“Charting the Divine Plan: The Art of Orra White Hitchcock (1796–1863)”

Art can arise from the strangest of circumstances—as in the case of Orra White Hitchcock, one of America’s first women botanical and scientific illustrators. The wife of Edward Hitchcock, a professor of natural sciences at Amherst, Orra White Hitchcock created drawings—including images of flora and fauna, and geological strata—that were used for her husband’s publications and classroom lectures. The results, which in some instances seem to meld into pure abstraction, are visually stunning.