: "IV Centuries of Birds in Paintings, Sculpture and Fine Prints,"
at Clarke Galleries through January, is a historical novella that
weaves a tale of birds-in-art across four centuries.
The show includes a mix of 150 Old Master paintings, antique
prints, watercolors, mixed-media collages and contemporary
sculpture. The show will travel to Palm Beach and New York City.
The panoply ranges from engravings and etchings by John James
Audubon from his classic Birds of North America to Michael
Brangoccio's "Heaven Machine." Starting in the Seventeenth
Century, the show wings its way through Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Century European and American naturalists, Twentieth Century
Japanese printmakers and culminates with contemporary bird
artists and sculptors from around the world. Formal still lifes
and dynamic hunting scenes hang side by side with fanciful early
paradises. Birds of diverse species are celebrated in their
natural habitats and in those of the fervid imagination.
The earliest image, Francis Barlow's Seventeenth Century oil
painting "Study of Birds on a Bank" sets the exhibition. Barlow
is joined by artists including Mark Catesby, Melchior
D'Hondecoeter, Eleazar Albin, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Prideaux
John Selby, George Miksch Sutton, Frank Benson, Aiden L. Repley
and Bruno Liljefors. An unexpected surprise is the inclusion of
western painter Charles Russell, the only nonbird artist. His oil
"Stealing the Eagle's Eggs" explores the delicate balance of
survival between man and birds of prey.
Jamie Wyeth's mixed media of animated baby crows, "The Jumping
Business," provides a lively counterpoint to the quiet of Ogden
Pleissner's "The White Heron," reminiscent of Winslow Homer, and
Thomas Aquinas Quinn's "Sandhills and Reeds." Robert Bateman's
precise, plumage-filled "Secretary Birds" stands in stark
contrast to Douglas Wirl's semiabstract diptych, "Large
Arborveal."
Other artists represented include Chris Bacon, Carl Brenders, Ray
Harris Ching, David Ord Kerr, Harry Adamson and Steven Porwol.
Sculpture includes work by Rancois Pompon, Peter Woytuk, Tony
Angell, Elliot Offner, Burt Brent and Guy Taplin. Rembrant
Bugatti's "Secretary Bird" stands sentinel alongside Sharon
Wandel's several willowy "Single Post Birds."
The cover of the 80-page catalog, designed by Carrie Kauser,
features Saverio Manetti's Eighteenth Century "Assiolo (owl)."
Featured in the catalog is a scholarly essay by artist, art
critic and aviculturist Peter Gallo. Christine E. Jackson, author
and bird-in-art expert, adds her own footnote. The catalog also
acknowledges Jane Wieneke and Kathy Foley of the Leigh Yawkey
Woodson Art Museum whose support assured the participation of
many of the best contemporary bird artists.
For information, www.birdsinpaintings.com or 802-253-7116. The
gallery is at 618 South Main Street.
