Artist Reception with Rob Badger and Nita Winter

This is a free community program. Please consider supporting the Gardens of Golden Gate Park with a donation of $5-20. Your support helps us connect people to plants, the planet, and each other.

Sunday, October 26, 2025
3-5pm
San Francisco Botanical Garden — Helen Crocker Russell Library

About the Program

Join us in the library on Sunday, October 26 from 3-5pm to celebrate our new art exhibition.

Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change is more than a coffee table book and art exhibit—it’s a 30-year documentary project that blends conservation photography with telling the wildflowers’ story. Award-winning photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter capture both the dazzling colors of superbloom landscapes and the intimate details of delicate floral portraits. Together, these images reveal California’s extraordinary biodiversity and highlight the threats wildflowers face from climate change, habitat loss, and development.

At the Botanical Garden, visitors will experience a curated selection of works that span California’s varied regions—from the desert valleys shimmering with blossoms and the magical coastal range hillsides, to beautiful mountain species and the brilliant carpets of wildflowers covering the grasslands above Gorman. Text panels accompany the photographs, weaving together science, art, and advocacy to show how fragile these ecosystems are—and how deeply they matter to the plants, pollinators, wildlife, and people who depend on them.

—

RSVPs are appreciated but not required. Admission to the Garden is free for San Francisco residents, veterans, Museums for All/EBT participants, and Gardens members.