Artists Across America Are Creating Stunning Floral Arrangements Inspired by Paintings, Sculptures and Artifacts

At “Art in Bloom” exhibitions, museums commission custom floral arrangements to go on display alongside items in their collections

Sonja Anderson - Daily Correspondent

April 29, 2025

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Across the country, museums are welcoming spring with “Art in Bloom” exhibitions, which present artworks alongside matching floral arrangements.

The Cincinnati Art Museum staged its “Art in Bloom” show last weekend, displaying 65 custom-made floral arrangements beside the artworks that inspired them. The colorful creations were assembled by a group of “professional, aspiring and hobby floral artists,” according to a statement from the museum.

Each artist was assigned a different piece from the museum’s collections, as Erin Carmichael-Morgan, coordinator of the museum’s Rosenthal Education Center, tells the broadcaster WKRC. They were tasked with creating an arrangement that evoked their assigned artwork—whether it was a sculpture, a decorative plate or an oil portrait.

“I think it’s [about] looking at the piece and really getting a feel for it, and then finding the flowers that just speak to it,” Carmichael-Morgan says.

Pieces on view included a curving white bouquet beside a marble angel sculpture, a floral tower next to a vintage evening gown, and a colorful arrangement inside a red shoe mirroring a painting of a shoe shiner. The artists aren’t just using popular flowers like roses and carnations, Carmichael-Morgan notes. “The floral artists are really thinking outside of the box, because there are some pretty unconventional flowers that we’re seeing,” she tells WKRC.

This year, the dozens of floral arrangements were accompanied by a one-of-a-kind installation of sugar flowers by Amsterdam-based artist Natasja Sadi, who sculpts edible flowers from sugar paste. Sadi’s contribution to “Art in Bloom” was a mixture of real and sugar flowers inspired by paintings by Dutch masters, reports Cincinnati magazine’s Will Coffman.

“The sugar flower art installation by Natasja is an ambitious project for this year, because we’ve never done anything like that in terms of what the floral artists are creating year-over-year,” Ann M. Keeling, chair of this year’s exhibition, tells the publication.

Many other museums across the country also stage “Art in Bloom” exhibitions. The tradition began at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which first hosted “Art in Bloom” in 1976. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Institute of Art presented its 41st edition of the exhibition this year.

As Minneapolis floral artist Amy Kubas tells Minnesota Public Radio’s Nina Moini, her work this year is inspired by a Japanese block print called Egret in Rain. It’s a “very simplified arrangement” of anthurium and sea star fern, emulating the shapes and colors of the print.

“I always love to think about some of the symbolism behind the artist’s intention within the piece, as well as mirroring that with some symbolism within the flowers that I choose,” Kubas says. “There is almost an embossing effect that is in the block print that I’m doing this year, so I chose to do these waxy flowers that tend to have a good amount of veining in them.”

Kubas enjoys observing visitors’ reactions to floral arrangements at “Art in Bloom,” noting that “it’s always great to see how someone else views an artwork.”

In Cincinnati, the show remains one of the museum’s most popular events, per Cincinnati magazine.

“Flowers are beautiful,” Keeling tells the publication. “There’s a connection to nature that perhaps we’re missing a little bit with all of our technology.”

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Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.