific publications, field guides, books and magazines. Her art has been exhibited in museums in Sweden, Great Britain, South Africa, Germany and Japan and is held in private collections worldwide. Winner of the American Society of Botanical Artists "Artist of the Year" award and two-time winner of the Royal Horticultural Society Gold Medal, Anderson is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, London, a former trustee of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and former director of the American Society of Botanical Artists. She earned her BFA from Manhattanville College, MA from Hunter College, MFA from Brooklyn College and a certificate in botanical illustration from the New York Botanical Garden.

Flora and Fauna: Drawings by Francesca Anderson is organized by the Bruce Museum and supported by Jim and Pat Murphy, the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund, and Connecticut Office of the Arts.