This week, an exhibit called In Fine Feather: Birds, Art & Science opens at the Toledo Museum of Art. The exhibit, coinciding with the Biggest Week in American Birding, highlights the intersection of natural science and art in the pursuit of describing and identifying birds, from a medieval treatise on falconry to John James Audubon’s Birds of America to the modern field guide. The exhibition features works by noted bird artists and illustrators including Audubon, Alexander Wilson, John Gould and Roger Tory Peterson.
The Clements Library holds several publications by Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), a Scottish-American poet and naturalist. Our holdings include an 1828 set of American Ornithology (3 vols.), accompanied by hand-colored plates illustrating American birds. Four of these plates are currently on loan to the Toledo Museum of Art for this exhibit.
