Today in 1785, John James Audubon was born, and as it happens the Grand Rapids Art Museum has a small visiting exhibit featuring 30 of his bird prints, on loan from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (photos not permitted but this wall was okayed; I also snagged one print in the photo, not intentionally I assure you :).
John Audubon has a fascinating personal history but that is not dealt with in this exhibit. The emphasis is on his work and the art of print-making. Two rooms feature his prints and another room provides information on the art and the tools of print-making, along with some background on subsequent editions of Audubon’s work and bird illustrating predecessors.
The introductory room contains a short summary of Audubon, a letter written by him, and a map showing his travels in the U.S. where he obtained his drawings over a 17 year period.
To its credit, the museum does state that Audubon hunted and killed his subjects before drawing them. Today that may be a bit of a shock but in the 1800s, it was de rigueur.
“He drew the majority of his subjects on the spot after killing and posing them in a life-like manner...” Actually he spent hours and sometimes days wiring the specimens before drawing them, and he also hired hunters to go out and kill birds for him. Here's an image found on the internet that is included in the exhibit.
Audubon drew from 1820-1826 and after being rebuffed by at least one American publisher, he took his work to England and received enough attention and funding to begin publishing his “Birds of America.” He also sold subscriptions to his work. King George IV was a subscriber.
In 1829, Audubon returned to America, and made repeated trips during the 1830s. By 1838, over 400 plates were made, “drawn from nature by J.J. Audubon”, “engraved, printed and colored by R. Havell, London.” Most prints in the exhibit have a print date visible and a few do not coincide with the date on the museum tag, which reflects the best guess as to when the drawing was done. About a third of the displayed prints are from the 1820s, and the rest are from his 1930s trips.
The Havell Company traced the original Audubon drawings onto copper plates, and used etching and aquatint to engrave into the plate a detailed replica of the original watercolor. They then hand-colored the engravings. One print, the Wild Turkey, also credits W. Lizars with the printing. And that is an interesting back story. Originally, Audubon brought his work here but was not satisfied with the ten plates engraved by W.H. Lizars. He brought his work to Havell, where it remained. A Havell print now sells for thousands of dollars, and a complete folio, into the millions.
With new technical advances in color printing, Audubon and his sons attempted a less expensive edition in the 1840s, hand-colored lithographs, known as the Octavo Edition. One of these volumes is displayed in the museum, under glass.
John Audubon died in 1851. A few years later, his sons began work on another version of his work, produced by the Bien Printing Company. They produced and sold color-printed lithographs of part of Audubon’s work, but with the onset of the Civil War production was halted.
Unfortunately for the family, it became destitute and John Audubon’s widow sold his original water color drawings in 1863 to the New York Historical Society, who presumably still have them. She also sold most of the original copper plates for scrap.
There’s much more to say and read about this fascinating man and his work, and the information provided in this exhibit was not enough for me. It drove me to find out more, and that’s not a bad thing to take away from any exhibit. It’s definitely worth a visit, maybe two.
This peacock photo was taken in 2006 at the Oakley Plantation in Louisiana where Audubon spent four months in 1821, teaching the owner’s daughter and roaming throughout the area. He drew 32 bird pictures while here and the plantation is now an Audubon State Historic Site.
It was a beautiful, sunny day today and seeing as I had to renew my membership, I decided to do it in person and visit the museum for a few hours. You all know, or should know, how beautiful the building is, open and airy, and full of natural lighting (and Leed certified). With over 5000 items in storage, the museum rotates some of its art and also brings in other exhibits. So along with revisiting the permanent collection on the third floor, there’s always something new to see. (They are currently hanging a new photography display, and preparing a Calder Jewelry Show - yes, he did small things too.) The “guards” are ever vigilant and I always feel like I’m being stalked (I promise, I won’t touch the art). But I did find a friendly employee who was working on the new photography exhibit and was happy to talk to me.
Within the past five months, I’ve been to The Louvre in Paris, The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and The Art Institute in Chicago. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is none of these but it doesn’t try to be. Instead it’s a little treasure sitting in the middle of downtown, waiting to be discovered. It doesn’t hit you over the head with its art but asks you to explore. Turn a corner and you’ll run into a Renoir oil painting adjacent to a John Singer Sargent watercolor. Down another hall you’ll find two oil paintings depicting the Provincetown Pier on Cape Cod, one in summer and the other in winter (Gerrit Beneke). There’s a beautiful, large 3-panel oil, alkyd & graphite on linen called “Concourse 2007" by Mark Sheinkman. I call it “curling smoke” and it’s mesmerizing. Wood engravings by Winslow Homer hang together, and nearby is a very small exquisite painting by Henry Farny, “Moonlit Indian Encampment”, beautiful in its lighting and detail.
And don’t miss the “Design and Modern Craft” hall. On the other side of the entry wall, you’ll find short film offerings entitled “Modernism and Film.” Take a seat and watch. First up is “Manhatta” from 1920, a 10-minute documentary featuring a day in New York City, with texts by Walt Whitman, and produced by artist Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. They obviously loved New York City. Next up is the 3-minute “Rhythmus 21", an early abstract work by Hans Richter that features squares and rectangles changing shape, accompanied by a piano and string bass score. The score sounded ominous to me as though the film-maker was warning us about something but that’s just my take. And the last is a 1-minute excerpt from “Modern Times” by Charlie Chaplin, about which nothing else needs to be said.(The first two can be found on YouTube and the third in parts.)
Lastly, I took a final look at “Open Water”, the ArtPrize winner that is on display until the end of month, when it moves to a private collection. (As I am writing this, I see an update that Dick & Betsy DeVos are the purchasers and will leave the work on temporary loan to the museum.) (Update: it now hangs in their restaurant, Reserve). Look on the opposite wall and you will see a short video composed of photos from the larger ArtPrize event accompanied by music taken from performances by the Grand Rapids Symphony of David Lockington’s composition “Celebratory Fantasy Fanfare for ArtPrize.” I wish it had been longer because it was great fun to watch and beautifully accompanied by the music.
So go and explore, and find your own treasures.
