Audubon's Birds Of America (The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio)
by Roger Tory Peterson Institute
from Abbeville Press
One of Abbeville's most spectacular achievements, representing the highest standards in fine art printing, now available at a more economical price.
This marvelous edition of Audubon's Birds of America displays all 435 of Audubon's brilliant handcolored engravings in exquisite reproductions taken from the original plates of the Audubon Society's archival copy of the rare Double Elephant Folio. Although many attempts have been made to re-create the magnificent illustrations in Audubon's masterpiece, nothing equals the level of fidelity or scale achieved in this high-quality edition.
Completely reorganized and annotated by Roger Tory Peterson, who was America's best-known ornithologist, and issued with the full endorsement and cooperation of the Audubon Society, this volume is the first to rearrange the plates in a more scientific order. Peterson's fascinating introduction places Audubon in the context of the history of American ornithological art and also reproduces a wide sampling of the work of Audubon's notable predecessors and disciples, including Peterson's own justly famous paintings.
This new systematic arrangement of the prints, complete with informative commentaries about each bird, made it possible to correct many of the problems or errors in Audubon's original edition that later scholarship revealed.
Other Details: 428 full-color illustrations, 435 duotones.
John James Audubon: The Making of an American
by Richard Rhodes
from Vintage
John James Audubon came to America as a dapper eighteen-year-old eager to make his fortune. He had a talent for drawing and an interest in birds, and he would spend the next thirty-five years traveling to the remotest regions of his new country–often alone and on foot–to render his avian subjects on paper. The works of art he created gave the world its idea of America. They gave America its idea of itself.
Here Richard Rhodes vividly depicts Audubon’s life and career: his epic wanderings; his quest to portray birds in a lifelike way; his long, anguished separations from his adored wife; his ambivalent witness to the vanishing of the wilderness. John James Audubon: The Making of an American is a magnificent achievement.
A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House (The Hill Collection: Holdings of the Lsu Libraries)
by Danny Heitman
from Louisiana State University Press
As the summer of 1821 began, John James Audubon's ambition to create a comprehensive pictorial record of American birds was still largely a dream. Then, out of economic necessity, Audubon came to Oakley Plantation, a sprawling estate in Louisiana's West Feliciana Parish. Teeming with an abundance of birds, the woods of Oakley galvanized Audubon's sense of possibility for one of the most audacious undertakings in the annals of art.
In A Summer of Birds, journalist and essayist Danny Heitman sorts through the facts and romance of Audubon's summer at Oakley, a season that clearly shaped the destiny of the world's most famous bird artist. Heitman draws from a rich variety of sources--including Audubon's own extensive journals, more recent Audubon scholarship, and Robert Penn Warren's poetry--to create a stimulating excursion across time, linking the historical man Audubon to the present-day civic and cultural icon. He considers the financial straits that led to Audubon's employment at Oakley as a private tutor to fifteen-year-old Eliza Pirrie, Audubon's family history, his flamboyance as a master of self-invention, his naturalist and artistic techniques, and the possible reasons for his dismissal. Illustrations include photographs of Oakley House--now a state historic site--Audubon's paintings from his Oakley period, and portraits of the Pirrie family members.
A favorable combination of climate and geography made Oakley a birding haven, and Audubon completed or began at least twenty-three bird paintings--among his finest work--while staying there. A Summer of Birds will inform and delight readers in its exploration of this eventful but unsung 1821 interlude, a fascinating chapter in the life of America's foremost bird artist. It is an indispensable pleasure for birders, Audubon enthusiasts, and visitors to Oakley House.
John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings (Library of America)
by John James Audubon
from Library of America
John James Audubon's indelible portraits of American birds have long since cemented his reputation as one of our truly magical realists. Yet the artist, who was born in Haiti in 1785 and died 66 years later on his 30-acre estate in upper Manhattan, was not only a sublime featherhead but a trailblazing nature writer and diarist. Doubters should take a gander at the Library of America's splendid Writings and Drawings. This new compendium features 64 full-color plates, most of them from the Ornithological Biography, which demonstrate the compositional and dramatic brilliance that Audubon brought to his work: seldom has the black vulture, or Coragyps atratus, looked so elegant or sleekly satisfied, and his colloquium of ruby-throated hummingbirds (a.k.a. Archilochus colubris) is an almost comical study in group dynamics. Yet it's the texts--journals, letters, diaries, a brief memoir, and a pair of essays on artistic technique--that are the true revelation here.
