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His name has become synonymous with regal paintings of herons, flamingos, warblers, and wild turkeys whose feathered finery he captured for all time in a series of 19th-century lithographs.
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| Audubon's Tanager |
The Thomas Cooper Library exhibit "John James Audubon and Ornithological Illustration" is on display through June 30 on the library's mezzanine, and it's worth a visit simply to see Audubon's lush artwork. But this exhibit is far more than Audubon.
Books dating to the 16th-century depict some of the earliest woodcut bird illustrations from Europe. Also on display are letters, books, and paintings by other naturalists--some of whom pre-date Audubon or were his peers, including his friend and fellow naturalist, the Rev. John Bachman of Charleston. It makes for a rich chronology of ornithological illustration and the artists who drew and painted species most people had never before seen.
"This is not a dead collection," said Patrick Scott, director of Rare Books and Special Collections. "The Legislature voted to purchase Audubon's double-elephant folio Birds of America for South Carolina College in 1831, and we've been adding to it ever since."
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| Audubon's Yellow crowned heron |
In fact, one of the most recent additions to USC's ornithological illustration collection arrived after the current exhibit opened in April. An original Audubon manuscript was donated from a private collection and is now on display. The handwritten piece was a draft page that eventually became part of the accompanying text for Birds of America. Audubon's engraving of the bird being described and the printed page that corresponds to the manuscript are both on display beside it.
The library's new Davy-Jo Ridge Library Endowment has been initiated by an anonymous donor to support the Audubon collection. USC owns one of the 130 extant originals of Audubon's Birds of America. His Quadrupeds of America was donated to the University in 1848.
Because of the library's current exhibition space, only a selection from the Audubon collection and other ornithological illustrations can be exhibited. The new Rare Books and Special Collections wing, scheduled to open in 2008, will permit much larger displays from the University's collection.
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Engraving by H.B. Hall based on a portrait of John James Audubon by Henry Inman.
Audubon's Canadian goose
