This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.
John James Audubon (1785–1851)
combined his love of nature with his artistic talent to
produce some of the most beautiful and lifelike depictions
of birds ever created. This
exhibition presents forty-seven of the artist's hand-colored
etchings selected from the Gallery's early edition of the
publication, The Birds of America (1826–1838),
one of only two known complete sets preserved in their
original, unbound state. Audubon's dream of recording every
native bird of North America consumed nearly twenty years
of his life and was realized with the publication of this
mammoth edition of 435 hand-colored etchings, all based
on his vivid life-size drawings. Some of the set's
most celebrated and outstanding prints will be on view,
including American
Flamingo (1838), Carolina
Parrot (1827), and Ivory-billed
Woodpecker (1829),
a species thought to be extinct until its recent sighting
in Arkansas. Also included in the exhibition is one of
Audubon's great oil paintings, the superb work Osprey
and Weakfish (1829), a new gift to the Gallery
from Richard Mellon Scaife.
Sponsor: The exhibition is made possible by General Dynamics.