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Margaret Pieroni OAM, born in 1936 in New South Wales, Australia, is a Western Australian botanical artist, photographer, and Botany who has authored, co-authored, and been featured as an illustrator in books on Australian botany.
As a founding member of the Dryandra Study Group, Pieroni has been a leading figure in the study of this plant genus since 1987. She is recognized for a significant contribution to specimen collection, photography and horticultural research into dryandras, series Banksia ser. Dryandra, formerly regarded as genus Dryandra.
She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for "service to botanical art".
After returning home, Pieroni's husband purchased a house for them in Perth, Australia. Once arriving in Perth, Pieroni began sending enquiries to the Western Australia Herbarium, looking for work as a botanical illustrator. These first applications did not get her a job, but, after joining the Wildflower Society of Western Australia, Pieroni began being noticed by other botanists. This marked the true beginning of her new career in the world of botany, which lasted for over twenty years.
Pieroni’s Western Australia trip has been described by Pieroni as life changing, specifically stating that “after three years of chemotherapy, I made a long-wished-for trip to Western Australia to see the wildflowers and consequently moved to Perth, never thinking I would live so long and be able to immerse myself in studying and painting and drawing the plants."
Pieroni describes the early years of her career in an interview in which she says, “I started doing illustrations for the and they got noticed by the botanists and the herbarium."
In 1983, after working with local botanists, she joined the Dryandra Study Group of the Australian Native Plants Society, and then became their leader in 1987. Her work with this group was driven by the specimen collections of local herbariums. Because only half the specimen collected had been named, Pieroni and the Dryandra Study Group helped discover and name the remaining species. All of Pieroni's work with this organization resulted in her co-authorship of The Dryandras in 2007, which was heavily aided by Tony Cavanagh.
In 1991, at an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia titled Wildflowers in Art – an exhibit featuring a painting done by Pieroni – she, and six Western Australian botanical artists, including botanist Frederica Lucy Erickson (Rica), founded the Botanical Artists Group of Western Australia. Her work with this group culminated with the publication of the book Brush and Gondwana in 2008.
Pieroni was also a member of several other groups in Australia including: the Society for Growing Australian Plants, the Wildflower Society of Western Australia, and the Watercolor Society of Western Australia.
Pieroni worked with many botanists during her time in Western Australia, including Elizabeth George – the author of the 2002 book Verticordia: the turner of hearts, in which she provided 100 botanical paintings.
The Dryandras, published in 2007, is a standout publication for Pieroni as it encapsulates the work which resulted in her receiving a Medal of the Order of Australia for expanding study of Dryandras. As described by the authors, the 244-page book “provides full information on all 135 taxa (94 species and 41 subspecies and varities) as well as several unnamed species. For each, there is a botanical description, distribution map, conservation status, habitat including climate information, flowering period as well as propagation and cultivation information." Supplementing this information are color photographs of the plant and line drawings of leaves, fruit, seeds, and seedlings – all of which were provided by Pieroni. Pieroni’s illustrations and photographs in The Dryandras were generally well received. Specifically, a reviewer of the book wrote that “the photography is excellent. There are several photos of the plants – from a close-up of the flower to the habit of the species, and all large enough to see… The illustrations of the leaf, seedling, follicle and seed for each species assist in diagnosing the specimen and it places this book amongst others on the top shelf of specialist books on Australian flora." This review echoed similar sentiments by other book reviewers.
In 2008, the 144-page book Brush with Gondwana was published by “seven leading botanical artists,” including over 100 illustrations of flora, fauna, and fungi. One review from Artist’s Chronicle describes the book as “lavishly illustrated with a variety of native floral species as well as funghi and native orchids and provides an important record of this influential group of."
Pieroni continued to work on illustrations and paintings from her new house, but the move signified her similar move away from botany. At this point, Pieroni was not in the field, collecting samples and taking photographs, but rather growing her own plants, painting them or drawing illustrations for other scientists. Pieroni also created her own paintings unrelated to the study of botany, some of which have been presented at Western Australian art auctions – one piece selling for $322, recorded in the Australian and New Zealand Art Sales Digest.
She shares these desires in a 2024 interview from the Albany Advertiser, where she says that “I don’t want my works to be the only memory of some of these species. I want them to be there to help people find and identify them." Pieroni also hopes that botanical illustrations will still have a place within botany – something that she personally believes because scientifically correct botanical illustrates are better than pictures at showing “identifying details,” according to Pieroni.
Pieroni's hopes for conservation of botanical drawings stems back to her trip to Western Australia, where she only had photographs and textual descriptions to distinguish the plants.
From 20 July to 30 October 2016, some of Pieroni's work was displayed in the Florilegium Society of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney in the RBGS Gardens to commemorate the garden’s 200th anniversary. This exhibit was shown once again from 31 March to 16 September 2018. This exhibition displayed the work of 64 different artists – both from Australia and around the world, and was funded by Susan Maple-Brown AM. The art presented featured common motifs in botanical art, including growth, reproduction, decay and renewal, which were also common in Pieroni's artwork. A book titled “The Florilegium, The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney” was sold at the botanical garden alongside the exhibition.
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