All three of the family’s vellum-bound albums by Clarence Bicknell are being exhibited for the first time, in Cambridge U.K. in March 2026. Exhibition at the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge, February 2026. Three vellum-bound hand-painted albums (The Casa Fontanalba Visitors Books (1906), the Book of Guests in Esperanto (1910) and The Children’s Picture Book of Wild Plants (1908)) and his Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Riviera (1885) are on display with other botanical art of his in the Botany in Print Exhibition, part of the 2026 Arts Week at Trinity.
Listen to the podcast taken from Marcus Bicknell’s live interview on Cambridge Radio…
Cambridge Breakfast: Clarence Bicknell exhibition at Wren Library
Some details…
Monday-Friday 12pm-2pm (last admission 1.50) until Saturday 21st March
Saturday 7th, 14th and 21st March 10.30-12.30 (last admission 12.20)
It is always surprising, when the Wren advertise locally, how many local residents come to visit the library for the first time, assuming they are always closed when in fact they have been open to the public ever since 1695. The Wren Library was designed by Christopher Wren in 1676 and completed in 1695. It contains, among other priceless books, Isaac Newton’s first edition copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with handwritten notes for the second edition and A. A. Milne’s manuscript of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.
We thank Trinity students Audrey Campillo Perry and Cressida Massey-Cook who put the event together under the eye of Nicolas Bell M.A., PhD, Librarian at the Wren Library who organised Clarence’s exhibition there in 2018. The photo, left, is of Marcus with Nicolas Bell at the 2018 exhibit there.