Deborah Lambkin was born in Ireland and trained at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin graduating in 1991. Deborah’s skill as a botanical artist has been widely recognised throughout her career and in 2020 she received the Margaret Flockton Award 1st Prize from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, for her illustration of a new species; Gastrodia agnicellus. In 2021 she received the Jill Smythies Award for excellence in scientific botanical illustration by the Linnean Society of London.

A founding member of the Irish Society of Botanical Artists as well as a member of the Irish Orchid Society. Her work has been exhibited at the National Botanical Gardens here in Glasnevin.

In 2005 Deborah was appointed as the Official Orchid Artist to the RHS Orchid Committee and has painted well over 500 orchids for the RHS. That work is held in the RHS Lindley Library which has a collection of over 7,000 botanical drawings and paintings of orchids. Deborah adds to this collection at a rate of about 30 paintings a year.

A regular contributor of paintings to Curtis’s Botanical Magazine Deborah also paints orchids for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and The Eric Young Orchid Foundation in Jersey.

She currently lives and works in London.