|
In 2016, ConAgra Foods, Inc. (now Conagra Brands) donated nearly 600 Currier & Ives lithographs to Joslyn Art Museum. Now home to one of the largest public collections of these popular and historically significant images, Joslyn has organized this exhibition that sheds new light on the famous firm’s artistic and commercial practices. Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier & Ives will explore how the largest printmaking company in nineteenth-century America visualized the nation’s social, political, and industrial fabric.
Known today for its lush, hand-colored lithographs that nostalgically depicted an idyllic republic of pioneer homesteads, sporting camps, and bucolic pastimes, these sentimental images comprised only one aspect of Currier & Ives’ production. The company’s inexpensive and popular prints were a ubiquitous presence for decades, and just as frequently touched on pressing social and political issues. Addressing economic development, western expansion, the Civil War, and controversies of racial and class politics, Currier & Ives portrayed scenes of urbanization, nation building, naval battles, catastrophic disasters, and current events that were far from idyllic. Revisiting America is organized into themed sections—Sails, Steam, and Speed; Urban Experiences; Domestic Visions; Sporting Life; The Frontier; The Civil War and the American South; America in War and Peace; and Humor. The exhibition reveals the surprising modernity of the firm’s prints, offering a complex and conflicted vision of America that embraced the possibilities of an emerging urban and industrial society while nostalgically celebrating the social stability of a rural ideal. For additional details, please contact the museum. Joslyn Art Museum 2200 Dodge Street Omaha, NE 68102-1292 (402) 342-3300 Location: University Libraries Virtual Event
Admission Cost: Free Join our virtual expedition into the wilderness of the 18th century New World through the eyes of the mysterious Mark Catesby — Englishman, adventurer, explorer, naturalist and artist. Rudy Mancke, along with other naturalists and curators who assist in the work of The Mark Catesby Centre at the University of South Carolina, will share tales of Catesby’s adventures. - - - - - - - Registration is required to attend this free, online event (see link below). You will receive an email with a link to join closer to the event date. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/curious-like-catesby-tickets-124459831707 Exhibition Dates: Through Jan. 3, 2021,
Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Galleries Curated in response to the pandemic, “Nurture” brings together 12 striking large-scale works on paper from the elephant folios of John James Audubon’s “Birds of America.” Each work-on-paper depicts nature’s family unit, playing out the natural life cycle and quest for survival. Visitors are invited to study the detail of the nests and the vibrant colors of each bird; It is also an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which we need to be nurtured and the ways we build our nests and support structure during this time. The work of the famed 19th-century naturalist takes on a new, timely meaning in light of our own nesting and search for comfort as we face the uncertain. For additional information, please contact: Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art 901 South College Street | Auburn, Alabama 36849 | Phone (334) 844-1484 The Museum welcomes visitors back into the galleries starting Wednesday, September 9, with updated hours, Wednesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm, required free timed tickets to encourage social distancing, and increased health and safety procedures including required cloth masks.
Today only about 200 complete sets of The Birds of America exist. The Museum’s set, bound in four leather portfolios, was acquired by the State of North Carolina in 1848 and kept for more than a century at the State Library before being transferred to the Museum. The hand-colored engravings were recently conserved and rebound. In the new Audubon Gallery, the NCMA presents Audubon’s work in special cases designed for each of the enormous “double elephant” volumes, with hydraulic lifts that allow staff access so that the pages can be turned periodically to display a new selection of birds. Organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art Free to public. For additional information, please contact: North Carolina Museum of Art 2110 Blue Ridge Road Raleigh, NC 27607 (919) 839-6262 Birds of America Audubon Exhibit
JUN 1 - SEP 6, 2020 Explore American ornithologist, naturalist and painter John James Audubon (1785-1851) with 50 illustrations from his extensive studies documenting American birds. Audubon's' color-plate book, The Birds of America, with detailed illustrations of birds in their natural habitats is one of the finest examples of ornithological literature ever published. In addition to these illustrations, the exhibition will feature some of Audubon's colored plates of animals along with taxidermied birds and animals depicted on various works. For all ages, and includes an “Explorers Campsite” with a tent, animals, fishing pond and other hands-on activities for young visitors. Midland Center for the Arts 1801 W. Saint Andrews Midland, Michigan 48640 Tel. 989.631.5930 Email. info@midlandcenter.org Today is the 235'th Birthday Anniversary of the great naturalist, John James Audubon ! He was born on April 26'th, 1785.
pLEASE Enjoy our Virtual Art GaLLERY (www.antiqueaudubon.com) DURING THIS cOVID-19 PANDEMIC !4/16/2020
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many major brick-and-mortar Art Galleries in the Nation have temporarily shut down. However, all is not lost - - you are warmly invited to tour and enjoy our E-Gallery, https://www.antiqueaudubon.com featuring an excellent selection of original art by John James Audubon, John Gould, McKenney & Hall, and other art work from the 19th and 18th centuries.
From February 14 through May 31, 2020, the original exhibition at Polk Presidential Hall is "Audubon: Nature & Nation" featuring the works of the renowned artist and naturalist John James Audubon. The exhibition features twelve original Audubon prints from BIRDS OF AMERICA on loan from the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, as well as related artifacts from the Tennessee State Museum, the Tennessee Agricultural Museum, and private collectors. The exhibition explores Audubon's artistic works as well as their context on the early 19th century frontier, one which Audubon and James K. Polk shared. Put in conversation with objects of everyday life in the West, the prints tell the fascinating story of Americans' quest to understand the natural world and their growing nation.
