Beatrice Forshall – The Book of Vanishing Species

Beatrice will be sharing stories of species at risk of extinction, talking about the process of making their engravings and of reasons for hope. A collection of the artworks she made for the book will be on display during the talk.

We’re delighted to announce that Beatrice will join us for a captivating evening in the Heligan Kitchen on Thursday 30th May.

Beatrice Forshall was born in France; she spent her early years there and in Catalonia. She studied illustration at Falmouth College of Art, specialising in dry-point engraving. She has since exhibited regularly throughout the UK. Her work has always drawn upon the natural world, and her printmaking revolves around themes central to conservation.

From 2017 to 2019 Beatrice was artist-in-residence with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a collaboration between researchers, policymakers and practitioners from the University of Cambridge and leading biodiversity conservation organisations. Her work is part of the permanent collection in CCI’s home, the David Attenborough Building.

To date she has worked with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, BirdLife International and Fauna & Flora International.

Beatrice’ book, The Book of Vanishing Species was published by Bloomsbury in 2022.

Each drawing in the book was printed using an intaglio press. The process is long: first drawing, then engraving, printing and colouring by hand. The material on which Beatrice engraves is fragile, so print runs are short, rarely more than twenty-five, and each final image varies slightly in colour and sometimes composition from the rest of the series, making it unique.

A percentage of the sales of Beatrice’s prints goes towards frontline conservation projects.