John James Audubon's The Birds of America
Janice Hodson and Louie Doherty, Guest Curators
The City of New Bedford, the New Bedford Free Public Library (NBFPL) and the New Bedford Art Museum (NBAM) are pleased to present “… Alive and Moving!” an exhibition of rare prints from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. This exhibit is a revisiting of the museum’s popular 1998 exhibit The Audubon Legacy.
The 32 Audubon engravings that comprise the exhibit are from the complete set of 435 bird prints within the NBFPL’s Special Collection, which also includes all of Audubon’s quadrupeds (mammals). James Arnold, a wealthy New Bedford merchant whose house is the current site of the Wamsutta Club, gave the four volumes of The Birds of America to the Library in 1866.
Arnold’s set of prints took Audubon most of his adult life to prepare for and to create. When he started drawing birds, Audubon stated that, “They were all represented strictly ornithological, which means neither more or less than stiff, unmeaning profiles.” For years Audubon tried different drawing methods, observing birds in their living habitats. Finally, he was satisfied only in representing nature by copying her, “…in her own way, alive and moving!”
In the 1800’s Audubon traveled for 20 years throughout the United States, painting in full size measurements every different species of bird he encountered. Audubon then had his drawings transformed into engravings and printed in Great Britain.
The artist visited New Bedford on several occasions, seeking subscribers to his publications, and thus James Arnold acquired his set in this manner. The prints were originally bound in four volumes. His books contained life-sized, hand-colored images that are still among the largest books ever printed (29 by 40 inches). Only 185 to 200 of the complete sets were originally printed, and fewer than 100 of those are still bound and complete.
In the early 1980’s, curator Louie Doherty visited the New York Historical Society for a viewing of all of Audubon’s watercolor bird paintings. He recalls, “I was blown away by the show. I had seen smaller copies of Audubon’s, but to be able to view exact likenesses of life-sized birds in lively poses was a wonderful experience. It is not usually possible to get up close to birds in the wild. The prints made from these images have the same impact. The birds are posed in real life situations — hunting, eating, and interacting with their mates and young.”
