Eudoxia Woodward (1919 -2008) is known for her artwork in which she brought together art and science, math and botany, in imaginative compositions including visual puns, time lapses, and historical references. For years she exhibited her paintings and gave lectures, with titles such as, “Flowers, Art or Science?”, “the Geometry of Flowers”, or, the “Mystery of Flowers”. In the last few years of her life, she created a “Digital Portfolio”, a presentation of her paintings, along with texts and details, by which she elucidated the mathematical and geometric laws, as well as botanical features, involved in each plant’s form and growth.

Part 1 in this book reproduces Eudoxia’s Portfolio. Part 2 follows with a compilation of the artist’s writings, with commentary, assembled and written by her daughter, Crystal Woodward. Eudoxia’s notes, sketches, exhibits, and family history, presented with numerous images, bring to light her creative thinking and whimsy and humor, in artworks including themes such as Platonic Solids and spherical pentagons, the Fibonacci Sequence, Symmetry, and, for her of primary importance, “Nature’s Perfect Packaging”. As she wrote, “A casual or haphazard observation sees only the botanical accuracy of the flowers I paint, but on closer study there is evidence of my interest in mythology, symbolism, geometric forms, numerical sequences, often with playful implications and trompe-l’oeil.” Her story also offers us a glimpse of the social and intellectual life of her time, in the area around Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, from her work at Polaroid in the 1940’s, to her marriage to a Nobel Prize scientist, to her involvement with the Design Science “Philomorphs” at Harvard University.

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