Audubon was not, for the record, a kind of starry-eyed precursor to the Sierra Club, leaving nature untouched by human hands. It's telling that in his self-portrait, the artist is gripping neither palette nor paintbrush but a flintlock rifle. Gunning down his ornithological subjects was a necessary prelude to portraying them. Still, Audubon had quite a few of what we moderns would call conflicted moments, during which his admiration for, say, the Mississippi kite would temporarily halt the killing spree. Here the sight of a mother attempting to rescue its chick manages to stay his itchy trigger finger--for a millisecond, anyway:
My feelings at that moment I cannot express. I wished I had not discovered the poor bird; for who could have witnessed, without emotion, so striking an example of that affection which none but a mother can feel; so daring an act, performed in the midst of smoke, in the presence of a dreaded and dangerous enemy. I followed, however, and brought both to the ground at one shot, so keen is the desire of possession!The aesthetic and taxidermal impulses have torn apart many a naturalist since then (although, to be sure, the stricken diarist was later annoyed to discover that another animal had cut in on his action: "What was my mortification, when I found that some quadruped had devoured both!") Elsewhere, Audubon records the topography of the Mississippi Valley in vivid detail, or grumbles about the tight job market: "Visited several Public Institutions where I cannot say that I Was very politely received; in one or Two Notable ones (Not Willing to Mention Names) I was invitd to Walk in and then out in very quick order." Audubon's early-19-century orthography, which the editors have meticulously retained, may take some Getting Used To. And the sheer piling up of avian corpses can seem almost comical to a modern reader. Still, Audubon worshipped pretty thoroughly, and very productively, at the shrine of the natural world. And let's recall his verdict on Liverpool's industrial landscape, which he observed during a 1826 visit: "Naked streets look dull." If only there'd been a long-billed curlew on hand! --James Marcus
A landmark volume collects the writings and drawings of America's greatest artist-naturalist
The breathtaking art of John James Audubon's Birds of America has been celebrated throughout the world since it first appeared over 150 years ago. Less well known is Audubon's literary legacy -- the magnificent volumes of natural history he published during his lifetime, as well as the remarkable journals, memoirs, and letters left behind at his death. Now, with The Library of America's unprecedented John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings, Audubon the great nature writer takes his rightful place alongside Audubon the artist.
Here is the most comprehensive selection of Audubon's writings ever published, along with a spectacular portfolio of his drawings. The "Mississippi River Journal," the foremost record of an American artist's progress, details Audubon's first wilderness bird hunts. Selections from his "1826 Journal" follow him to Europe, where his abilities were finally recognized. Audubon's masterwork, the five-volume Ornithological Biography, is here generously represented by 45 entries. Charming, haunting, and violent by turns, these vivid intimate portraits of the habits and habitats of America's birds, from the curious mating rituals of the Wild Turkey to the sublime spectacle of the migration of the now vanished Passenger Pigeon, changed American nature writing forever. The "Missouri River Journals" evoke the vanishing American Indian and the hardships of frontier life. An extensive selection of letters charting almost 20 years of Audubon's artistic development, along with two essays on artistic technique and a brief memoir, round out the volume. For the first time, all texts have been painstakingly prepared from original sources. General and ornithological indices will aid the reader in the field as well as in the study. Sixty-four full-color plates, and fascinating manuscript sketches, some never before published, offer a unique perspective on Audubon's art.
The Audubon Reader (Everyman's Library)
by John James Audubon
from Everyman's Library
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
This unprecedented anthology of John James Audubon’s lively and colorful writings about the American wilderness reintroduces the great artist and ornithologist as an exceptional American writer, a predecessor to Thoreau, Emerson, and Melville.
Audubon’s award-winning biographer, Richard Rhodes, has gathered excerpts from his journals, letters, and published works, and has organized them to appeal to general readers. Rhodes’s unobtrusive commentary frames a wide range of selections, including Audubon’s vivid “bird biographies,” correspondence with his devoted wife, Lucy, journal accounts of dramatic river journeys and hunting trips with the Shawnee and Osage Indians, and a generous sampling of brief narrative episodes that have long been out of print—engaging stories of pioneer life such as "The Great Pine Swamp," “The Earthquake,” and “Kentucky Barbecue on the Fourth of July.” Full-color reproductions of sixteen of Audubon’s stunning watercolor illustrations accompany the text.
The Audubon Reader allows us to experience Audubon’s distinctive voice directly and provides a window into his electrifying encounter with early America: with its wildlife and birds, its people, and its primordial wilderness.
Audubon Art Prints: A Collector's Guide to Every Edition
by Bill Steiner
from University of South Carolina Press
By far the most comprehensive guide available to the bird and quadruped prints of John James Audubon (1785-1851), Audubon Art Prints offers buyers, sellers, and collectors an easy-to-use, one-volume source of information for these widely sought-after prints. When Bill Steiner first became interested in acquiring original Audubon prints, he was surprised by the dearth of conveniently accessible, accurate information on the subject. In an effort to catalog all things Audubon, he unearthed obscure references, surveyed the contemporary marketplace, and consulted specialists from around the world. The results of his labors, gathered here in this lavishly illustrated volume, provide an invaluable and fascinating encyclopedic reference.
