SP/N Gallery Entryway
Prior to entering the Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art exhibition located in the SP/N Gallery at UT Dallas , visitors were engaged by large-scale reproductions of scientific images hung from the ceiling of the gallery's lobby. Sourced from the Louise B. Belsterling Botanical Book Collection held by the Eugene McDermott Library at UT Dallas, these banners spanned the lobby, connecting the gallery to a selection of artifacts on display in the nearby History of Aviation Archive.
Assisted by the addition of thematic way-finding decals located on the lobby floor, which continued throughout the exhibition, these resources served to transform the lobby into a transitional space connecting the local history of both artistic and scientific inquiry to the broader exploration of "organic worlds" and the process of symbiogenesis taken up by contemporary artists Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs. These images were also used to create exhibition posters that visitors could take as a reminder of their experience.
Louise B. Belsterling Botanical Book Collection
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Born in New York, Louise Babcock moved to Dallas in 1902 where she met and married lawyer Edward Belsterling. The couple did not have children which gave Louise ample time to pursue her love of gardening and botany. Over the course of many years, she taught gardening, won numerous garden show competitions, and served as a judge at many others. Her influence was recognized with an iris named in her honor, and in 1941 she published Planting Manual for Dallas Gardens. Mrs. Louise B. Belsterling passed away on April 6, 1970, in Dallas, Texas at the age of 93. Throughout her gardening career, Belsterling maintained an extensive private library of rare horticulture and botany books. In 1971, The Louise B. Belsterling Foundation of the Dallas Garden Club was created, and in 1972, the Louise B. Belsterling Botanical Collection was started at the Eugene McDermott Library.
The collection houses over 400 rare botanical books and continues to grow because of the generous endowment through the foundation.† Several of these rare books were placed on display in the window of the Aviation Collection facing the SP/N Gallery. Belsterlingʼs passion for horticulture made her an expert on local plants and the soil in Dallas. Working in her garden daily, she sought to understand and improve the silty Dallas earth. Dallas soil motivated her collecting botanical books as she cared for and grew to love and know well the plant like of North Texas. Belsterlingʼs concern for Dallas soil directly connects to contemporary works of art with rich and lively soil by Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs in Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art.
*The oldest book in McDermott Library is the 1499 edition of the Incipit Tractatus de Herbarum (Treatise on the Virtue of Herbs) by Arnaldo de Villanueva (1240-1311), which is part of the Belsterling Collection.
†While the Belsterling books do not circulate, we welcome students and researchers to engage them in the Special Collections & Archives located on the third floor of McDermott Library. More information can be found at:
Photo Courtesy of the Eugene McDermott Library Special Collections