Location: Polk Presidential Hall President James K Polk Home & Museum 301 W 7th Street, Columbia, TN EXHIBITION (2/27 - 5/3, 2020)
Woodcuts: Groove and Grain Explore a selection of woodcuts—from the 1500s to the present—that illustrates the many ways that artists have pushed the boundaries of the medium. Focusing on line, color, and the block of wood itself, this exhibition encourages us to look at how a print was made as well as what’s depicted. The variety of works—by artists like Albrecht Dürer, Kerry James Marshall, Helen Frankenthaler, and more—reveals a multitude of possibilities for negotiating the relationship between material and process. Philadelphia Museum of Art 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130 215-763-8100 The new Mark Catesby Centre at the University of South Carolina brings attention to the innovative work and influence of 17th-century English naturalist Mark Catesby.
An artist, scientist and explorer, Catesby (1683 – 1749) spent years traveling on foot through the wilderness of Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas and the Bahamas. Supported by some wealthy Fellows of the Royal Society in London, he collected plant and animal specimens, and he wrote about and sketched those wildlife wonders. The result was his monumental Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, first published in London in 1731 – 43. The two volumes included 220 plates of birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, mammals and plants “It was the first published account of the flora and fauna of North America, and it provided an important model for ornithologists and scientists, including John James Audubon, who followed in Catesby’s footsteps about a century later,” said Catesby Centre Director David Elliott. The Centre is now part of UofSC Libraries, where the University’s first, second and third edition copies of Natural History are housed. “The Catesby Centre creates the opportunity to highlight the University’s strong holdings in Catesby and in natural history, in general,” said Tom McNally, UofSC Libraries Dean. “It will interest students and other researchers who study any number of disciplines, including the history of science, colonialism and botany. It also provides an outreach opportunity to introduce Catesby to K-12 students and their teachers, and to the wider community.” An exhibit about the diversity and abundance of wildlife in North America in the early 19th century as witnessed by artists and ornithologists, paired with their own prophetic warnings about wilderness loss during their time. Images of now-extinct birds illustrated by Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon will be on display. February 7 through May 3, 2020.
John and Peggy Maximus Gallery Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History 2559 Puesta del Sol Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Bell Museum
2088 Larpenteur Ave W St Paul, MN 55113 See Audubon’s Birds of America come to life in this multimedia exhibition! Walk into the immersive video room “The Audubon Experience” and find yourself surrounded by a virtual swamp and forest where 20 of Audubon’s birds are brought to life through motion and sound. “The Audubon Experience is unique,” says Don Luce, Bell curator of exhibits. “It’s a walk-in, immersive experience using Audubon’s art animated in an environmental setting.” The exhibition will also include selections from the Bell’s rare double elephant folio of Birds of America, one of fewer than 120 in the world. See these original, recently conserved prints from our collection, as well as interpretive panels and materials from our Audubon and the Art of Birds exhibit. https://www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/audubon-animated/www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/audubon-animated/ Dates: February 21–May 4, 2020
Location: Asheville Art Museum (2 South Pack Square, Asheville, NC 28801) A Telling Instinct: John James Audubon & Contemporary Art is curated by Associate Curator Cindy Buckner, with the assistance of Marilyn Laufer, director emerita of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. It includes prints by John James Audubon from the private collection of Bill & Peg Steiner, and recent works in diverse media by Bo Bartlett, Beth Cavener, Laurie Hogin, Adonna Khare, Anne Lemanski, Kate MacDowell, Mark Messersmith, Joel Sartore, and Tom Uttech. The museum displays volume four in the Duke of Portland set of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America: from Original Drawings. Featured in the Objects of Wonder: From the Collection of the National Museum of Natural History exhibition, Birds of America offers visitors a portal into the natural world through more than 100 life-size, hand-colored illustrations of North American birds. The volume is on loan from an anonymous lender and is on public view for one year during which the pages will be turned every Monday and Thursday to reveal different birds.
Mapping a Nation: Shaping the Early American Republic” at the American Philosophical Society traces the creation and use of maps from the mid-18th century through 1816 to investigate the way maps, as both artworks and practical tools, had political and social meaning. It features historical maps, surveying instruments, books, manuscripts, and other objects to show how maps were used to create and extend the physical, political, and ideological boundaries of the new nation while creating and reinforcing structural inequalities in the Early Republic.
Mapping a Nation draws on the APS’s extensive Library and Museum holdings. Highlights of the exhibition include a 1757 copy of the John Mitchell map of the British Empire in North America, manuscript maps from the American Revolution, surveying instruments, the first map of Tennessee as a state, George Washington’s copy of the 1792 map of Washington, D.C., and maps from the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition along with the copper plates used to publish them. Even though Audubon started painting birds as a teenager in France, it took some time for him to mature in his painting technique that resulted in the amazing bird images we see in his monumental classic, The Birds of America. Some of his very early images can be seen in the book "Audubon: Early Drawings" by Harvard University Press, (2008), ISBN-13: 978-0674031029. Some early images by Audubon from his time at Hendeson, KY can be seen in the post "Audubon's Hendesron Drawings" on the website for their Audubon Museum (see the link under John James Audubon).
9/14/2019 Professor Gary Mullen of Auburn University gave a very informative and engaging talk at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, describing the life and work of the British naturalist, Phillip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) who spent 8 months as a teacher at the Belvoir plantation near Pleasant Hill, Alabama (in the Black Belt region). During this period, he painted images of the local flora and fauna, and in particular the insect life in Alabama. His work was described in Letters from Alabama (1859), and in the unpublished work Entomologia Alabamensis. For additional information, please see the Auburn University digital collection at the following link: http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/phgosse/
|
Antique Print BlogAuthorThis blog is devoted primarily to interesting events and news items related to antique prints and the naturalists who published them. Archives
December 2020
Categories |
RSS Feed