Addressing one of the more complex aspects of print collection, Steiner clarifies the task of distinguishing the octavo prints of the successive editions of Audubon's Birds of America (1840-1871) and Quadrupeds of North America (1849-1870). He describes the publication histories of each edition since the first; offers information about printers, engravers, and subscribers; and provides practical information on price histories, accessibility, and preservation. Steiner also explores the increasingly popular markets for subsidiary prints, posters, and Audubon ephemera.
Treasury of Audubon Birds in Full Color: 224 Plates from "the Birds of America"
by John James Audubon
from Dover Publications
Catesby's Birds of Colonial America (Fred W Morrison Series in Southern Studies)
by Alan Feduccia
from The University of North Carolina Press
With this lovely and informative volume, Alan Feduccia preserves the pathbreaking work of Mark Catesby, the English naturalist and illustrator who founded natural history and bird art in America. First published by UNC Press in 1985, the book features all 109 bird illustrations, 20 color plates, and the entire text from Catesby's pioneering Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas. Annotating Catesby's writings from a modern perspective, Feduccia discusses the perception of each species during the Colonial period, comments on its habits, and compares Catesby's observations with those of such other early naturalists as John White, John Lawson, Alexander Wilson, and John James Audubon.
John James Audubon: American Birds
by Colin Brown
from Gramercy
In his magisterial Fine Bird Books, Sir Sacheverall Sitwell says of Audubon: 'There is nothing in the world of fine books quite like the discovery of Audubon. The giant energy of the man, his power of achievement and accomplishment, give him something of the epical force of a Walt Whitman or a Herman Melville...Audubon is the greatest of bird Painters; he belongs to American history.'
John James Audubon's Birds of America, from which this selection has been taken, is the finest pictorial ornithological book ever produced. Unlike the drawings and paintings of his contemporaries, which were produced from prepared skins and zoo specimens, Audubon's paintings are taken directly from his observations in the wild, and the richness and directness come straight from the real world. No wonder that Audubon became known in his lifetime as 'The American Woodsman'.
Audubon was unable to raise sufficient financial backing in the United States and he sailed for England in 1826. In its original form, Birds of America contained 435 hand-colored, aquatinted plates which were completed between 1827 and 1838. It was printed in London and bound into four double elephant folio volumes (measuring approximately 30 X 27 inches (76 X 69 cm)) so that all the birds could be illustrated life-size. Between 175 and 200 sets were produced, and the last complete set to come to auction fetched nearly $3,000,000.
John James Audubon in the West: The Last Expedition: Mammals of North America
by Sarah Boehme
from Harry N. Abrams
Only a generation after Lewis and Clark's expedition, the artist and naturalist John James Audubon captured his contemporaries' imaginations with his illustrations in Birds of America. John James Audubon in the West celebrates a lesser-known work, Quadrupeds of North America, which is the focus of a traveling exhibition organized by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center of Cody, Wyoming. Audubon's Quadrupeds presented colored lithographs far superior to the outline engravings that normally illustrated encyclopedias and scientific volumes of his day. They have the same liveliness and sense of movement as the bird illustrations; background landscapes are small masterpieces in themselves; imaginative settings add a theatricality to many pictures, such as a tawny weasel at the throat of a farmyard chicken or a cougar with his kill; and details like the fur of squirrels and wolves are very fine. Audubon's research included a six-month field trip up the Missouri in 1843 that resulted in the discovery of several new species, including North America's only native ferret, the black-footed ferret--though the project was more important as art than as science. The 180 illustrations in John James Audubon in the West include the most successful of the animal pictures, preparatory sketches, and comparative material such as contemporary Western landscapes. Four essays by Audubon scholars analyze the artist's style, his Missouri journey, scientific collaborations, and the technical and commercial context for the publication of Quadrupeds. While his birds will always overshadow his work on mammals, John James Audubon in the West introduces an important pioneering study and a fascinating piece of American history. --John Stevenson
Millions of nature lovers are familiar with Audubon's exquisite portraits of birds in his great masterpiece, The Birds of America. Less well known yet of immense significance is a second masterwork by the noted artist/naturalist-a series of illustrations devoted to the four-legged mammals of North America. This splendid volume-created to accompany a traveling exhibition organized by the Buffalo Bill Historical Society, Cody, Wyoming-is the most comprehensive study ever made of Audubon's mammal paintings.
The superb draftsmanship and extensive field research that characterize Audubon's famous bird paintings are everywhere evident in the renderings of bison, foxes, deer, and much more. The text, by four noted Audubon scholars, places Audubon's mammals in the context of his life's work and evaluates his enduring scientific, artistic, and literary legacy.
SARAH E. BOEHME is curator of the Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.
ANNETTE BLAUGRUND is director of the National Academy of Design Museum and School of Fine Art, New York City.
ROBERT PECK is a fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
RON TYLER is director of the Texas State Historical Association, Austin.
180 illustrations, 80 in full color, 81/2 x 11"
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