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20th March 2025

William Nicholson painted this portrait ((1920, NPG) of Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) (1920, NPG) and he also painted her famous shoes in Miss Jekyll's Gardening Boots (1920, Tate). Gertrude Jekyll gardened, designed, worked in partnership with Edwin Lutyens, and wrote many still-influential books. In Roses for English Gardens (1902, reprinted 1982) she explains her colourful, painterly approach and advocates putting roses in loose, natural, mixed borders instead of formal rose gardens. 

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